CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Total Recall: Lesson Plans incorporating Martial Law texts
Marcos-Duterte’s joint chokehold on power, beginning the 50th year since the declaration of Martial Law, is an ultimate indicator of the longstanding plight of Philippine education. Currently it is right at the threshold of being totally fragmented, decontextualized, uncritical, and ahistorical, conveniently overshadowed by more accessible yet algorithm-controlled information platforms like social media, where truth and lies have become almost indistinguishable.
Years of research and various cultural efforts by people’s movements proving the excesses and atrocities of Marcos-Duterte dynasties are now being watered down into mere hearsay, fabrication, a family rivalry at best. Martial Law and Drug War statistics could even be mythicized in the coming years with Duterte as Education Secretary.
But how has it come to this? Fashioned by a massive and cunning campaign to deodorize, distort, and discredit history, Marcos-Duterte securing the two highest seats came out from efforts that specifically target education, media, culture, and the arts. Philippine History has been relegated to the elementary level under K-12; progressive books were red-tagged and purged from libraries; bookstores were defaced; critical media are being put off air and offline, as they are all getting altered with narratives that favor the incumbent power and belie people’s struggles. Vulnerability to these conditions is made possible by the compromised process of teaching-learning that has become highly reliant on virtuality amidst the pandemic.
Even globally, the field of culture and the arts are being both sidelined and weaponized as least priority is given to social sciences and humanities, which possibly explains the reigning popularity of authoritarian leaders in many parts of the world.
An education crisis clearly exists and it primarily calls on educators to heed the urgency of co-historicizing in their respective classrooms via lessons that incorporate texts essential to collective memory.
In this call, with the primary objective of contributing to the existing and growing efforts to combat disinformation and historical distortion, Filipino educators teaching any subject in any grade level are enjoined to submit a LESSON PLAN, written in English or in Filipino, that incorporates (a) Martial Law text(s) (e. g. films, books, music, etc.) in its topic/s. Format is upon the teacher’s discretion but the following parts are expected: Subject, Grade Level, Objectives, Topic, References, Materials, Motivation, Lesson Proper (e.g. guide questions, activities), Assessment Activities / Tools.
Kindly send it in Word file format, on or before August 14, 2022 to incitinginitiatives@gmail.com with a subject heading that reads: Martial Law — LP in (Subject Level) (e.g. Martial Law — LP in Math 10). This collection will be co-edited by Roma Estrada and Dr. David Michael San Juan
