The Challenge of Educating Young Filipinos Truthfully but Also Practically

Our readings for this week focused on the ways the Filipino's have been miseducated due to Colonial influence and these readings culminated with a trip to likely the nicest and highest ranked school in the Philippines: Ateneo University. The legend of Iktome, that is referenced by Paulet at the beginning of his article "The Use of American Indian Education in the Philippines" has spread to everyone in our culture and essentially everyone in the world. Iktome says to his Native American people "that the white man will try to make you like himself, he will try to tame you" (p. 173) . I see this happening, not in, necessarily a blatant way, but in a more "invisible" way today in commercials and in advertisements. There is almost always an ideal looking white man or woman, selling a product that should supposedly make you look like them and be like them. In the way that colonialists tried to make those whose lands they conquered like them, those who are on top of the economic system likewise are projected as something that should be aspired too. Due to this I believe that colonialism will always exist in the United States and abroad if the same messages that defined the imperialist era correlate with messages that are used to market products. Consider skin powder that is sold in the Philippines and the quote from Iktome.

This to me is part of a constant reciprocated illusion of "progress". Doesn't it seem odd that educating savages in order to progress them but ultimately oppress them is a lot like selling a product only to replace with it a better one a year later? It happened before to the American "indians" then again to "indians" over seas and it is still happening today in mass media. Does it really make a difference whether one drives an Audi to work or a Honda? For some reason we are led to believe that driving a certain type of car or buying a big house will make us happier even though we all have to sit in the same traffic and follow the same speed limits. I can understand why someone would want a nice house in a nice location, its simply more pleasurable to be around those things but that is simply an illusion of personal progress. Ultimately personal progress, in my opinion comes from how happy one is, but we are led to believe that what we have will make us happy. What needs to be looked at is the difference between personal progress and social progress and how the two affect each other. I think personal progress comes from obtaining happiness and much of that happiness comes from the products that make life easier, but what comes with this mentality is an excess of those products in certain areas of the globe which will lead to a shortage in other areas. Perhaps if the idea of progress had been reexamined at the turn of the century some of the problems that the world needs to address wouldn't be here right now:

The quote that Paulet references by Dr. Lucien Warner, which essentially says that the Native Americans had a lack of thrift, of industry, of foresight and of a habit of saving, is simply perspective (p. 180). In terms of saving, Native Americans saved the land that they used much more so than Europeans or early Americans who industrialized it. Native Americans used it as a respected resource necessary for survival. Now consider the irony of the what the modern day world is struggling to save: resources such as the quality of the Earth's air, water and land. All of a sudden it is progressive to clean up the land and save it instead of using it for its resources. Take a look at the Pasig River that our class visited. Apparently the Philippine "Indians" were unfit to have this river as a resource.

The general theme of this week's readings has been the affect of colonial education on Filipinos because they were thought to be unable to educate themselves and do what the United States considered proper with their resources (Constantino, Paulet). The Miseducation of the Filipino by Constantino explains that during colonial rule and on the path to Philippine independence the education system was completely in control of the colonizers. This meant that Filipino's were no longer learning as Filipinos but as Colonials and that they learned of their ancestors as if "they were tourists in a foreign land" (p. 182). Obviously this would tear away their connection to their heritage. This was accomplished with military physical influence that led to systemized schooling but also with due to the influence of supporters of the American Indian educational system and other prominent individuals (Paulet). Such a fact exposes the way in which the power of the few can affect the lives of the many.

I personally find myself in slight divergence with Constantino, but I say "slight" because I do agree with what he is saying almost entirely, however I wanted to make some alternative discourse towards some of his statements. While, yes the Philippine education system has become Americanized and celebrates America's history just as much if not more than Filipino history I believe that the potential of education has held its resilience. Just look at the civil rights movement and how minorities in the United States who were marginalized used education to change their world and also look at the many groups who are striving to create change in the Philippines right now. By explaining the harms that come when Filipinos learn in English, Constantino does make a good counter to the suggestion that I have just made when he explains that within this Americanized educational system students have become "mechanical" and in doing so do sacrifice the ability to express thoughts and likewise engage in thought related to the betterment of social welfare (p. 190). However, here at the University of the Philippines I see classes that are just as liberal and just as open minded as those in the United States and generally speaking it is these types of classes that encourage refection on modern day society and well being.

When we visited Ateneo on July 22nd I saw a very different educational institution than that of the University of the Philippines. I learned that the smallest department at Ateneo was the liberal arts department. This would be relevant to Constantino's reflection on the type of education that Filipino's are receiving because the students at Ateneo are the privileged and well off and therefore are separated from the largely poor bulk of this nation. Liberal arts discourse tends to encourage the type of thought that would develop into consideration for social welfare and the lack of students taking those courses could correspond with their economic statuses. Even with this being said I think it is important to remember that Che Guevara and Joseph Rizal were both premed students from well off families who both became revolutionaries.

