Soaring
ineptitude
(OR HOW TO SEE WHEN A MESS NEEDS TO BE MOPPED UP)
By
Maryanne Moll
Note: Maryanne Moll is a graduate student of Creative Writing in
the University of the Philippines, Diliman, and the author of two
published books. She is a fellow for fiction both to the
University of Santo Tomas National Writer’s Workshop and the
Dumaguete National Writer’s workshop. She is also a Palanca
awardee.
I arrived in Naga from Manila just last Saturday afternoon,
expecting the usual langor that befalls the city during long
holidays, and I was amused to see that there is an interesting
exchange between Dr. Ramon Caceres — a respected doctor of
Internal Medicine, Endocrinology, and Metabolism in the city — and
the management of the Universidad de Sta. Isabel, run by the
Daughters of Charity since time immemorial, over the issue of a
particular textbook for use by Grade Two students in the school.
I remember that school well. I am a graduate of that school. I
stayed there for four years in high school. We called it Grades
Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten. Coming from a small barrio in the
Partido area, I used to think it was so novel, staying in school
until Grade Ten. So quaintly archaic. So nineteen-thirties. I was
in Grade Seven Obedience, Grade Eight Peace, Grade Nine Obedience,
and Grade Ten Peace. Obedience and Peace: Two virtues the world
cannot do without, but needs to destroy, symbolically, for history
to happen.
I remember it as a strange, strange school. The Daughters of
Charity and their all-female teaching staff believed that every
little thing in the students’ life, such as the length of their
skirts and the length of their nails, interfered with studying.
Even the length of their hair. I was once summoned to the Prefect
of Discipline’s office because I got a crew cut. They probably
believed it interfered with how I understood the difference
between a gerund and a subjunctive, and because of that haircut,
my subjects and verbs will never, ever agree for as long as I
live.
We called the school Colegio. Now it is called USI, because it is
now a University. I was glad when they changed the name. I assumed
that as a University, the school would finally be relaxing their
strict rules on the religion, behavior, and physical appearance,
and would heighten its academic standards and strengthen its
academic qualities by improving its curricula, improving its
teaching staff by hiring only professors with M.A. and Ph.D.
degree holders and allow them to teach only in their area of
specialization, and also by encouraging academic freedom by
allowing activities like the airing out of grievances, and the
ratification of school ordinances, and such things to empower the
students and teach them how to value their growing independence.
Like what the UP does. Like what the Ateneo de Naga University
does.
But alas! The Colegio is a university in name only. Aside from
dictating the length of hair of the students, they now tell the
students what color ribbons they may use for every day of the
week! I assume this is because the Daughters of Charity believes
that color of hair ribbons affects the students’ understanding of
transitivity. It has remained the same as it ever has been.
From what I gather, the management of the Colegio has been alerted
to approximately ___ mistakes in the book Soaring High With
Reading 2, being used by Grade Two students, and these mistakes
are largely due to wrong word usage. The alerting was made by Dr.
Caceres, who was also the one who noticed the mistakes. Of course,
being Colegio, and thus backed by the archangels with swords of
light, they stood by their choice of the book.
Suffice it to say that I have seen these mistakes and they are
soaring indeed. The doctor did not even note the grammatical
mistakes, and there are already legions. The cases of wrong word
usage is, I have to say, funny, such as “wrinkle up” and “boil the
fish.” Add to that the poems with absolutely no proper objective
correlative, which should be present at least in poems for Grade
Two students, if one does not want to twist their consciousness
into something hideous. Furthermore, bad poetry is simply bad
poetry.
The doctor, being concerned with what his daughter learns in
school, then alerted the publisher of the book, Abiva Publishing
House, by sending them a list of the mistakes he had noticed.
Abiva sent back their comments, point by point, all saying no
corrections need to be made, and making their justifications.
(This is unheard of in a good publisher. Even American and British
publishers, the most esteemed of all publishers in the world, do
not mind coming out with second editions of books that have
corrections in them.) And to think that this book in question is
already the Revised Edition! Plus, they said that this book comes
“highly recommended” by the Department of Education.
