Did America Save the Philippines From Spain?
Not so long ago, in our university’s English lounge, I had a discussion with two colleagues about a comparative study on the effects of native and non-native English language teachers on students’ performance in English. When the discussion brought us to the three concentric circles of Englishes, we tried to identify the countries colonized by England and America. Surprisingly, one of them said, “The Philippines (my country) was rescued by the Americans from the Spaniards.” I paused, looked at him and said, “Are you sure you want us to discuss that topic?”
I was ready for a debate. I had the advantage – I am a Filipino. I know my nation’s history (which apparently he knew little or nothing about). Philippine History was also one of the subjects I had taught (quite passionately) in my country and I was ready to teach him a lesson. I was ready to hit him with my historical whip. I even wanted to tell him of the injustice his country (Britain) did to the Sultanate of Sulu and the Philippines by wrongly turning over Sabah to the Malaysian government.
To that question I asked, he just responded with a smile and redirected the discussion to the original topic.
Even if I wanted us to go back to his statement, for I really needed to respond, our time in the English lounge was over. We had to leave. He was saved by the bell.
That desire to respond stayed with me. It tortured my Filipino soul. The Filipino in me could not stand down. I did not stand down when another colleague said some unsavory remarks about Filipinos in his country. I could still recall how irate he was with the things I had to say in response. He was so vexed by the manner I refuted his statements that one time when he got drunk he gave me a mouthful and had to be restrained by his friends.
To that fit of rage from a drunk person, I did not respond. Why would I? But to that statement that “my country was saved by Uncle Sam by the bullies from the Iberian peninsula,” I had to. The only way for me to regain my peace was to respond in any way. So, I decided to write this article hoping that one day that colleague who wrongly thought that the Americans were the Filipinos’ knights in shining armor would be able to read it.
Now, let me answer the question “Did the Americans save the Filipinos from the Spaniards?”
HELL NO!
The Americans extinguished the flames of Filipino nationalism that was just beginning to flicker and deprived the Filipinos of the chance to chart their own destiny as a nation. That’s what they did.
Let me share some excerpts from my on-going study entitled “How Colonialism Shaped the Filipino Character.”
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In 1896, the Filipinos staged the biggest and most organized revolt against Spain. Previous attempts by them to overthrow their invaders from the Iberian peninsula were all quelled. According to historians, the reasons those uprisings failed were the following: they were caused by non-encompassing issues; based on limited geographical scales; and they were lacking in national character. The 1896 revolution was different. It started in the capital of the country – Manila – then spread to surrounding provinces and eventually became national in scope. The revolt was driven mainly by the rise of Filipino nationalism.
The Spaniards had their hands full and it was only a matter of time and their more than three centuries rule would have come to an end. Even if the Americans did not come, the Filipinos could have succeeded in ending the Spanish rule.
The Americans duped Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the revolt against Spain, into believing that they came to help the Filipinos establish a republic and that they didn’t need any colony.
Then, the Filipinos watched helplessly as the Spaniards, too proud to accept defeat in the hands of the Indios they enslaved for centuries, surrendered to the Americans instead and was paid $20,000,000 for all the improvements they made in the Philippine islands during their colonial rule. That’s one of the conditions set in the Treaty of Paris in 1898 which the two countries concluded without concurring with the Filipino people.
Would the Americans pay the Spaniards that huge amount (which is worth more than half a billion dollars today) and get nothing in return?
HELL NO!
America, then an emerging world power, needed to flex its muscles in the Pacific. The Philippines was the most ideal place for that. Their military strategists probably thought it was necessary for America to have presence in Asia to counter the growing military might of imperial Japan.
So, the Americans, contrary to their promise which Aguinaldo said he naively believed, declared Philippines a territory ceded to them by Spain.
It was a painful experience for the Filipinos. After centuries of struggle against Spain they finally had a chance to chart their own destiny as a nation. But the Americans stood on their way. The Filipinos had to continue their search for that elusive freedom.
So, the Philippines changed hands – from one colonial master to another, from the Spanish yoke to that of the American.
