Irish Katherine K.

Belotendos
GE 9 – Life and Works of Rizal
Section AC
Assignment No. 3
1. Describe the early education of our national hero characterized by the four R’s.
Rizal had his early education in Calamba and Biñan. It was a typical schooling
that a son of an ilustrado family received during his time, characterized by the four R’s-
reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion. Instruction was rigid and strict. Knowledge was
forced into the minds of the pupils by means of the tedious memory method aided by the
teacher’s whip.
2. Identify the first hero’s teacher as well as his private tutors.
The first teacher of Rizal was his mother, Doña Teodora, who was a remarkable
woman of good character and fine culture. As tutor, Doña Teodora was patient,
conscientious, and understanding. As Jose grew older, his parents employed private tutors
to give him lessons at home. The first was Maestro Celestino and the second, Maestro
Lucas Padua. Later, an old man named Leon Monroy, a former classmate of Rizal’s
father, became the boy’s tutor. This old teacher lived at the Rizal home and instructed
Jose in Spanish and Latin. Unfortunately, he did not lived long. He died five months
later. After the death of Monroy, the hero’s parents decided to send their gifted son to a
private school in Biñan.
3. Describe Jose Rizal’s student life in Biñan.
Jose did not like his experience in Biñan under his teacher Maestro Justiniano
Aquino Cruz who never forgot to whip him or punish him with blows in an open palm
even when he was good in class. In the afternoon of his first day in school, when the
teacher was having his siesta, Jose met the bully, Pedro. He was angry at this bully for
making fun of him during his conversation with the teacher in the morning. Jose
challenged Pedro to a fight. The latter readily accepted, thinking that he could easily beat
the Calamba boy who was smaller and younger. The two boys wrestled furiously in the
classroom, much to the glee of their classmates. Jose, having learned the art of wrestling
from his athletic Tio Manuel, defeated the bigger boy. For this feat, he became popular
among his classmates. After the class in the afternoon, a classmate named Andres
Salandanan challenged him to an arm-wrestling match. They went to a sidewalk of a
house and wrestled with their arms. Jose, having the weaker arm, lost and nearly cracked
his head on the sidewalk. In succeeding days he had other fights with the boys of Biñan.
He was not quarrelsome by nature, but he never ran away from a fight.
In academic studies, Jose beat all Biñan boys. He surpassed them all in Spanish,
Latin, and other subjects. Some of his older classmates were jealous of his intellectual
superiority. They wickedly squealed to the teacher whenever Jose had a fight outside the
 school, and even told lies to discredit him before the teacher’s eyes. Consequently the
teacher had to punish Jose. 
4. State the importance of his early education and how it molded him in an early stage
for being our national hero.
Rizal`s early taste of education was surrounded by people who possessed different
skills and talents which were selflessly shared to him. His first teacher, his mother
together with his uncles, and brother first molded him to become the person he is known
today. Rizal’s concept of the importance of education is clearly articulated in his work
entitled Instruction wherein he sought improvements in the schools and in the methods of
teaching. He maintained that the backwardness of his country during the Spanish era was
not due to the Filipinos’ indifference, apathy or indolence as claimed by the rulers, but to
the neglect of the Spanish authorities in the islands. For Rizal, the mission of education is
to elevate the country to the highest seat of glory and to develop the people’s mentality.
Since education is the foundation of society and a prerequisite for social progress, Rizal
claimed that only through education could the country be saved from domination. Rizal’s
philosophy of education, therefore, centers on the provision of proper motivation in order
to bolster the great social forces that make education a success, to create in the youth an
innate desire to cultivate his intelligence and give him life eternal.
5. How the Martyrdom of GOMBURZA and the injustice to his mother affected him
at a very young age.
During the Spanish Regime, the 3 martyrs were part of the movement to
secularize the clergy in the country. When they were executed on the offense of
subversion, Dr. Jose Rizal felt the passion and desire to implement reforms and attain
equality for the Filipino people. The martyrdom of GOMBURZA in 1872 truly inspired
Rizal to fight the evils of Spanish tyranny and redeem his oppressed people. With the
injustices he had witnessed, he felt the need to avenge the death of those who sacrificed
their lives for reform. He decided that it would be possible for him to do this by way of
writing. In 1891, Rizal dedicated his second novel, El Filibusterismo, to GOMBURZA.
The death of the GOMBURZA gave birth to the Propaganda Movement. This is a group
of Filipino scholars who have settled in Europe. It was led by Dr. Jose Rizal. He knew
that thru his written works, he can help push reforms. In the course of the imprisonment
of her mother, Jose Rizal experienced the injustice of the Spanish authorities. This event
in his life was inculcated in his mind and opened his eyes to reality and dreamed to have
equality between Filipinos and Spaniards before the law.