CULTURAL ILLITERACY

- Timothy R. Montes

During the first week of classes, I decided to give a General Knowledge Test to three sections of
my English 25 classes (The Research Paper). Although the test was not designed to be an
empirical research to determine the students’ level of cultural literacy, I had been prompted to
administer it when I read an article by a college teacher who, after years of teaching, suddenly
realized when he gave such a test that he was culturally alienated from his students. He had
reasons to be frustrated by his students’ diminishing grasp of classical ideas.

Although I was earnest in giving the 80-item test, I ended up more amused than frustrated
with my students’ answers. Given certain cultural artifacts, each students was asked to “say a
few words” about them. Here are some of their answers.

PEOPLE. Adolf Hitler is a brave man in Russia. Crisostomo Ibarra was the husband of Gabriela
Silang. David Hibbard donated Hibbard Hall. The Palance Awards is a reward given for best
actors or actresses in U.S. Claro M. Recto is the husband of Vilma Santos. Barbara Streisand
wrote hundreds of novels. Albert Einstein discovered the lightning rod. Abu Sayyaf is a
communist. Karl Marx was the leader in China. Jose Ma. Sison is the host in Kapag May
Katarungan, Ipaglaban Mo. Michelangelo is one of the Ninja Turtles. Charles Darwin contributed
some theories in Chemistry. Nick Joaquin is a foreign actor. Vincent van Gogh was a musician
during classicle times. Isaac Newton was the first man who say atom is round and spherical.
Manoling Morato is an actor. Mozart is a scientist who studies Chemistry. Sigmund Freud, on the
other hand, was a great composer. Edilberto Tiempo is the owner of Tiempo (Tempo?) Magazine.
Margarita Go Sinco-Holmes is the wife of Rolito Go.

GEOGRAPHY. The Philippines is composed of 750 islands. Mayon Volcano can be found in the
National Capital Region. About half of the students thought that Basilan island is in Luzon. The
capital of Malaysia is Myanmar. Palawan is the biggest island in the Philippines. Nile River is in
China; Leningrad is in Germany; Bogota is in Belgium; Rome is in Greece; and Paris is in
England.

And so on and so forth. The list of quiz bowl errors is rather long.

I don’t know how to transform the result into a statistical index showing the deterioration of
student knowledge. But even if one considers the thread that links history to abstract concepts
like “values” and “civics” which the youth ought to possess, I have reason to be disturbed by the
fact that more than half of the students didn’t know what year the Philippine Revolution was. (In
this regard, the Centennial Commission has a lot of educating to do before the majority of the
country’s population, the “hope of the Fatherland,” will be able to fully understand what
patriotism in the Philippine context is. In the realm of civic consciousness and Philippine
sociology, students may actually have a hard time discerning the implications of the conflict
between Cardinal Sin and Juan Flavier because most students don’t know the population size of
the country. Their answers range from 1.5 million (no qualms about begetting more children) to
600 million (Help! I’ve got no place to stand on!) Only a few hit the 65-70 million range.

It is true that ignorance of culture is not criminally liable nor is awareness of it necessary for
survival despite the usual reasons often cited for its necessity, shibboleths like “technological
competitiveness” and “globalization of culture.” I am usually suspicious of those cliché and trite
ideas.

However, the university setting, just for the sake of knowledge, I still insist that students in college
should at least have a broad grasp of vital ideas involved in the different academic disciplines.
University education is supposed to be an experience of students being exposed to a
forum of ideas, and in the intellectual marketplace the currency we use for this exchange
are cultural artifacts. How can teacher be able to engage in critical exchange ideas when
student lack the intellectual vocabulary for such a discussion? In many cases, teachers
don’t even have a pretense towards intellectualism and reduce classroom discussion to chismis.

Much has been said about inadequate training in high school resulting in a generation of students
unprepared for the intellectual demands of college. (Often, the substantive element of education
is overshadowed by mere socialization.) But the students who took the test were mostly in the
sophomore and junior years and had presumably been exposed to the general education
program of the university. The blame-high-school argument cannot be invoked here. How can I
possibly expect the average student, who leaves half of the test items unanswered, to go into
research, that nitty-gritty compiling of details in order to push the frontier of knowledge, when he
or she does not even possess the basic knowledge in the different academic disciplines? (In this
connection, I’d like to ask: whatever happened to that proposed revision of the general education
program of the university?)

I believe that classes to whom I gave the cultural literacy test are representative classes of this
university, and the complaints I now express are also the usual complaints of the most teachers
regarding that deterioration of education. I am, therefore, positing some recommendations
which, when implemented, may stop us from glibly talking about “quality education” and
“academic excellence.”

First, it is high time for the university to be selective in the recruitment and retention of students.
If Silliman has to retain its status as a “center of excellence,” it has to insist on high intellectual
standards from its students. Grade inflation, satisfaction with mediocrity, and lackluster
teaching has aggravated the situation of the school getting more than its usual share of
rotten apples. Prophetically, I can see a slide from “cultural illiteracy” to “functional
illiteracy” in the college level if this trend continues. (A student, for example, correctly
indentified Raul Roco and Enrile as a senetor while another hit it right by saying Michelangelo
was a paintor. How did they get past the spelling quiz in English 11? Beats me.)

Second, teachers, to avoid feeling like dinosaurs caged in a Jurassic Park, should be aware that
the X generation’s culture has already shifted to a postmodern one, and that there are attendant
challenges that go with negotiating the two cultures. The classical/modern culture most
teachers stand on, if it has to be understood and appreciated by the students, should be
bridged by the teacher who also has the responsibility of understanding the students’
culture. Many teachers act like hated dorm managers who consider the “generation gap” as an
excuse for the hostility with young residents. How will you teach Mozart’s or Bach’s music when
the only music he knows is that of Eraserheads’? The answer is challenge. (Incidentally, students
were consistent in getting the right answers to pop questions. Everyone knew Eraserheads, as
well as the new husband of Sharon Cuneta, Kiko Pangilinan.) Why not teach Film Appreciation
(a medium young students are more familiar with) instead of exclusively confining ourselves to
High Literature? (Who reads Shakespeare? Instead of Homer, Marlowe, and Matthew Arnold,
why not Scorsese, Copolla, Spielberg, and Bernal?)

Third, we teachers should not presume that students know the systems of ideas and
paradigms we swim in academically. The ordinary student pretends he or she knows until
caught ignorant in an A,B,C test.

There is no finger-pointing involved here as to where the fault or deficiency lies. Bad teachers
make bad students. However, according to my teacher in poetry, even a brilliant teacher “can’t
make hair grow on a billiard ball.”