What if the Americans observed the principle that “governments derived their just powers from the consent of the governed” and decided not to stay in 1898 and allow the Filipinos to govern themselves? The Americans should have known better. That principle was the driving force of the declaration of their independence in 1776. It is touted to be the model for the right to self-determination, the very right that they deprived the Filipinos of when they colonized the Philippines. The Americans justified their occupation of the islands by saying that the Filipinos were not ready for self-governance. But how sure were they? And even then, the Filipinos certainly would have preferred to have charted their own destiny as a nation no matter what the consequences maybe. The world will never know what would have happened to the Philippines had the Americans gave them the reins of their own government. While it is not certain that the Filipinos would have succeeded, one thing is clear, neither did the Philippines become a better nation because the Americans occupied it.
It would have been a big boost to the Filipino pride if only they were allowed to continue their war with Spain which they were winning at that time when the Spanish and American strategists connived to stage what would later become known as the “Mock Battle at the Manila Bay” which the Americans purportedly won. That plan was concocted to prevent Manila, the nation’s capital, from falling into the hands of Filipino revolutionaries. Just imagine how big a victory like that would have affected the Filipino psyche. Its character as a nation would have evolved in a much different direction. But it was not meant to be.
The last quarter of the 19th century was perhaps the most significant stage in the development of the Philippines as a nation. It was when nationalism started to fluorish. It took centuries before the natives managed to put up a united front against their colonizers. Like the sun starting to rise from the east spreading it’s golden rays to signal the coming of a new day, the emerging solidarity among the natives became a portent of greater things to come (that never came.)
The most important ingredient for national development was finally manifesting among Filipinos at that time. The seeds of nationalism began to sprout. The influx of liberal ideas from Europe, the rise of the middle class and the martyrdom of Fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora (GomBurZa) were among the factors believed to have fan the flames of national unity.
It was a long and arduous journey towards national solidarity made difficult to achieve by a combination of factors…the island nation being geographically fragmented, the people speaking different dialects, and the Spaniards’ employment of “divide-and-conquer” tactics.
The Spaniards succeeded tremendously in employing the “divide-and-conquer” tactic against the colonized people so much so that they reigned supreme for more than 300 years. But when the Filipinos began to develop a cohesive spirit to fill their geographical gaps, when they dismantled the language barriers with their deafening cry for freedom, the days of the Hispanic colonizers became numbered. The colonial masters suffered humiliating defeats from the people they held by the neck for a long time and were forced to retreat to the walled city of Intramuros.
But the next chapter of the Philippine drama unfolded not the way the Filipinos had the script written but the way the directors from Hollywood penned it. And just when the Filipinos were ready to hit the last nail in the coffin of Spanish tyranny, the Americans said, “CUUUTTTT!”
With absolute certainty, the revolution the Filipinos started in 1896 would have finally ended Spanish rule. The natives had them figured out. All they needed was just to march together with their hands tied by the bond of patriotism. The Filipinos were ready to storm Intramuros, the last bastion of Spanish rule but they were stopped on their tracks by the Americans who they wrongly perceived to be an ally in their quest for freedom from Spain. The Filipinos naively thought that the Americans who were waging a war against Spain in Cuba, also a Spanish colony then, came as a friend, not a foe.
Cutting the story short, the Americans occupied the Philippines when the Spaniards left and the Filipinos were forced to wage war against a military far more powerful and more advance in weaponry than their former colonizers.
The natives lost the war and the sprouts coming out from the seeds of nationalism sown by the forebears of the Filipino race was not allowed to grow and bloom. It was forcibly uprooted and trampled upon by the Americans. Historians explained that the new colonial masters extinguished the flames of Filipino nationalism with laws like the Sedition Law (1901) which imposed a death penalty or a long prison term on anyone who advocated independence from the United States even by peaceful means and the Flag Law (1907) which prohibited the display of the Philippine flag in any place.
Filipino nationalism was nipped in the bud. That period in the history of the Filipino people was referred to as the “Era of Suppressed Nationalism.” While the natives were still licking the wounds inflicted by their former Spanish masters, the Americans started whipping them .
And as everybody knows, the justification provided by the Filipinos’ new colonial masters was the natives were not ready for self-governance and it would have been very chaotic had they been left alone to fend for themselves.
