Chapter 17 Rizal As An Educator

RIZAL AS AN EDUCATOR
Education as a Strategy for Liberation

“Without education and liberty, the soil and the sand of mankind, no
reform is possible, no measure can give the desired result”
The Right to Education
● Seeing the condition of the people made Rizal conclude that education should be top priority.
● Education was the primordial concern of Jose Rizal. It had been his lifelong concern in preparation
for the attainment of independence.
● John Schumacher aptly puts it; “Education is the key to understanding much of Rizal's career, for
his whole career was bound up with education-his own education and the education of his own
people.
● Rizal believed in the effectivity of education as a solution to the social, political and economic
problems of the country.
● One of the significant contribution of Rizal to the cause of human rights is his defense of the right
of the Filipinos to quality education.
● Rizal wrote to Blumentritt: “We are struggling for our rights, the rights for humanity, and if there
is a God, he will have to help us.... Spain cannot justify even in the name of God himself that six
million Filipinos be brutalized, exploited, oppressed, denying them right and afterwards heap upon
them contempt and insult”
● In defending the rights of the Filipinos to education, Rizal appealed to the good sense of Spanish
authorities not to begrudge the education of the Filipinos. Rizal wrote “he will become
enlightened, whether the government likes it or not, let his enlightenment be a gift given to him and
not as a spoil of war”
● “We believe that the cause of our backwardness and ignorance is the lack of the means of
education. We are all human and we can improve ourselves through education and culture”
● Rizal expressed his desire to found a school to carry out his aspirations for the Filipinos. “When we
shall be obtained this concession, then we shall rest and devote our strength to the education of
our people, which is my supreme aspiration.”
● The right to education is now enshrined in the historic Universal Declaration of Human Rights to
which the Philippines is one of the 48 original signatories
● The declaration guarantees that education shall be free, atleast in the elementary and fundamental
stages
● Also declares that education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and
to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
● It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious
groups.
● Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
● The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims the value of the human person and the right
to education that would enabled him to develop his creative powers to the full benefit of all and in
th cause of progress.
Education for the Masses
● Rizal wish the education for the masses. He shared huis educational views with Blumentritt about
his dream of establishing a school in Calamba, Laguna.
● “All our efforts tend to educate our people-education, education, education, education and
enlightenment”
● Rizal pleaded the education for the adults.
● The New Society, through the Educational Development Decree of 1972, gave emphasis on the
education of the masses.
● “We cannot all be doctors, it is necessary that some of us cultivate the soil. We must follow
everyone's own personal inclination”
RIZAL’S SCHOOL
● Rizal advocated education as a necessary condition in a free society, necessary in the pursuance of
liberty.
THE ADMISSION TEST
● Rizal's entrance exam was unique. Towards dusk Rizal would take the applicant for a walk in the
woods, and when he could do so without the student noticing it, leave his walking stick behind,
perhaps propped against the tree.
The Curriculum
● When Rizal put up his school in Dapitan, he envisioned a course of study beyond the conventional
wisdom. He designed a curriculum that would teach students to “behave like men.”
● Primary Education- Rizal batted for primary education. Primary education is fundamental in the
education of the masses.
● Vocational Education- He wrote to his parents and brother his desire to study practical
mechanics, trade, agriculture and science.
“Create schools of arts and trades in provincial capitals of more than 16,000 inhabitants”
● College Education- Rizal prepared a plan for a college to be established in Hongkong. It included
progressive curriculum offering subjects which would provide for physical, academic, vacational,
aesthetic, and moral development.
The Curriculum
1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year 5th year
Morals Mathematics World History Spanish Gymnastic
Study of Physics and Philippine English Horse Riding

Religions Chemistry History
Natural Law Natural History Logic French Fencing
Civil Law Geography Rhetoric and German Swimming

Poetics
Deportment Political Chinese Music

Economy
Hygiene Tagalog Dance

The Curriculum
Rizal's curriculum also include the following features:
● Academic Freedom - Aware of the defective methods of instruction prevailing at the time, Rizal
opted for a school that would respect academic freedom.
“Knowledge ought to be free and the professor as well”
● The student curriculum would develop the potentials of the students.
● The curriculum would promote the dignity of the individual and thus no corporal punishment
would be inflicted.
● The curriculum would inspire learning by encouraging a wholesome class competition.
The Curriculum
● The curriculum would emphasize the great importance of personal discipline.
● The curriculum would emphasize the “science of life” or learn to live with others by respecting the
rights of others.
● The curriculum would stimulate arts and letters.
● The curriculum would meet the demands of modern times.
RIZAL AS A TEACHER
● Throughout his life, whatever activity he was engaged in, Rizal first and foremost, was an
educator, a teacher.
● Even at the early age of 16, at the Ateneo, Rizal already wrote a poem on education entitled “Por
La Educacion.”
● In his poem “El Amor Patricio,” Rizal urged Filipinos to seek progress through education, to be
proud of being Filipinos.
● Rizal expressed his educational ideals through his characters in the Noli and Fili.
RIZAL AS A TEACHER
Rizal had his own ideas of the desirable qualities of a teacher. As summarized by Esteban A. Ocampo,
Rizal stressed that:
● A teacher should pass the appropriate competitive examination.
● He must have mastery of his subject matter.
● He must have initiative and resourcefulness.
● He must be kind and “cultivate in the children confidence, assurance and some personal pride”.
● He must grow professionally and love his profession, for “any kind of work done in disgust and
shame is a kind of martyrdom.
● “in order to be head and to maintain his authority, the teacher needs prestige, reputation, moral
strength, and some kind of freedom of action.
RIZAL AS A TEACHER
● Most of all, Rizal believed, the teacher must be what he desires the student to be, since a man
teaches most by what he is. Thus good examples are better than precepts.
RIZAL’S STRATEGY FOR LIBERATION
● Rizal proposed that the individual must be educated, so that he could be unshackled from
ignorance and irrationality.
● Dr. Antonio de Morga
● “They gradually lost their ancient traditions, their recollections; they forgot their writings, their
songs, their poetry, and their laws in order to learn by heart other doctrines, which they did not
understand; other ethics, other tastes, different from those inspired in their race by their climate
and their way of thinking. Then became ashamed of what was distinctively their own in order to
admire and praise what was foreign and incomprehensible; their spirit was broken and they
acquiesced.”
● Education should be top priority
● Action was the expression of will
● Will was guided or shaped by thought
● As long as false ideas shaped the will, the action from such a will cannot make a person free.
● Truth then ust be sought. Only truth will set people free.
● Rizal shows obscurantist education propagated by the friars in the class of Physics in the Fili and
substantiated by the testimonies given to the Schurman Commission.
● Rizal was aware of this dilemma and its solution
● He did not believe that people were ready enough for armed struggle
● He asked the colonial authorities that instructions be no begrudge the Filipino
● “Liberty must be secured, by making ourselves worthy of it, by exalting the intelligence and dignity
of the individual, by loving justice, right and greatness, even to the extent of dying for them.”
● Rizal asked for the creation of schools in order to free ourselves from ignorance.

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RIZAL AS AN EDUCATOR

Education as a Strategy for Liberation

Morals Mathematics World History Spanish Gymnastic

Study of Physics and Philippine English Horse Riding

Natural Law Natural History Logic French Fencing

Civil Law Geography Rhetoric and German Swimming

Deportment Political Chinese Music

Hygiene Tagalog Dance

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