“THE OLD NEW CRITICAL”: A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW ON KRITIKA, NEOLIBERAL EDUCATION, AND PHILIPPINE K TO 12 CURRICULA IN 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FOR SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51453/2354-1431/2022/860Keywords:
Philippine Kritika, humanities education, crisis, 21st century literatureAbstract
This article reflects on literary and humanities education in the current Philippine K to 12 senior high school literature curricula, through tracing the position of Philippine literary theory and criticism, or Kritika, in its objectives. It seeks to problematize whether its presence or absence is symptomatic to the “disastrous neoliberal” architecture of contemporary Philippine humanities education. While this study relates the literature subject to Martha Nussbaum’s claim that “the imaginative, creative aspect, and the aspect of rigorous critical thought” are indeed “losing ground as nations prefer to pursue short-term profit and skills suited to profit-making”, this paper also locates her idea through Constantino’s “miseducation of Filipino people” with the aim of decolonizing from the educational ethos that was never intended to promote democracy, freedom, and equality. Toward that objective, locating Philippine Kritika in the literature education is essential since it speaks to Isagani R. Cruz’s concept of “the other Other of Western literary theory”, which describes the education that Filipinos have inherited as impoverished because of its “ignorance of half of the world’s literary texts and theories.” The poverty it brought via colonialist hegemony is “unconsciously shared by Philippine literary thought” as evidenced by New Criticism being “the ruling paradigm in Philippine literary circles today” despite the emergence of newer critics and recent positions in Philippine postcolonial studies.
Downloads
References
References
/[1]. Aguilar, K. (2020, August 14). DepEd moves opening of classes to October 5. Retrieved from https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1321659/deped-opening-of-classes-in-public-schools-moved-to-october-5
/[2]. Baruchello, G. (2012, February 27). Book review. [Review of the book Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities, by M. Nussbaum]. The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms, 17(1). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2011.640881
/[3]. Bayot, D. J. (1996a). A portrait of an undeconstructed Filipino deconstructionist in the land of the other other or travels through Isagani R. Cruz’s Kritika, 1984-1995. In D. J. Bayot (Ed.), The Alfredo E. Litiatco Lectures of Isagani R. Cruz. DLSU Press.
/[4]. Bayot, D. J. (1996b). Isagani R. Cruz and the other other intervention in Philippine kritika. The Mandarin Edition.
/[5]. Bayot, D. J. (Ed.) (2010). Isagani R. Cruz, the critical-in-difference, and the other other. In I. R. Cruz (2010), The other other. Far Eastern University.
/[6]. COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic. (2020, August 17). Retrieved from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/philippines/
/[7]. Constantino, R. (1970). The miseducation of the Filipino. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1(1). Retrieved from https://eaop.ucsd.edu/198/group-identity/THE%20MISEDUCATION%20OF%20THE%20FILIPINO.pdf
/[8]. Cruz, I. R. (1996). The discourse of people power. In I. R. Cruz (2010), The other other. Far Eastern University.
/[9]. Cruz, I. R. (1996). The other other: Towards a post-colonial poetics. In Bayot, D. J. (Ed.), The Alfredo E. Litiatco Lectures of Isagani R. Cruz. DLSU Press.
/[10]. Cruz, I. R. (2003). Deconstructing English as a language for Philippine theory. In D. J. Bayot (2003). Bukod na bukod: Mga piling sanaysay. UP Press.
/[11]. Culler, J. (1997). Literary theory: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
/[12]. De Chavez, J. & Varadharajan, A. (2019). “Been down so long it looks like up to me”: Rethinking the humanities (in times of) crisis. Critical Arts. https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2019.1665693
/[13]. Goh, J. M., & Samarita, R. C. (2018). Hindi pa rin nga ba uso ang hindi na uso? Ang kritika sa panahon ng K-12. [Abstract]. Proceedings from the 2018 LSP-NCGM: Promoting Linguistic Diversity in Teaching, Learning, and Research.
/[14]. Lichauco, A. (2005). Hunger, corruption, and betrayal: A primer on U.S. neocolonialism and the Philippines crisis. Citizens’ Committee on the National Crisis.
/[15]. Magsambol, B. (2020, July 21). Philippines' COVID-19 cases breach 70,000. Retrieved from https://rappler.com/nation/coronavirus-cases-philippines-july-21-2020
/[16]. Malipot, M. (2020, July 9). Briones: Decision on face-to-face classes up to the President. Retrieved from https://mb.com.ph/2020/07/09/briones-decision-on-face-to-face-classes-up-to-the-president/
/[17]. Nussbaum, M. (2010). Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities. Princeton University Press.
/[18]. Ordoñez, E. (Ed.). (1996). Nationalist literature: A centennial forum. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.
/[19]. Preston, A. (2015, March 29). The War Against the Humanities at Britain’s Universities. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/29/war-against-humanities-at-britains-universities.
/[20]. Ranciere, J. (1991). Ignorant schoolmaster: Five lessons in intellectual emancipation (K. Ross, Trans.). Stanford University Press.
/[21]. Ranciere, J. (2004). The politics of aesthetics: The distribution of the sensible (G. Rockhill, Trans.). Continuum.
/[22]. Ronda, R. (2020, August 11). No stopping August 24 opening of classes. Retrieved from https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/08/11/2034377/no-stopping-august-24-opening-classes
/[23]. San Juan, D. M. (2016). Neoliberal restructuring of education in the Philippines: Dependency, labor, privatization, critical pedagogy, and the k to 12 system. Asia-Pacific Social Science Review, 16(1), 80-110. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320558212_Neoliberal_Restructuring_of_ Education_in_the_Philippines_Dependency_Labor_Privatization_Critical_Pedagogy_and_the_K_to_12_System
/[24]. Spivak, G.C. (2012). An aesthetic education in the era of globalization. Harvard University Press.
/[25]. Southeast Asia Covid-19 Tracker. (2020, August 17). Retrieved from https://www.csis.org/programs/southeast-asia-program/southeast-asia-covid-19-tracker-0
/[26]. Tomacruz, S. (2020, May 26). 'Bakuna muna': Duterte rejects August opening of classes. Retrieved from https://rappler.com/nation/duterte-rejects-august-opening-classes
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
All articles published in SJTTU are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA) license. This means anyone is free to copy, transform, or redistribute articles for any lawful purpose in any medium, provided they give appropriate attribution to the original author(s) and SJTTU, link to the license, indicate if changes were made, and redistribute any derivative work under the same license.
Copyright on articles is retained by the respective author(s), without restrictions. A non-exclusive license is granted to SJTTU to publish the article and identify itself as its original publisher, along with the commercial right to include the article in a hardcopy issue for sale to libraries and individuals.
Although the conditions of the CC BY-SA license don't apply to authors (as the copyright holder of your article, you have no restrictions on your rights), by submitting to SJTTU, authors recognize the rights of readers, and must grant any third party the right to use their article to the extent provided by the license.
