Remembrance of English-speaking teachers past

Lucinda (Philippine Republic, 1925) wrote that this picture would "show to American school boys and girls that the little Filipino children start out just like we here in the United States."

We could have been in Grade 1 when we were six years old but we could not reach our left ear with the right hand over our head, supposed to be the test of school-readiness of kids in our time. We were taken in as saling-pusa (sit-in), which was more than being in the kindergarten or prep-school now.  When we began our formal education the next year, we could already read the slim Pepe and Pilar primer ("I am Pepe. I am a little boy.") even without looking at the pages.  There was no need for us to learn how to write; we were taught that at home as early as when we could hold a pencil.

Almost everyone knew or related to each other in our coastal hometown in Zambales when technology has not yet transformed the world into one global village.  Outside the schoolyard, teachers could be aunts, uncles, lolo or lola. Our saling-pusa and then Grade 1 teacher was our father's spinster first cousin.

Schoolboys 1901. (Source:  University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.)

Townmates knew the teachers very well, and most admired (and sympathized with) were those who took assignments up in the mountain barrios, which they reached at great risk by fording the wide, swift Sto. Tomas river every day during the rainy season.  They clung to ropes held at the ends by brawny men of the barrios while others carried their bags or guided them through the turbulent waters. 

Surigao schoolgirls and teachers 1901. (Source: University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.)

We were the generation who were taught in English all the way from Grade 1 to the university, whether the subject was arithmetic, history, geography, industrial arts or good manners and right conduct (GMRC, now an extinct subject). Every school day morning started with our singsong "Good morning, teacher," and during flag ceremonies, we sang "Land of the Morning" and recited the patriotic pledge ("I love the Philippines, it is the land of my birth ..."). 

Those were the days when teachers could still get away for pinching us on the thigh or pulling our ears.  We took it lightly that our industrial arts teacher whacked our bottoms with a meter-long one-inch-wide bamboo slat for not bringing materials for weaving baskets or making chairs. We'd prepare beforehand by padding our behind with our notebooks even if we knew the whips were usually very light.

Our elementary school teachers either went to the Philippine Normal School/College [PNC] or to the Zambales Academy, a private high school which offered the normal course before the second world war and into the 1950s.  Many of our classmates in high school aspired "to join the noble profession" and enrolled at PNC.

Although we did not take up the normal course, we taught mathematics (in English, of course) at the local Catholic high school during the first four years of the martial law regime.  The principal, a product of St. Louis U in Baguio, was our senior class adviser at the Zambales Academy six years earlier.  It was she who taught us to appreciate reading the classics, initiated us to writing, and mentored us for our first bout in public speaking, an oratorical contest in English on the theme "I speak for democracy."

We remember getting ribbed by older kinfolks that they speak better English than us, they who went to the public schools in the 1920s and 1930s.  They were of the generation when Filipino teachers had fully replaced the Thomasites, Dorics and other American teachers whose batch names were derived from the ships they took in coming here in the public schools.

Their teachers could have been among the first trainees who went through a radical crash course in teaching in English under American teachers as soon as the public school system was set up in the early 1900s.  In his annual report of 1904, the General Superintendent of Education wrote about the  "[b]right, intelligent young men and women [who] were selected and organized in a teachers' class. Many of them, after only a few months of English instruction, commenced teaching their pupils with an English chart and an English primer."

"Not only were they entirely ignorant of English in the beginning," he further described, "but their knowledge of the fundamental subjects of arithmetic, geography, and history was also very small. In their own instruction by the American teacher they could be kept but little in advance of the pupils in their classes. Frequently the teacher taught one week what he himself had acquired only the week preceding. Such a system of instruction, to be of any value at all, naturally had to be accompanied by the constant assistance, supervision, and instruction of the American teacher. Surprising to say, the Filipino teacher under this method has made progress far in advance of anything that could have been anticipated. Many of those now employed are very fair instructors in the subjects falling within the primary course. They have developed well as disciplinarians. School rooms in charge of Filipino teachers are now almost invariably quiet and well ordered. The daily program is carried through on time and successfully. What perhaps is more gratifying than anything else, is the reliability and fidelity they show to their work and their increasing professional pride."