Strengthened by this response, the Colegio stood proud, unfazed,
and still using the book. Only after the doctor published a series
of articles in the Bicol Mail, discussing this book, did the
Daughters of Charity issue a reply addressed to the same
newspaper, but which they are adamantly refusing to sign,
published in the same newspaper, that they are “not being
complacent,” and with the Sister Principal telling the doctor,
“That is your opinion, doctor.”
“That is your opinion, doctor.” Has the management of the Colegio
degenerated this far for its principal not to be able to know the
difference between opinion and fact anymore? For the doctor has
already gone beyond airing his own opinion. He has taken his time
to pinpoint every mistake in this book and explained why it is a
mistake. This painstaking listing and discussion of every single
empirical mistake in the book is not an airing of opinion, but
statements of fact. And this is also a fact: that the doctor is
enough of a father to be concerned what his daughter learns in
school. Can we all say the same for ourselves as parents? Perhaps
not all parents know their literature as well as the doctor does,
but even if we do not know proper grammar, should we simply close
our eyes to the “wrinkled up” faces of disgust and condemnation
aimed at our children when they construct their own horribly,
horribly wrong sentences? Aren’t we sending them to school so that
they will become better, more capable, more articulate than us and
know and use more correct words than our own pidgin English?
Aren’t our children supposed to be taught what is right? Just as
the Colegio teaches them now what color ribbon to put in their
hair for every day of the week?
I can only sigh. That is just so Colegio. Perfect, virtuous,
virginal, proper, dogmatic, inviolate, unchanging, insulated, and
always, always, always right.
Shakespeare has a word for this: hubris. The “soaring” arrogance
and obstinacy that leads to the downfall of all his great tragic
characters. But if the Colegio would be led to their own downfall
by their own inherent qualities, it would not be a tragedy; it
would be an irony.
If this happened to the Ateneo de Naga University, the management
would be positively aghast. The Jesuits would feel nothing less
than sheer outrage that their halls of learning had been
penetrated by this horrific book, and would waste no time in
correcting the error. But the Colegio is not the Ateneo, so
perhaps we should not use the same high standards for the Colegio.
On the other hand, this is also a hypothetical situation, because
it is highly unlikely that the Ateneo would let this book get past
their own reviewers in the first place, DepEd recommendation
notwithstanding. (My son, an Atenean, has yet to be given a bad
textbook in school.)
The thing is, writing for children is not easy to do. It’s a whole
genre in literature, clearly distinct from Fiction, Creative
Non-Fiction, Essay, and Poetry. Writers actually get degrees like
Ph.D. in Creative Writing, Genre: Writing For Children, just as I
am studying for the degree M.A. in Creative Writing, Genre:
Fiction in English. There are vast volumes worth of theory and
criticism to be read about these different genres. Writing For
Chldren as a genre has an entire tradition that must be studied by
any aspiring writer who wants to write for children. And of
course, over and above all that, the writer must know correct
English grammar, and must have a vast and proper vocabulary at his
disposal.
The writer’s job is mainly to put a name to things. The writer is
concerned with accuracy. The writer can go beyond this in
mainstream creative writing, but NOT for a textbook in Reading for
Grade Two students. If the writer who writes for children makes
his character “mop up the pot,”and also defend his erroneous use
of the phrase, this writer is not only making a fool of himself,
he is also creating, for Grade Two students, a reality that is not
only ungrammatical but implausible as well. One does not “mop up a
pot.” One simply “mops up a mess,” a mess liquid enough to merit
the absorption of a mop, or one can “wipe the pot” or “wipe up the
mess in the pot.” Metaphorically, “mop up” can indeed be used to
mean “to clean up any kind of mess, liquid or non-liquid,” as in
this statement: “Mop up the mess you made when you allowed my
daughter to be taught the wrong grammar, Sister Principal.
