Keywords
Junior College
Secondary School
Jose Rizal
curriculum as political text
critical pedagogy
curriculum as autobiographical/biographical text
Introduction
Since 1956, Republic Act 1425, otherwise known as the Rizal Law, has mandated the teaching of the life and works of Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal, in all public and private schools, colleges and universities. Why decree Rizal’s ideas of nationhood and citizenship in the Philippine social studies curriculum? Dumol & Camposano’s (2018) textbook The Nation as Project: A New Reading of Jose Rizal’s Life and Works begins with a pithy statement that perhaps expresses the rationale best: “When Jose Rizal was born in 1861, there was no Filipino nation to speak of . . . When Jose Rizal died in 1896, there was still no nation to speak of, but [through his writings, political campaigns, and the reason for his execution] there was a nation to dream of” (p. 3). To examine Rizal’s life and works, therefore, is “to discover who we are and where we might go as a nation” (Dumol & Camposano, 2018, p. 3).
But the Rizal Law’s lofty directive that his works be an “inspiring source of patriotism” to the youth today is thwarted by curricula widely comprised of a reverential reading of Rizal’s life and works (Dumol & Camposano, 2018). As such, his ideas are left decontextualized and are resultantly barren. Without explanation for how Rizal’s ideas emerged amidst the social conditions of his time, a central truth—that the individual’s thoughts and actions bear weight on the ongoing project of the nation—remains veiled from students.
suhaimi.afandi@nie.edu.sg
