Mindanaotoday.com | Assessing Jose Rizal? A vicious cycle of miseducation
By: RAI Bollozos Sanchez | Historyahe!
MERRY Christmas and a prosperous New Year to all of you!
Unlike when December was just a Christmas break, December has become the semestral break in most cases for the past two years.
Since the holiday started, I have spent many times assessing my student’s output—reading their essays and multi-media work such as infographics or short documentaries.
Also, much like on December 30, we are remembering Jose Rizal’s death anniversary.
Reading my students’ output realized me many things. For example, their interest in learning history, most notably with “Readings in Philippine History and The Life, Works, and Writings of Rizal,” is beyond measure.
Still, they were not provided enough lessons, which they yearned for.
For example, in “The Life, Works, and Writings of Rizal,” most students were anxious about the course because of the extensive memorization of names, dates, places, events, and girlfriends that Jose Rizal has.
I often hear commentaries like, “why do we have to memorize the names of Rizal’s lovers?”
In fact, my son’s experience was the same. His section was asked to answer a 150-item exam in one hour full of “multiple choices and true or false.”
As a history professor, as much as I would want to interfere with my son’s professor, it is still under “academic freedom” in reality, what is there to achieve if they would only identify with no proper understanding?
As I began teaching history, I never limited my assessments to meager “true or false,” “identification,” or “multiple choices” – if I did, it only came out during quizzes and not on significant assessments—especially major examinations.
Instead, I see the importance of critical thinking and encourage my students to push their critical and creative intuitions.
Making their evaluation fit their generation and prepare them for their future profession.
Assessments are essential to student development, but since I handle higher education students, I find summative and objectified “major” assessments “elementary” and too primary.
Why should I evaluate them based on what they know and not on what is there to understand?
Teaching our students Philippine history is beyond what they should know.
Instead, they should learn to understand why it is happening again.
Arguably, I never romanticized my history lessons. Yes, some heroes are worth emulating—one is Jose Rizal.
Nevertheless, we should teach in context, like what is there to learn to objectify nationalism?
Learning Rizal beyond knowing him is “enlightenment course 101.”
The essence of learning Rizal is “nationalism and patriotism,” and learning the number of girlfriends he has, the languages he’s capable of speaking, and simply reading the novels would not bear the essence.
For instance, his exile in Dapitan brought forth an undeniably watermarked town development.
His scientific discoveries, engineering feats, and the students he taught excellently manifest his “nationalistic” heart.
In the end, I ask my students, just like Rizal did in Dapitan, what is worth emulating and what they can do for their community, just like our national hero did?
I have been repeating this, our students are future Filipino leaders in a striving nation whose people have not learned in the past.
History never repeats itself, but if our students cannot reflect on past events, they are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
According to the philosopher George Santayana, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
If they fail our future nation, we fail to teach how it should be based on their history.
By not teaching our future leaders the essence of history, they are doomed to repeat what their ancestors repeatedly and mistakenly committed—a vicious cycle—an unending one! (MT)
(Ryan Albert Ignacius “RAI” Bollozos Sanchez, 40, is a native of Cagayan de Oro City. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History and currently finishing his Master of Arts in History at Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan. He is currently a full-time faculty in the Department of General Education and Interdisciplinary Studies in Xavier Ateneo – teaching Readings in Philippine History, The Life, Works and Writings of Jose Rizal, and Interdisciplinary Studies subjects. He taught part-time at the Liceo de Cagayan University teaching Southeast Asian History and Government, and U.S. Government and Foreign Policy. You may reach him at rsanchez@xu.edu.ph)
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