‘Stop idiotizing our youth’

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” Sophia Loren

By Alex P. Vidal

Federalism and native languages advocate Dr. Jose Palu-ay Dacudao is up in arms against the Department of Education’s (DepEd) 2005 Basic Literacy Learning Material (BLLM).

He pointed out that the crux of the problem is DepEd’s materials written in ‘Filipino’ (a honey-coated term for the Tagalog language in order to make it psychologically acceptable to non-Tagalogs) that are being taught to our children right here right now.

“In my opinion, the writers of most of these materials had acquired books in English, presently the universal language of science, learning, and commerce (just as Latin was for nearly 2000 years), and then endeavored to erase the Greco-Latin terms (which they probably thought were indigenous English words), replacing them with invented Tagalog terms,” explained Dacudao.

If you are a parent concerned with your children’s education, Dacudao, a critique of the Tagalista orientation of Department of Education materials, recommends this article for you.

Our modern society’s current idea of higher education began in Greece. The two most notable schools were the Academy founded in 387 BC by Plato and the Lyceum founded in 335 BC by Aristotle. They offered advanced studies in Philosophy, which at that time encompassed a very broad field which also delved into Mathematics, the Physical Sciences, and the Biological Sciences. The language that was used in such Greek schools was Greek.

ROMAN

The budding Roman Republic had always admired Greek culture, and may have patterned the Roman Senate from the democratic rule of the free classes in Greek city states. From 146 BC, when the Romans defeated Corinth, until 31 BC, when the Romans defeated Cleopatra’s Hellenistic Egypt, Rome took over what remained of the Greek territories. Instead of destroying Greek culture, the Romans enthusiastically adopted it. It became common practice for the Roman aristocrats to acquire highly favored Greek slaves in order to personally tutor their children in the Greek language, classics, and philosophy. These Greek-loving aristocratic Roman children would normally grow up to be the new leaders of Rome, and would naturally continue patronizing Greek culture. Greek-type learning institutions flourished in the ensuing Roman Empire, the most famous of which is the Library of Alexandria in the 4th century. Instruction naturally was in Greek or in Latin that borrowed many of its technical terms from Greek.

From the remains of Greco-Roman civilization, modern Colleges and Universities arose in the 12th century. Universities were founded in Italy, France, England, Germany, Poland, and Bohemia. They started as groups of students, usually of the same ethnicity, that would band together in the towns and cities were prominent learned men taught. The resulting community would become known as a collegium (Latin ‘society’).

By the latter half of the 12th century, the University of Paris in France had become the leading institution of learning in Europe. Other Universities at that time became famous for specializing in Law (University of Bologna in Italy), and Medicine (the University of Salerno in Italy).

Liberal arts was the common curriculum in most of these Universities, and consisted of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the quadrivium (music, astronomy, geometry, and mathematics). After completing these, some students proceeded to study such specialties as theology, law, or medicine.

HISTORY

Why are we reviewing this history?

Because the medium of instruction of these Universities was Latin (that borrowed heavily from Greek), the universal language of science, learning, and commerce in Europe.

It took the Greeks and the Romans hundreds of years to develop a technical vocabulary for Philosophy, the stem subject of all our modern subjects. Just as the Romans adopted the Greek vocabulary into their medium of instruction, so did the ensuing civilizations that inherited the Greco-Roman culture adopt the Greco-Latin terms in their own institutions of learning.

Note that the French, Italians, Spanish, Germans, English, and Poles did not dare to change the Greco-Latin terms of Natural Philosophy. They merely borrowed and added on to this vocabulary, the additions also being in Latin as a matter of standard.

The idea of inventing a non-existent German word for an idea that was already known by its Latin name, in order to prove that one was a patriotic German for instance, was totally ridiculous in the minds of these educators and the institutions that they represented. The purpose of these institutions was not to transform a student into a fanatical nationalistic German but into a learned person. The Germanic languages at that time (including English) simply did not have the terms for the intricate subjects that had directly arisen from the older Greco-Roman learning institutions.

Modern English, although a Germanic language, uses a scientific vocabulary that is practically all Latin derived. Take away all the Latin terms of a typical textbook of science in English and we would end up with nothing or nonsense.

And so we come to the crux of the problem in the Department of Education materials written in ‘Filipino’ (a honey-coated term for the Tagalog language in order to make it psychologically acceptable to non-Tagalogs) that are being taught to our children right here right now. In my opinion, the writers of most of these materials had acquired books in English, presently the universal language of science, learning, and commerce (just as Latin was for nearly 2000 years), and then endeavored to erase the Greco-Latin terms (which they probably thought were indigenous English words), replacing them with invented Tagalog terms.