Also, while I totally agree with Constantino that students should be educated in the native tongue first and in English second I believe that learning English is not all that bad (p. 186). Likewise I believe that Paulet is correct when he says that the use of English in school served "as a conduit for transmission of ideas" that American life and products were superior and should be worked towards (p. 197, 98). I was recently reading an article on CNN about the future of globalization - honestly it is an unstoppable phenomenon and it has been for a long time. So it might be in the best interest of Filipinos and other developing countries to learn English. I intend in no way to be condescending when saying this, I'm only trying to make an observation. Yet I do still agree with Constantino that the history of the Philippines should be rewritten in a Filipino version that will properly educate students about the development and history of their country.

The trouble of Filipino identity still remains afoot. Just as Constantino, Paulet and other writers we have read have said; the constant flow of American products and the education that American life is superior leads to Filipino's cutting off from their national and historic identity. What I see are invisible legacies of colonialism within the advertisements and the billboards and the malls. While it is altogether possible to rewrite Filipino history within a proper and justified perspective I can't see how it will be possible to cut off these invisible ties to colonial created thought until the Philippines can remove these invisible ties by creating billboards with their own messages - messages that uplift the Filipino and instill pride in him and what he is doing. Without doing this there will always be a lasting impact of colonialism on the Philippines. For the purpose of increasing nationalism the solution has to be in not only in rewriting history as it should be told, but also by improving the economic conditions of this country. In the immediate situation and with impeding and increasing globalization it is only natural for a person to find pride in their personal wealth and concordantly the wealth of their country. It is a sad reality but also a true one. Thus there is a challenge in retaining identity whilst being economically competitive - at the individual level and the world economic level. I imagine the ideal accomplishment in regards to retaining Filipino identity and national pride while remaining competitive would be for the Philippines to see their own industries, their own small businesses and their own people rise up and succeed and be placed on billboards while their school books are rewritten.

To continue with the theme of education we read an article by Rick Bonus about the educational experience for students with Pacific Islander and South East Asian Descent whom are attending the University of Washington. The section we read explained that the communities that many of these minority students come from placed little value on education. I came from a similar community so it was personally interesting for me to read how others, although from different backgrounds, have had a similar experience finding value in education as I have. I'm interested in learning what Bonus proposes to be a solution to courses that are irrelevant and not connected to many of minority student's lives. One way that I could see accounting, finance or pre-med courses as personally relevant to someone's life is if they grew up in a household or community in which many people held jobs in law, business or medicine. I didn't so I can sympathize, however I feel for the most part and realistically, that most peoples lives are not relevant to an accounting or premed course regardless of where they are from and that is why I would be interested in learning what Bonus' ideas are to address this issue.

The commonality I have seen within all these readings is the challenge of creating educational policy that does not sever ties with one's ethnic lineage but is also practical enough that it will benefit them in a way that they can enhance their own lives and eventually the lives of others around them in the modern world-economy. The historic root of all this however is the inhumane treatment by colonialist white Americans and Europeans of people from different lands and this has to stopped because to a degree that I fully do not understand, it still exists. I like to look to the future but with the current state of the economy, people have to look out for themselves and do what is practical before they do what is truthfully right. It is unfortunate but people have to eat and so do their kids and so they have to work before they can work for others. Perhaps education should be geared towards encouraging people to establish their lives financially and socially and then give back by helping those less privileged. Or there could even be a system where you are allowed to work and given a the chance to live a nice life but as part of the conditions you have to perform volunteer work abroad. This wouldn't solve the overall problem but what would could come with this is that those who have the potential to help others but cannot because they have to take care of themselves will have the opportunity to do both. Such a proposal, aside from being more ideological than applicable, would be met with fierce opposition because it would require a large amount of government involvement, but, I don't see a government that helps people establish their lives and asks that those people help others in return such a bad thing. As I said, this is idealistic and getting to a point where such a system could be realized is a long way off, but if the many of world problems are systemic, then changing the system is essentially the answer.

Since this is a blog, I would like to put a little personal section in this. Much of what I've been talking about above is based off ideologies and I would like to focus on my own experience a little more. I've thought a lot about living modestly and how if the bulk of the world had less of a competition first view point and instead a ""one for all and all for one" viewpoint I truly believe the world would be a better place. In the end I have realized that just like the Native American who lives on a barren wasteland in Arizona the Filipino who lives on the street are there due in part to United States imperialism. I also believe that what makes many of these people feel oppressed in the United States and in the Philippines are the advertisements of products they cannot afford and pictures of a life that seems unaccessible. As Paulet writes, education was a way of ingraining the indigenous with American values (193). Now it has be a way to make those values seem less relevant.

I can't recall seeing a picture of the Filipino President since I've been here, perhaps I did and didn't notice. These pictures of American Presidents however were not hard to notice.