A Concern for History

The troublesome PBB segment is already showing the problems we have in our country. Many of our fellow Filipinos (both young and old) do not see the significance of history partly because of the lack of educational rigor in our academies, and add a network of disinformation into the picture, you have an uprooting and mudding of significant collective memories. Moreover, I viewed the PBB segment as an alarmist and concerned critic. What we saw can be raised to the level of grave educational and social concern and can also be seen as the odd “trivialization” of history.

Let me start with being an alarmist. Undeniably, there are gaps in the familiarity of both the distant and not so distant past which is evident among the youngsters in the show and with the students I come across in class. If the youth fails to be at least familiar with the presumed “basics”, there is indeed a huge gap in the rearing. It is as if those students fail to do even the basics of arithmetic or linguistic expressions granting that they are already in college. Consider these analogies carefully. If the presumed basics are not expressed and functionally performed casually, then we have a questionable state of the youth. And if this is the case, we have a youth that is ill-equipped to tackle basic functions in society. Imagine a student in college who happened to reach there who cannot do basic addition. Imagine a student whose roots of collective memory are not well-established. For the former, he or she will be susceptible to abuse by those cunning with basic monetary transactions, while the latter will easily be swayed by disinformation (especially since disinformation nowadays is highly amplified via the internet). Indeed, the basics are a must, and the simple evidence of having at least known something goes to show that the student is “at the very least” informed.

Another point I would like to contend with is the emphasis on the “trivializing” of history. Although the tv segment did its best to at least show to us the gaps as a result by probing the “basics”, the emphasis was rather trivial. The questions were more for lower-order thinking skills. So what if I got names right for Tandang Sora and Gomburza? If I cannot elevate my understanding as to the significance behind these people, then that is more of a disaster and a dishonor for these people who fought for something. Imagine that I remember the names of all the priests but cannot incorporate their struggle for an equal treatment among Filipinos during the Spanish era? And if the names were the one stressed in the educational upbringing, no wonder the names are forgotten because the significance was not given the ample amount of spotlight needed. Names are hollow unless you breathe meaning to them. Let it be that the approach is to breathe meaning so that the names will consequently be remembered.

Memory will always get the best of us. However, just like ancient societies, they always tried to make people remember not just the names but the lessons of their history around the hearth. Forgetfulness is the result of the collective not being effective enough to keep its shared memories intact. More so, forgetfulness is a by-product when society stops itself from retelling its stories. The worst form of forgetfulness is when the lesson of the past is forgotten. I may forget the names but if wiped from my memory is the story of oppression and the struggle for freedom, then that will have serious repercussions in our perspectives and actions today. I may not know the names of the Katipuneros, but if I forgot the ideals they fought for, then that is far worse than forgetting that Mabini had polio. Context is also important to also know the peculiarities of the past but enough with the emphasis of the nominals. I am for both the emphasis of context, objective story, and the attached name, event, date, etc.

Trivialization is a problem with how history is taught, and the gap of historical consciousness is made worse due to the absence thereof in the current K12 curriculum. The learning experience for most students with history is indeed noteworthy as the majority clamored about the dullness of the classes due to emphasis on meaningless names, dates, events, etc. When there is no meaning set in the discourse of history, then students simply hear lifeless words, and add a teacher who is not pedagogically and content-wise equipped for the task, you have nothing but a class where students stare at the clock for it to be over. I am also not referring to meaning as that which from the gut feels of someone having subjective euphoria, but I am referring to objective history. When history is focused on the emphasis of meaning dislodged from objectivity, then you have the kind of situation we have now when we think that a significant amount of corrupted wealth is a matter that can be forgiven because forgiveness is better than seeking justice.

Watching my newsfeed and the profile of each person in relation to their reaction to the PBB segment made me rethink how should I approach the teaching of social sciences and history once face-to-face classes will come soon and review my approaches before. Most of what I can say is that those who reacted on social media knew that this is a problem but often end up testing historical consciousness at the level of triviality. As far as I can see, there are those who felt disgusted towards the contestants for not knowing the names of the historical figures but judging from their online behavior, some are consumers of historical “distortionism”. Now such is a malignant social cancer because you have someone who is disgusted in failing to remember the name but is an enabler of the injustices that the name or names fought against. These people tend to have the same skewed moral uprightness and decisiveness of Nazi fanatics.