“UNLEARNING WHAT I HAVE LEARNED”
A Reflection Paper In Renato Constantino's Article
Recalling the Past: An Introspection
When I was in elementary, in meeting the greatest heroes through a poster, i wonder why we should study their lives, I wonder why we should give them an hour of discussion or lecture, why should we print their faces on posters and stick these posters in every corner of every classroom, why should we give them our time to read and time to reflect in their so-called “great deeds”.
I cannot, with all honesty, blame myself to be subjective in times when I need to be objective because human beings are considered to be both rational and emotional beings. it is fine when the rational attribute coincides with thew emotional one, otherwise, problem will arise ( Ugh, as much as I wanted to express more of myself I can't because I need to be true(that would mean I would have to be objective) in what I write, unless this is creative writing that anybody could be in the story, that anyplace could be the setting, that any situation could be the story.
I wish I wish
I wished to have taken my Rizal subject this semester so that I can greatly relate with the particular situations or settings that Constantino is talking about in his text; I wished to have read this article during my elementary and secondary days so that I can ask my teachers about their point of view regarding the apple of discord; I wished to go back in the past during Rizal's existence and ask him what he mean about the difference between independence and liberty and why he wanted the Philippines to be a province of Spain and why not an independent state!Like Constantino I cannot go back in the future, limited are the things that we could do with it, we can rewrite it the way we could but it should be written the way it should have been! I cannot go back in the time when Rizal was born, when he wrote Noli Me Tangere, when he joined the propaganda movement and when he was shot. the manner of his death is comparable with Jesus's death. Jesus's death was the reason for discovering his journey and role as the begotten son of God and the messiah (this is what the Bible says); Rizal was shot dead in one afternoon and his manner of death made way to his martyrdom and made him the best choice of the Americans to be the National hero of the Philippines.
A Da Vinci Code experience
I was not yet in the middle of reading the whole text, a memory of a scene in Da Vinci Code flashed came across the streams of my thought. Smiling on my own, I stood up and stretched my arms then made my mind to get into reading the text again and realized why the thought of such made possible.
All the while I thoght that the author wanted to put rizal a sour National hero and made me conclude that this text is like the movie written by Brown, the D Vinci Code. If your faith with Christ or knowledge about Christ is not that profound you willreally think for days or weeks or even months(just like what happened to a friend of mine) about the numerous twisted concepts about him in the story. Because I conditioned myself to stick to what my family told me about Christ, stick to what my religion taught me, I never went wrong. I also did the same with the given selection but this time I think I missed to see the forest among the trees!
I think All He Want Is To...
Towards the end of the text i realized that Constantino just wanted students as well as teachers of history to reevaluate Rizal's life work and writings, to weigh his positive as well as negative attributes equally equating to the idea that we should correct the way we learn history that we need to learn from Rizal's mistakes and weaknesses the way we learn from his success and glories.
Eureka!
I realized that I should be open with the things that somebody would try to convey in his or her own point of view for a particular matter or topic. To be a good and effective teacher , one must promote a welcoming atmosphere for students' suggestion and I found out that I need to learn more of this as a hoping soon-to-be-teacher.