They could have been right…or wrong. Nobody would know now? But what critical thinking Filipinos today know was that the Americans had no right to deprive the Filipinos at that time the opportunity to determine their own fate as people. The natives could have been left to face the consequences of their attempt to stand on their feet. They had no right to deprive the Filipinos for that opportunity to raise their arm in victory against Spain. It would have been so meaningful had the colonizer surrendered to the colonized. That would have been a huge moral victory for a people enslaved and deprived of their basic rights and freedom for so long. That would have been a big boost to the morale of the Filipinos. But instead of a boost to their psyche the actions of the Americans wounded the pride of the Filipino and impeded the development of a stronger national character.
The Americans should have taken a page from their history for them to understand how the Filipinos felt at that time. According to historians, the main reason the American colonists fought for independence against Britain in the 1700s was they believed in the unalienable rights of the individual and them being taxed by the British Parliament without any representation is a violation of such rights. They believed that whatever a government does must have the consent of the governed. The Filipinos did not want another foreign power to govern them, they had enough of the Spaniards already. The Americans did not have the Filipinos’ consent to stay in the country and govern them.
But there was nothing the Filipinos could do, no country could come to their succor at that time. The Americans had France to support them in their drive for independence against Britain and perhaps the Filipinos were hoping that America would be doing a France when they came, but it was wishful thinking.
The Filipinos were on their own and the world at the time was a big jungle where the colonial powers were the predators and the weaker nations the helpless preys.
The Filipinos then cannot even invoke any law to contest the legality of the American occupation of the Philippines. Imperialism has its own laws, and is backed by brute force. Because of its armed forces imperial law supersedes international law. Experts argued that “The legality of imperial activity is based largely on the imperial state’s judicial system and its own legal experts.” They added that since Americans championed liberalism, they should know that natural rights are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable.
So, did the America save the Philippines from Spain?
HELL NO.
Here’s some excerpts from one of the speeches delivered by Manuel L. Quezon, president of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944:
“It is true, and I am proud of it, that I once said, “I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by Americans.” I want to tell you that I have, in my life, made no other remark which went around the world but that. There had been no paper in the United States, including a village paper, which did not print that statement, and I also had seen it printed in many newspapers in Europe. I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by any foreigner. I said that once; I say it again, and I will always say it as long as I live.
But that is not an admission that a government run by Filipinos will be a government run like hell. Much less can it be an admission that a government run by Americans or by the people of any other foreign country, for that matter, can ever be a government run like heaven.”
Make no mistake, the Americans extinguished the flames of Filipino nationalism that was just beginning to flicker and deprived them of the chance to chart their own destiny as a nation.
On Writing Poems
It’s challenging, to say the least.
For me, the literary genre most difficult to produce is the poem. Putting together the elements of meter, rhyme scheme, sound and imagery is not easy. It would take more than creativity to express thoughts and feelings using the most appropriate figures of speech.
My best poems are written in Filipino. I’ve been trying to write good ones in English but I have to admit that it’s a mighty struggle. I’m not sure if for example the following quatrain makes sense:
Whisper your woes on the flicker
Cover it with dried leaves and twigs
Whisper till the flame grows taller
Let it burn your anguish and grief
I have no problem with free-verse but my dream is to walk gloriously the “rhymed” and “metered” path while holding the hands of either Erato or Euterpe.
One time I tried to mix Greek mythology and poetry and this is what came out:
Writing stories is just as difficult because mixing in a bowl the elements of fiction within the bounds of the plot is not a walk in the park. But fiction writers have the luxury of using a lot of pages to serve their purpose. Leo Tolstoy needed more than half a million words for his novel “War and Peace.”
Conversely, a poet has a single page, sometimes not even the whole of it, to capture vivaciously and vividly the emotions and thoughts pervading within or around him. The Japanese, through their Haiku, would do it in a single-stanza poem with three lines consisting of a total of 17 syllables.
What adds difficulty when poets thread the rhyme zone is that they can not walk the path of sadness while wearing a smile. Neither can they frolic in the lake of happiness while riding the canoe of sadness.
