Confederacy of Dunces
On Monday, July 9, there appeared in the Inquirer a full-page ad with this arresting headline: “Titi: Ari Ng Lalaki”, and under it the Boratian subhead, “Learnings for make benefit glorious nation of Philippines.” It was taken out by Antonio Calipjo Go, an academic supervisor at a school in QC, and it details actual errors found in Philippine public school textbooks. I am not acquainted with the author of the piece, I don’t know what his motives are (A full-page ad in the Inquirer is not cheap), and I don’t buy the self-comparison with Galileo, but the errors he cites are real and in print.
If you have not seen the ad, I strongly urge you to look it up. I have been dining out on it for the last couple of days. Reading the text aloud has brought great joy to my friends; unfortunately this is immediately followed by despair and fury, as they realize what Filipino schoolchildren are learning these days. It looks like a conspiracy to make Pinoy kids bonga (bobo na, tanga pa).
Mr. Go decries the appearance of the words “titi” and “titatita” in a textbook for grade 5 pupils. I have no problem with 10-year-olds knowing what “titi” is—half of them have it, and the other half will be aware of its existence soon enough, but I wonder what “titatita” (pimp) is doing there. Is it a presented as a potential career path?
A sampling of errors in textbooks approved by the Department of Education:
1. “Walang ulap kung umaga. Nasinghot na ng lumalaking populasyon.”
2. “Many Filipino men and women have brains.” (I suspect a literal translation of “mautak”.)
3. “He seemed to be waiting for someone, not a blood relation, much less a bad blood.”
4. “People are not made to float like a bird.”
5. “Seeing a rainbow in the sky is like a dream that disappears that’s why a child wants it painted permanently in the sky.”
6. “As the campers trek through the trail at the rainboat they’ll stop now and then. They had huffs and puffs.”
7. “The chicken was dressed. They stripped off her feathers, served her quite bare and everyone poked at her breast.”
8. “God’s footsteps bulged the mountains up. God like morning bending over her baby kneeled down in the dust.”
9. “On Basilio’s skull, fire nicked. The tiny fire had a blow, huge and quick. He touched the fire on his skull. Past all that is beyond, he runs.”
10. “Si Pres. Garcia ay kumita ng unang liwanag sa Talibon, Bohol.”
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
July 14th, 2007 at 21:20
But you forgot the best of ’em all:
Shoo: To drive away by saying “shoo.”
July 14th, 2007 at 22:44
Either we centralize the production and distribution of textbooks (for tighter quality control) or abandon English as a medium of instruction and let teachers and textbook writers use a language they are more comfortable with. The latter will take care of #2 to #10. As for #1, i think Al Gore, if he knew Tagalog, would agree.
July 16th, 2007 at 20:13
And it’s not just books. Some private, catholic school teachers are also whackos. My friend’s social studies teacher in HIGH SCHOOL told the class a weird explanation why Imelda’s Film Center collapsed.
According to this teacher (sadly, this story is true), the real story behind the collapse goes something like this:
“When the FIlm Center was erected, it destroyed homes of mermaids. Angered by this, the Queen told her minions to go to the ‘Syokoy’ King in Siberia. Appalled by what he heard, the King sent his minions to Manila, to help the mermaids with their revenge. In Manila, the syokoys and the mermaids gathered to destroy the Film Center. Using all their strength, these sea creatures shook the underwater foundation of the building, until the whole thing collapsed.”
July 17th, 2007 at 10:05
Recycling textbooks are a regular occurrence in schools in Australia. However, since I don’t see private schools agreeing to passing on text books to the next batch, why not donate those to public schools? Those would be better than what public schools currently have, right?
July 17th, 2007 at 21:44
So sad but true… my sister is studying in a private school and her English teacher once said “Are you agree?”… and her Social Studies teacher would always say “(something) is came from (something else)”.
It’s not just students in public school who suffer from this kind of thing, but even those in the so-called exclusive and private schools.
July 17th, 2007 at 23:35
When I saw this entry- I looked for the newspaper right away.
The article really fried my brain.
I plan to post on a website other examples.
Thanks for posting this.
-She cries with joy and in that joy dies.
ANO DAW??
July 20th, 2007 at 19:50
i watched it on the news.. i saw footages of the errors in the books… i saw the “Titi: ari ng lalaki”. i’m fine by it being printed there. what do you expect them to call it? here are some of the kanto words regarding the Titi:
1. etits.
2. tutuy
3. ahas
4. sawah[python]
5. talong
6. sitaw [?]
7. nota [note]
8. batuta
9. junior
10. bogart
11. rupert
ant the list would go on and on containing everything that is long and stiff.
what caught my curiosity is the “dyug, dyug, dyug” printed on one of the erroneous books. if you know what that means, please tell me.
July 21st, 2007 at 13:23
It’s a shame, really, to see grave errors like these in our children’s books. They must be reviewed, edited, and corrected by the persons capable of doing so.