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Wednesday, October 1, 2008

WHY LEARN FILIPINO?

There are 10 million Filipinos abroad and their remittances keep the Philippine economy afloat. In their host countries, these overseas Filipinos use mostly English as their medium of communication with the local peoples. Clearly, Filipinos must excel in English and we must push for excellence in this language in the Philippines.

In the movie, Forest Gump took to running and many people suddenly saw great meaning in the act. They started running with him to find meaning in their lives. Suddenly Forest Gump (Tom Hanks) lost interest in running, and the people were left hanging and lost.

Rizal believed that he who forgets his native tongue is like rotten fish. Many people in this site take this statement seriously. But, meanwhile Rizal was living life most fully in Europe without his native tongue. Even his Last Farewell was purely in foreign words. Yet we would fully understand Rizal whether in Russian or Chinese.

It is not true that we become rotten fish by forgetting a native tongue. Rizal was likely in a rotten mood when he made this rotten offhand remark that today's Rizalists must discard like rotten fish. Rizal was not infallible.

But, it is true that people in any locality will communicate in their native tongue. No matter how hard English, Tagalog, or Taglish will be pushed, the people in Bicol will still talk to one another in Bicolano while those in Ilocandia will do so in Ilocano. Yet, English is the needed medium for survival of Filipinos as a nation and economy in the modern world.

Thus, as a matter of practical economics, it is best to promote English as the medium of instruction in the Philippines while also teaching grammar in the the local dialect in elementary school.

First economics jutification for this proposal: English language materials are readily available to teach, including used textbooks as hand-me-downs from America--if we organize this process.

Second economics reason is my belief is that excellence in local grammar will be most easy to acquire, and that strong knowledge of the local grammar sructure will facilitate the teaching and mastery of English and its grammatical idiosyncracies.

Imagine the fun kids will have comparing the local grammatical rules with English rules. Their brains will become more sophisticated, more analytical faster, understanding distinctions and differences and comparisons and contrasts earlier in their lives than now.

And we need those sophisticated, globalized brains in the Philippines for our economic survival.

The distinctions we learn early at the structure of languages can be used in math and science as we differentiate the structures of algebra versus calculus, or the structures of DNA vs. RNA, or the structures of Tiger economies versus Third World,or the structures of organic carbon compounds versus crystalline compounds, or the structures of classical music versus rock.

Everything is a matter of differences in structure. Since a child age 2 to 5 is bombarded early by TV and radio in various languages--English, Tagalog and the local language--nothing could be more interesting for a child to learn than the differences in structure among these languages. So, let us get on with shaping their minds early at structures, starting with languages during elementary school.

Summary Proposal #1 (3-Part Proposal): let the educational system be what it was during the 1930s, 50s, 60s but with this change:

1. Teach the local language and grammar to kids all through elementary school!

2. Start teaching English and Tagalog in 3rd grade all through elementary school.

3. Let Tagalog, English and the local language become electives starting in high school. Each student must choose one language track to run on for the rest of high school. My suspicion is that English will get most chosen.

Summary Proposal #2

Stop this discussion on language. Start discussing how we may use Rizal's life in Dapitan as an enginner, global trader, farmer, teacher, school builder as the foundation for building a Philippine Tiger economy to earn the funds to implement the Summary Propsal #1 above.

We must start thinking and writing and investing productively within RP-Rizal.

Everyone here is just a woodpecker pecking at their keyboards but acheving nothing meaningful.

Meanwhile the hordes of Genghis Khan, Bill Gates, Deng Xiao Ping, Warren Buffet, Li Kashing and Lee Kwan Yu are running away with all the global prizes at engineering, scholastic excellence, business, biotech, surgery, medicine, philosophy, music, military power, space power, etc. We are stagnating at this Rizal site not grappling with the modern world in the way that Rizal likely would, if alive today. He would be a Rizal in Dapitan, not the writer of Noli Me Tangere or El Filibusterismo or the author of rotten fish bagoong remarks.

Let 10,000 flower bloom. Let 10,000 competing proposals for faster Filipino Rizalist progress be aired in this yahoo site. Let us find the actions ways to the future (investments, etc.) most efficiently, guided by Rizal's actions in Dapitan.

Norman Madrid
Proud to be a Filipino Tiger in New York

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