Pain begets pain, joy engenders joy. This is seemingly the prevailing mood in the realm of poetry. Rare are the crying clowns who can masterfully inject sadness into the veins of their poems while they are cracking a joke.
The melancholic lyre sounds best when played by a poet who in one way or another licked some emotional wounds sometime ago in a desolate room. On the other hand, the trumpet of merriment can best be blown by a poet who has journeyed the clouds of ecstasy.
But life is a masterful musician who teaches poets to play both the melancholic lyre and the trumpet of merriment. Life enables a poet to play any of the said instruments at any given time.
If a poet intends to paint his canvas with gloom then he can easily prick an old emotional wound until it bleeds sadness. He can walk down memory lane and revive the pains inflicted by either a person or an event he would rather forget. That’s not masochism but rather a form of sacrifice, the poet ought to feel what he intends to write.
Conversely, it is from the same memory lane where the poet could revisit the happiest moments in his life if it is the lovely colors of joy he wants to be seen in his canvass.
That‘s the beauty of being a poet. Poets can switch with ease to any emotions that they desire. Like an actor in a theater, crying one moment then in a jiffy burst into laughter.
Sometimes poets get misconstrued. When a poem tackles sadness and regret for losing someone the readers would think that the poet still loves and wants that someone back. Worse, the person who felt alluded to may either be excited or feel vindicated.
Lest we forget that poets are men of arts who write for art’s sake. Yes, they draw inspiration from someone or something. They need a motivation in the pursuit of their art. But as it is, the end is the art and the motivation is but the means to achieve that end.
And what is the reward the poet receives for writing a poem? The reward is the poem itself. No reward can be sweeter than a poem that artistically conveys the joys and sorrows of the poet.
As to whether or not the poets who write a poem of gloom and bewail are sad and regretful, only them know. Who knows it may be Melpomene who visited them in their dreams.
Sa Sayawan
May nagbulong sa akin…
Ika’y nasa sayawan
May kasama ka raw
Magkahawak ang inyong kamay.
Ang bilis.
Noong isang linggo lang eh tayo,
Kamay ko ang hawak mo.
Bakit ganoon?
Ayaw ko sana
Na sa sawayan pumunta
Subalit para mo akong hinihila
Parang gusto kitang muling makita.
Nadatnang tugtog doo’y mabilis… magaslaw
Subalit ‘di ako maenggayong sumayaw
At pilit kitang tinatanaw
Sa gitna ng patay-sinding mga ilaw.
Nang biglang nagliwanag ang paligid
Tumigil ang tugtog na mabilis
Pumalit ay mabagal na himig
Himig ng mga pusong umiibig.
Silang lahat nagsiupo
Humihingal…
Hapong-hapo.
Ngunit kayong dalawa nanatiling nakatayo.
Kayo’y aking pinagmasdan,
Umiindayog kayo ng marahan.
Katawan ninyo’y magkadikit,
Parang kinukurot ang aking dibdib.
Nakahilig ka sa kanyang balikat
Balakang mo nama’y mahigpit niyang hawak.
Hindi mo ako matanaw dahil ikaw ay nakapikit.
Parang nang-aalipusta ang ngiti mong matamis.
At bakit naman ang sumunod pang kanta
Ay ang paborito nating dalawa
Kantang sabay nating inawit
Noon ako pa ang iyong iniibig.
Kanta’y parang ayaw matapos
Halos hininga ko sa panibugho’y malagot.
At nang sa labi siya’y iyong hinagkan,
Masuyong halik mo’y kanyang ginantihan.
Nang marubdob kayong naghalikan
Sayawan ay dagli kong nilisan.
(Mula sa kantang “Dancing on my Own” ni Calum Scott)
Honoring My Parents
(A Personal Essay)
I am so blessed because God gave me the best parents in the world.
My parents are not perfect persons. They are flawed and sinful – like you and me. They were not even the best couple. They eventually decided to dissolve the marriage that produced me and my two siblings. But believe it or not – they are the best parents a son or a daughter could ever dream of having.
I love and respect them both.
