September 16,2016

EDFD 203
REACTION PAPER
in
TEACHING ELEMENTARY STUDENTS HOW TO INTERPRET THE PAST BY GARY
FERTIG

Recently, the Official Gazette, the official journal of the Philippine government, was
criticized following a Facebook post commemorating the 99th birth anniversary of former
president Ferdinand Marcos.
The caption posted on Facebook read: Marcos was the first post-independence president
to be re-elected in 1969. In 1972, he declared martial law to suppress a communist insurgency
and secessionism in Mindanao. In 1986, Marcos stepped down from the presidency to avoid
bloodshed during the uprising that came to be known as People Power.
This caption quickly drew fire from netizens, who accused the Official Gazette of
historical revisionism pointing out that it whitewashed the crimes of atrocities, human rights
abuses, and stealing of public funds committed during his regime.
This is not the first time that the Marcos era brought confusion among the people,
especially to the millenials.
During the height of former senator Bongbong Marcos vice presidential campaign, the
group group Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacaang or CARMMA made
an experimental video.
The video showed voters aged 19 to 22 being interviewed by older people. They were all
asked what they think of Martial law. Most of them were in favor of the declaration of Martial

law citing that people were disciplined and followed the law, as well as curfews. Others also
regarded the different infrastructure project and strong economy of the country during Marcos
reign.
Then they reach the point where the interviewers revealed themselves as martial law
victims. People who were tortured, jailed and even raped.
In the video, you will see that the clueless millenials become emotional to the point of
embracing and apologizing to some of the victims for their lack of knowledge regarding one of
the nations darkest moment. According to Carmma, the true stories of martial law are not being
taught in schools. Hopefully, though this video campaign, they encourage people to sign a
petition to rewrite the country's history books and include the horrific stories experienced by
martial law victims. To date, the video has gained 3.1 million views and 88,000 shares.
But who should we make accoutnable for such misconception or information? Perhaps, it
is because our education system has no standard way of teaching martial law with regard to its
actuality and aftermath. Seemingly, martial law has actually become a Marcos-Aquino rivalry
that devided educators, historians, social activists, human rights advocates and lawmakers.
In 2012, former Department of Education secretary Armin Luistro, proposed new
directions in teaching the martial law era. He stated that students should not be told straight out
that martial law was good or bad, they must make that decision for themselves.
What they are trying to do in this new method is to get away from the current textbookbased approach to prevent students to imbibe the biases of whoever authored the book. Rather,
students will be taught the facts about when, how and why Marcos proclaimed martial law. This
will include historical realities, the programs he implemented during the period, and the

opposition to his rule. In addition to this, they will be asked to look at other sources where they
can get more information. Afterwhich they are to reflect about how all the events have shaped
their lives and communities allowing the students to make their own conclusions about martial
law based on what they have read and researched even beyond the textbooks.
In Gary Fertigs paper, he positted that history was taught, at least for the elementary
students, as a inventories of people, events, and dates that students are ought to memorize. It has
diminished history into a mere memorization of bits of facts and data of the past. This is very
critical as students wil lbe discourage to wuestion the facts and diving deeper into the
significance of such not only then but also to the present and future.
This however can be straightened out by engaging the students in a process of disciplined
inquiry. Such process can help the teacher gage where students are in terms of a specific
historical event. This is similar to what DEPED was proposing where they would let students
select relevant sources beyond that of which the text book can provide. From here students are
encouraged to question and investigate allowing them to make their own judgments about the
martial law. They can start off with knowing how martial law started and how it impacted the
country. From here, they can better understand the cause and effect of such declaration not only
to the Philippines as a whole but down to every individual lives. This is relevant in orde to
understand why even until now, there is a great opposition or dislike over the Marcoses. As
Fertig stated, such investigation of causality can help students interpret the past as a relevant
factor for lingering issues in the society.
History is not just the story of the past. It is not a record of past events. Rather it is a form
of inquiry that helps us construct an understanding of our own lives in time as individuals and as

a group. As such students are hones to determine the validity and credibility of evidence in order
to analyze and to construct and reconstruct narratives about people, events and ideas of the past
rather than just seeing it as a timeline of events.
Martial law will forever be a relevant time period as it heavily shaped what has become
of our country today. As future teachers, we are responsible for how the next generations will
understand this part of our history. They say that in order to see the future, we must not forget
our past. Indeed it is true, but we should not only not forget it, we must also learn from it.