There were also annual normal institutes for further training of teachers from the provinces, the first one held in Manila in April-May 1901.  These institutes brought about the construction of the Teachers Camp in Baguio. "The method of presenting the subject, teaching with the use of objects, the conduct of English conversation, etc., [were] explained with great care and the teachers drilled in these methods. ... [T]he Filipino teachers ... left these institutes with new conceptions of school management and of teaching, with great enthusiasm, and with the assured feeling that the Government was seeking to raise their efficiency and value. Each year the results have told in raising the quality of primary instruction."

Pilipino was not yet officially the national language, and the debate for its use as medium of instruction was still light years away.  In our time it was already in the high school curriculum in all levels plus a Spanish course in the senior year.   

But before the local dialect and/or Pilipino came into the elementary school classrooms, "[p]rimary instruction [was] conducted entirely in the English language. More than this, the conversation of the class room  [was] in English. The Filipino teacher [was] carefully instructed to address even the smallest pupil in short English sentences, discarding almost entirely the use of the native dialect from the beginning, in order to familiarize the child immediately with spoken English. ...The American supervising teacher spen[t] only a few minutes a week in the class ... occupied very largely with the correction of errors of grammar and mistakes of pronunciation, or in the method of presentation by the teacher, but in spite of this fact the little boys and girls who have received instruction practically only from a Filipino teacher have acquired a correct pronunciation of English and are able to speak with fair regard to grammatical rules."

The General Superintendent of Education (1904) noted that under those conditions, the Filipino child who was "an exceedingly apt learner and possesse[d] natural ability in the acquisition of languages" --which we think is still true today despite the deluge of so many courses in the elementary grades--made marvelous progress in learning the English language. 

The Department of Education is adding two more years to the 10 years of elementary and secondary schooling to become K-12 like most parts of the world.  The rationale seems to be 'global competitiveness' of Philippine graduates in the international job market.  This also explains why our college graduates have to enroll in undergraduate courses in foreign universities before they can do their post-graduate work. 

We do not know how English will be tackled under the K-12 system.  In the global market, non-English-speaking countries have become economic powers and learning particular languages like Nippongo, Mandarin, and Spanish even may be better choices.

Even beauty queens need not speak English to win an international crown now, do they? Learn English or other tongues and speak your mind in your own language.  That should be it.

The teacher and her class in an advertisement in the 1920s.  Source:  Duke University Digital Collections.

References:

• Bureau of Education. (1904, Sep). The Filipino Teacher.  Annual Report of the General Superintendent of Education. Manila:  Bureau of Printing.   Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/ACS9512.1904.001 

• Lucinda. (1925, Sep). Illustration of Philippine School Life. The Philippine Republic.Washington D.C. 2(9):22.  Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acc6198.1924.001

Photo Credits:

• National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Philippines Images Collection in the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections at http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/SEAiT

• Duke University Digital Collections at http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/?keyword=Philippines

Reading and Writing in English Then and Now ...

The DepEd guy we've re-nicknamed Tanaka in jest because he looks like a Pinoy-Hapon has delivered to us thirteen science research reports of high school students for our review.  These are first-placers in the applied/physical sciences of the regional science fairs, and our job in the national scientific review committee (SRC) is to check if they are qualified to compete in the national Intel-DepEd Philippine Science Fair (IPSF) in February next year.  From the national winners, we will select the country's delegates who will compete with more than a thousand others in the Intel Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in San Jose, CA in May 2010.

Through these past several years, we in the life and physical sciences SRCs have been lamenting the apparent weakness of most high school students: they do not know how to read and write, and this we glean after going through the review of literature part of their reports. 

In several instances, lately at workshops in Cebu City and CLSU in Munoz and at a lecture before a science research class in Quezon City Science High School, we've been emphasizing two very important things that students must remember when they do their information search and write-up: ethics and the simple how-to's in reading and writing. 

Today when the internet abounds with sources of information, these young researchers do not bother to read anymore.  They simply cut and paste materials into their report--a clear case of plagiarism--and we do not like to think that this is because they are overwhelmed by so many print and digital publications.  Many of them do not even bother to check if their materials come from expert sources.  They seem to think that thick reports are impressive.  We wonder if their teachers read what their students write and submit, or if they teach their students the basic documentation do's:  summarize, paraphrase and quote. 