Nobody could do what my parents did for me and my elder brother and younger sister. They have done more than what mothers and fathers ought to do for their children. Their sacrifices to ensure that I and my siblings get past the critical stages of infancy was tremendous to say the least. They were there for us as we advance from childhood to early adulthood. They were never remiss of their obligations. They performed their duties as parents, with love and joy. I would never forget how hard they tried to ensure that we would have what we needed to survive until we reached the age when we could already take care of (and decide for) ourselves.
What my parents did for us went way beyond providing our physiological needs. They loved us unconditionally and provided us security and belongingness. And despite their personal imperfections, they did not forget to empower us through the values which they tried to teach us and to model through their examples.
When we were young, my mom, a devout Catholic, strictly required us to be home by 6 o’clock PM so we could recite the Angelus and pray the Rosary together. Failure to do so would be met by painful whips delivered through a long thin bamboo stick. Both of my parent are loving and caring but we’d better tow the lines they have drawn or else we would face dire consequences.
Those bamboo sticks taught me one thing – discipline. When I experienced how painful it was to be struck by them for the first time, I said never again. So, I followed the instructions of my parents to the letter.
We would have dinner after our prayers then my mother would help us do our homework. She would require us to read our books after those tutorial sessions.
That was how we were introduced to the values of prayer, discipline, and education. My mom was chiefly responsible for laying the foundation of my faith and for developing my study habits. She also kindled my competitive spirit through the candies and biscuits she would give to whoever among us siblings could answer her questions from the stories she read to us during the tutorial sessions we had with her.
My dad contributed also in the development of my study habits – particularly the reading part. Every day, a newsboy would deliver him newspapers – one broadsheet in English and two tabloids, one in English and the other one in Filipino. We read those newspapers together and as we did so, my father would speak to me in English. My dad was very good at English, despite completing only Elementary education. Through those conversations in English that I had with him that I started becoming fascinated with the English language. My interest in literature – stories and poems – was I think the result of my mother’s fondness for comics and magazines written in Filipino which I would also read when I am done with my father’s newspapers. These things, later on, would influence my choice for a college degree – Bachelor of Arts in English, a course in the Philippines that focuses on linguistics and literature.
The importance of education was something that both my parents impressed upon me. It was from them that I first heard that “education is the great equalizer.” I believed them. They saw my seriousness in the pursuit of education and they supported me until I completed my tertiary education. My siblings did not fall in love with education the way I had. They took different paths.
The value of faith – that’s what my mom inculcated in me. On the other hand, the values of hard work and patience are my dad’s most important gifts to me. He taught me through his examples to be self-sufficient and to never assume that somebody will serve to me in a silver platter whatever I want in life.
I also tried to emulate my dad’s good communication skills. When I accompanied my father in his business sorties (he was engaged in a buy-and-sell business then), I marveled at his uncanny ability to make people laugh and to convince them to buy.
Later on I realized that the values I learned from my parents are the very things I need in my pursuit to become the best version of me. Those values are the inheritance I received from my parents. They are priceless.
Stored in the hallowed corners of my memory vault are the best times I spent with my mom and dad. The one thing that I could recall in my most distant past was one night I woke up with my chin resting on my dad’s broad shoulder. I lifted my head and saw my mom walking beside us. She gently touched my cheeks then took me from my dad. They alternately carried me until we reached my aunt’s home.
That piece of memory was so precious. It would constantly remind me of the love and affection of my parents. It made me feel important… that I am connected. It helped me develop self-esteem growing up.
I will forever be grateful to my mom and dad. They are the best gifts I received from God.
On Personal Accountability
One of my favorite poems is W.E. Henley’s “Invictus.” I read it for the first time in my literature class way back in college. That was the time when I started to ask a lot of questions about many things – not the way a curious child would but the way a young adult searching for a personal identity ought to. The poem impressed upon me a strong belief. It created a mind-set, a value that helped shaped who I am now – that a person is in-charge of his own destiny. That whatever (or whoever) a person becomes is the sum total of all the decisions he makes.
For me, the day a person says “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul” is the day that he is embracing personal accountability. Thenceforth he becomes responsible for his words, thoughts, and actions and whatever decisions he makes he ought to own them. If he succeeds and becomes happy as a result of his decisions he will take the full credit and benefits. Conversely, should he fail, should he not succeed in his boldness to take on the challenges of life refusing help from anyone, he knows there’s nobody to blame, not even himself. He acknowledges that being self-sufficient is not a fault. Recognizing that each person has his own mountain to climb and that it is wrong to become an additional burden to anybody is a virtue, not a fault.
