Why it is important to study the Rizal course?

Question

learnings that the student may get in studying Rizal.

Answer 1

We now live in a postmodern world dominated by electronic gadgets, cyber technology, robotics, scientific and genetic breakthroughs. The Philippines, in spite of its status as an industrializing country, also manages to get by with the current trend of development and industrialization. It is a fact that education plays a vital role in the growth of a country, for an educated and functional population maneuvers the fate of its country and its fate as a people.

At present, many tertiary students, particularly those taking up technical, engineering and nursing courses, ask about the relevance of Rizal Course to their courses and planned career paths. Some of them wonder if the subject will just be a mere repetition of what they had during their high-school days, while some insist that the subject, whatever its code, may be just a waste of time and money. Thus, most students tend to be antagonistic not only to the subject but to the teacher and, worst, to Jose Rizal himself.

Rizal Course is mandated by law under Republic Act 1425, authored and fought for by Claro M. Recto. R.A. 1425 is also known as the Rizal Law.

The law has three major provisions: First, it directs educational agencies such as the Department of Education and the Commission of Higher Education to include in the curricula of all schools, colleges and universities, public or private, the study of the life of our national hero, with emphasis on the original or unexpurgated versions of the Noli and El Fili.

Second, it obliges all the libraries of all schools, colleges and universities to maintain an adequate number of copies of Noli and El Fili in their collections as well as other materials related to the life of Rizal.

Third, it directs the Board of National Education to take charge of the translation, reproduction and distribution of printed copies of Rizal’s novels to interested parties through purok organizations and barangay councils, free of charge.

The antagonistic attitude of students toward the Rizal Course can be generally traced to our historical unawareness and indifference. Some of us already stopped caring about our significant past, thus making us ignorant of the good lessons we should have learned for our own good. Some of us were jus so preoccupied that we had no time to be conscious and look back to learn from the deeds and principles of the people who started shaping the destiny of our nation.

Another factor that’s also fanned negative impressions about the Rizal Course was the way teachers and professors handle and deliver the subject. While strictly following the provisions of R.A. 1425, teachers are free to be creative and apply appealing teaching techniques that would cater to the interests of the students. Teaching the course should not only involve memorizing and reading the novel, instead a presentation of Rizal as an ordinary boy or student who exerted his utmost efforts to be a great and functional person will be highly appreciated by students, while also taking note of his flaws as a person and how he surmounted them through his strengths.

Teachers can direct their students to read the novels of Rizal and allow them to analyze if the plots of the novels still apply to our present situation. Provocative questions must be asked among learners in order to allow them to think critically. Professors can assign them tasks that require researches in order for them to visit the school libraries and use the library’s Rizaliana Collection.

Meanwhile, schools, colleges and universities must act in accordance with R.A. 1425 and equip their libraries with materials about Rizal. There are lots of works about Rizal nowadays, written by both Filipino and foreign authors. In this way, the schools, colleges and universities not only complied with the law but helped form historically aware and concerned young citizens.

Some would argue that the Rizal Law is obsolete and needs to be abolished or amended. But the law is very simple, yet it caters to the Filipinos not to hero-worship but to remember a hero who chose death for the sake of his convictions and of his country. To pay tribute to an exemplary Filipino who even in his lifetime was already revered by his compatriots with the likes of Andres Bonifacio and Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, by world-renowned personalities like Dr. Rudolf Virchow and Ferdinand Blumentritt. Most of all, this law indirectly guides us to live according to Rizal’s examples by knowing him and by reading him.

Answer 2

Amen.