The last we strongly discourage because it is most abused; lazy readers love the open-close quotation marks more dearly than the gist of whatever they enclose within them.  We tell them that writing in one's own words what the authors said, and organizing them into a clear and understanble flowing narrative are the best measures of a researcher's diligence and intellectual honesty.

Before the above-mentioned workshops started, we showed the science advisers and regional science superintendents the instructional materials that were used to teach reading, speaking and writing in English to elementary pupils of more than a century ago. We also wondered aloud if schools today can use these composition leaflets on Philippine Activities of 1905 as templates to create aids in teaching modern English to the young generation now despite the deluge of TV and Hollywood movies, and www downloadables.  All 1905 leaftets can be retrieved from the digital library collection The United and its Territories 1870-1825: The Age of Imperialism (click the hyperlink) of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor.

These were four-page leaflets written by Orlando S. Reimold under the Philippine Education Series of that time. They were all about subjects that pupils were most familiar with in their homes and communities.  The teacher and pupil interactive exercises--reading and conversation, and conversation and writing--were about  bamboo; baskets, hats and mats; blacksmith; carpenter; cocoanut; hemp; hunting; market; school; sewing; shoemaker; sugarcane; transportation; washing; and weaving.   The front pages of bamboo and market are shown here. 

After more than a century, city people would still be familiar with the subjects.  Even if cocoanut has become coconut, they are still one and the same. Loom weaving sometimes is demonstrated in regional trade shows that feature Ilokanos and cultural minorities in the south.

The fourth page comprises suggestions to teachers. To illustrate, here's the one for bamboo:

"Material:  stalk, branch with leaves, piece of wood.

"Draw:  stalk, leaves, bamboo cup.

"Make:  cup, kite-frame, lantern-frame, sticks in lengths of 3, 4, 6, 8 inches.  See Directions for Object and Constructive Work on envelope.

"General Suggestions.  Before distributing the leaflets, the teacher should study carefully the whole lesson to see what to teach, and how to teach.  [We like this line!]

"Page One. Distribute the leaflets at the beginning of the class period. Tell the pupils something about the subject. Give them a few minutes to study the picture. Let the pupils read and answer the questions below the picture. Ask other questions. The picture-study should prepare the pupils for the following reading and writing exercises. Ask them to get information on the subject so as to be able to talk about it during the following periods.

"Page Two. Give the pupils time to prepare the reading lesson. In class be sure that each one understands what he reads. Ask questions about the lesson and the pictures. Encourage the children to ask questions and tell what they know.

"Page Three. The pupils should study the questions. Let each pupil read a question and give an oral answer. Do not let pupils write without previous oral drill. All answers, oral and written, should be complete statements. Before assigning written work, put all new and difficult words on the blackboard. Keep them on the board during the study of the leaflet. The pupils should thoroughly understand the meaning of these words and become familiar with their forms.

"Spelling. Have a list of the pupils in this class. When their first written exercise is handed in, put opposite each name the words which that pupil has misspelled. Ask each pupil to make a little book by folding two sheets of composition paper. When you return the corrected papers, ask each pupil to put in his booklet the correct forms of the words which he has misspelled. He should study these words. Take a few minutes of a recitation for a spelling exercise. Consult your list and ask the pupil to spell such words as he has misspelled.

"Written /Work. Correct carefully all written work so that the pupils can understand the corrections. Make a list of the errors, including errors as to form.  See Rules for Fornm on the envelope. Return the papers to the pupils. Give them a few minutes to study their papers.  Let them ask questions about their mistakes. Call attention to the errors on your list. Make clear what is wrong and how to correct it. Now let them write again their exercise as corrected. This new copy, together with the original, should he handed to the teacher. See that all corrections have been made. If necessary, have a pupil re-write his exercise two or three times."

Would the elementary or high school teacher (of language or communication arts in today's parlance) be patient to do these procedures or some kind of innovation?  We remember we had theme writing in our time (post-WW2), the final copy written in ink.  Uncle Maximo Ramos recalled that his English teacher in high school, young lawyer Alejo Labrador who would later become Supreme Court justice, gave him a failing grade for his composition. His piece was very well written that the teacher thought is was a plagiarized theme.  No wonder then that our parents and grandparents could speak English very fluently even if they finished only grade 4.  In fact, they could even teach if they reached that level.