What comes out is nonsense.

LITERACY

Just take this example from the 2005 Basic Literacy Learning Material (BLLM) of the Department of Education which tries to explain the nutrient cycles.

There are four basic nutrient (Latin ‘nutrire’) cycles (Latin ‘cyclus’ from the Greek ‘kuklos’) in the ecosystem (Greek ‘oikos’ plus Latin ‘systema’ from the Greek ‘sustēma’):

1.The carbon (Latin ‘carbon’) cycle

2.The nitrogen (Latin ‘nitrum’ from the Greek ‘nitron’) cycle

3.The oxygen (Greek ‘oxus’) cycle

4.The hydrological (Greek ‘hudōr’) cycle

There is also an energy (Greek ‘energeia’) flow, which was wrongly described as a cycle in the BLLM. There is no such thing as an energy cycle in the ecosystem.

Among others, the BLLM uses the following vocabulary in order to try to explain these fundamental ecological concepts, to quote:

1.Ang Pag-ikot ng Tubig, Hangin, at Enerhiya sa Kagubatan

2.Pag-ikot ng tubig

3.Pag-ikot ng Hangin

4.Sikat ng Araw

5.Ikot ng Sustansiya

6.Sustansya sa lupa

The above explanation is nonsensical. How could one possibly describe the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen cycles in the ecosystem as ‘pag-ikot ng hangin’? In English, this would translate as the nonsensical and misleading ‘air cycle,’ or worse as the ‘whirling of the wind.’

As mentioned, not even the French, Italians, Spanish, Germans, English, and Poles, who after all started the first modern Universities, dared to replace the Greco-Latin terms with non-existent words.

One could go on and on with such ridiculous examples of what would happen if one were to erase the Greco-Latin terms in a Science subject, but I would like to be brief.

RETAIN

The most reasonable thing to do is to simply retain the original Greco-Latin terms for most of the science-related vocabulary. The French, Italians, Spanish, Germans, English, and Poles did it, and it worked; we now have our modern Colleges and Universities.

For instance, one could simply translate the Nitrogen Cycle into Siklo de Nitrogen, Siklo sg Nitrogen (Hiligaynon Visayan), Siklo ka Nitrogen (Karay-a Visayan), Siklo sa Nitrogen (Cebuano Visayan), or even just use the term Nitrogen Cycle as it is. The Latin derived ‘Siklo’ is retained.

One could also simply use the English language (which already has incorporated Greco-Latin terms) as the medium for teaching the physical and social science subjects. The Universities did use Latin for hundreds of years. The scientists of the 16th to early 20th century who essentially gave us modern science and technology were all educated in Latin, and mostly wrote in Latin. None of them insisted on using say German or Italian in their works, even if they were German or Italian. The proof of the efficaciousness of their education is all around us; all our modern sciences and technologies are derived from their works. The Tagalistas who insist that we have to teach our Sciences in Filipino-Tagalog in order for us to develop good scientists are propagating an ideological lie that is idiotizing our youth.

In my opinion, these are the serious problems with the BLLM.

1.In some areas, the tone to my mind is condescending, as though the recipient ethnic people are ‘primitives’ who need to be taught the proper things in life by their superiors in the government.

2.The tone does not respect the diversity of our ethnolinguistic peoples, or even places our diversity in a bad light. This should be corrected. It must be remembered that the Philippines is signatory to UN resolutions that say we should respect the identities of our ethnolinguistic peoples.

3.As is clear in the above example, there are serious errors in the contents itself of the learning material.

In my opinion, the fundamental problem of the above problems is the Tagalog Nationalism of Tagalistas. Among others, this ideology presupposes that one has to be a good Tagalog in order to be a good Filipino.

IDEOLOGICAL

Since the problem is ideological, it becomes attitudinal. It creates an attitude that tries to erase all words that are perceived to be English in origin and replace them with Tagalog. This is quite silly if only because the English themselves probably thought it was silly too, for they adopted Greco-Latin terms wholesale into the English language; and so what deluded Tagalistas are really erasing are Greco-Latin terms that have been accepted internationally by learned people for hundreds of years.

I even suspect that Tagalista educators are not really interested in making our youth learned, but in transforming them into good Tagalogs. Consequently, there is a lack of interest in the accuracy of the contents of learning materials. Why strive for excellence in the contents if what we are really interested in is teaching all Filipino children Tagalog? Learning is secondary; be a good ‘Filipino’ (AKA Tagalog speaker) first. Thus, there is a propagation of teaching materials whose contents are full of errors; that tend to intellectually bankrupt our youth, or actually teach them outright errors.