Please.” The statement, although grammatically correct, is still
awkward, though, since the correct word to use is “clean” instead
of “mop.” The phrase “mop up” may also be used even when one is
not talking about an actual mop, as in the oft-used phrase “mop
one’s brow” or “mop up the sweat in one’s brow.” The inference is
that something other than a mop is used. One, however, may “mop a
floor,” the word “mop” being synonymous to “clean” when both words
are used as a verb. But to say “mop up the pot,” though, when one
means “clean the pot,” or even “wipe up the mess in the pot,” is
blatant and damning wrong word usage. This is a mortal sin for
writers. We call this the thesaurus mentality, in which one thinks
up the most obvious word and then looks up its synonyms in the
thesaurus and then uses the most unfamiliar or the most unexpected
synonym in the final draft. People who write this way get laughed
at in UP.
Perhaps the writers of the book feel they do not need degrees in
Writing For Children to write for children, like Michelle Van
Eimeren, who writes books for children. But Michelle Van Eimeren
does not write textbooks and then sends it to the DepEd for
aproval, which will provide great and mandatory influence on
young, impressionable minds. Perhaps the writers of the book feel
they have enough talent to forgo the degree. Perhaps. I can see
some imagination in the book indeed, (as in, “his mind floating
over the sidewalk,” although this is very, very awkward when taken
in the context that the book clearly meant) but the expression,
the way it is written, is so utterly barok, so hopelessly
provincial, without any kinds of finesse whatsoever, and so
dreadfully, unforgiveably ungrammatical, that what talent may lie
in the imagination of the writers is rendered useless. And the
justification of the publisher is legendary. Animal People
Magazine, my foot. Perhaps the writers do need the degree, after
all!
There are some things that look easy to do. Like the essay. Like
writing for children. Like, perhaps, even poetry. But the writing
that appears easiest to read is the writing that had gotten the
longest time to think out, the most revisions, and the most
criticism from colleagues during the revisions. The things that
seem easy to appreciate are the things that are the most difficult
to produce. All good literature that seem to very easily get to
the heart of the human condition in the most wonderful and
glorious ways have torn their creators into various stages of
mental torture. Only from this torture may come beauty and truth.
As the philosopher Bertrand Russel says, “This may seem strange,
but that is not my fault.” I believe that as adults deserve good
literature, so do our Grade Two students. They do not deserve any
less just because they are only in Grade Two and they are only in
the Colegio and they are only in the province. Their textbooks
should be written by good writers and capable educators with a
good grasp of the English language, and with a publisher who is
truly dedicated to learning and not one who is simply concerned
with shirking the responsibility of mopping up the mess of inept
writing and editing. This is what Grade Two students of any school
deserve. No more, no less. Definitely not this book that tells
them that a friend is “like a ghost” and “like an owl.”
I admit this is not my fight. My son will not go to the Colegio to
study at any point in his life, so I really couldn’t care less
about its textbooks. Neither does Dr. Caceres need any
reinforcements, because his arguments alone can hold water in any
court. As for Abiva, they can publish as much bad books as they
wish, but if we don’t buy them, we need not be bothered with them
at all. But as a graduate of “alma mater, my college beloved, seat
of virtue, of science, and of faith,” I am expressing my
disappointment that the Colegio has gone down to this level by
condoning an astounding wrongness when they profess to be all
virtue, correctness, and light.
Hubris.
With the attitude that the management of the Colegio is showing in
the midst of this issue — worshipping, as it were, the publisher’s
hilarious and mindless justifications of the mistakes in the book
— and knowing the school as I have (the hard way, by bearing with
it for four years), Dr. Caceres thus has my best and sincerest
wishes, but I doubt if his cause – and the cause of concerned
parents of Grade Two students of the Colegio – shall ever be
addressed directly by the management of the Colegio. (Prim and
proper words straight out of the nunnery do not count.) But I
commend the doctor for his diligence and his concern. Here, for
all to see, are his sincere efforts to ensure that his daughter
gets taught properly in a school that he, at the onset, trusted.
As for the Colegio, I left it fourteen years ago. Aside from this
article, I have never looked back. I get more things done
correctly that way. Less mess to mop up.