It is the person who makes himself a burden to his fellowmen that should be faulted. He should be faulted for not making himself personally accountable for his own life. He should be faulted for thinking that it is the responsibility of his fellowmen to help him. Yes, “no man is an island” but each person should think that nobody could force anyone to offer help. Helping is something that nobody could demand from anyone. It flows naturally from the generosity of a pure heart.
Believe that people know when somebody really needs help. The good-hearted among them would definitely offer a hand. However, they are also wise, they are capable of determining if the problems a person is facing resulted from his unwillingness to embrace personal accountability. They know if a person is stuck in a hole dug by his own laziness and vices. They know that that person does not deserve help. Never assume that generous people are dumb. No person should push himself to the edge because of his irresponsibility thinking that somebody would hold his hand before he falls to the bottom of regrets. Nobody might and he would come crashing down to his certain demise.
The person who acknowledges personal accountability blames neither himself nor anyone when he fails in his undertakings. Instead of falling into the deadly trap of the blame game, he tries to figure out what went wrong and learn from his mistakes. He considers failures as pathways to attainment. He won’t stop until he succeeds, no matter how many times he fails.
On the other hand, a person without it (personal accountability) blames not himself but others for all his failures. For whatever misfortunes he encounters it is always someone else’s fault. When he fails in his relationships, the other party is to be blamed for failing to satisfy the standards he set. When he resigns from his job, it’s because his co-workers and his boss suck. When he could not find a new job, he blames the government. Even for simple matters like coming late for an appointment he would put the blame on someone or something else – like the traffic and the weather.
Heaven forbid that he also blames his parents for their being poor (if his parents are) and their being unable to leave a fortune he could inherit. Heaven forbid that he blames his siblings and relatives, branding them selfish for not sharing their blessings to him.
The list of people and things he blames for his bad luck and adversities is so long but has forgotten to put himself on top of it.
It is not difficult to identify a person who is allergic to personal accountability. He is the one who whines at everything and whinges every time. He is never satisfied. His standards of excellence are so high that it seems none of the geniuses, past or present, could ever earn his approval.
For the person who lacks personal accountability there is always something wrong. The problem is he offers no solution to the wrongs and ills he sees. Compounding the dilemma is his strong sense of entitlement feeling that people around him should find a solution to his own problems. He is not satisfied not helping find solutions to problems, he also wants others to solve his own.
It is not obligatory for any person to offer solutions to all the wrongs and ills – to fight all evils. Voluntarism is a rare virtue. And if you’re not that somebody with a strong sense of personal accountability who would come forward to resolve the problems, if you could not offer a solution to the problems, please don’t add up to the problem. Be not the problem.
At least, each person is being called upon to tread the path of self-sufficiency. Take care of you own problems and don’t bother others for them, directly or indirectly. Self-sufficiency is the starting point to the journey to personal accountability.
Teachers, Leadership Styles and McGregor’s Theories X and Y Assumptions
Managing people in both the corporate world and the academia industry is difficult and complicated. It requires not only mental and emotional competence but also toughness. It is an enterprise not meant for the fainthearted and weak-kneed.
Managers need both smarts and grit. They need to be astute and their patience boundless. Perhaps the trickiest part of the job of those in supervisory positions is as leaders they have to determine which leadership style is most applicable given the kind of people they are leading and the nature of the business they have.
Leadership theories abound and before managers, supervisors, or administrators are catapulted into the position as head of the organization they might already have a style which is inherent in them and framed by their education and personal experiences.
As leaders, they could be any of what Koontz and Weilhrich in “Behavioral Theories” describe as autocratic, democratic, or free-rein leader (laissez-faire). Those in the position of leadership (according to the said authors) have the following options: maintain strong control over their subordinates and lead using their ability to withhold or give rewards and punishment; consult with the people they are leading on proposed actions and decisions and encourage participation from them; or use their power very little, if at all, giving subordinates a high degree of independence in their operations.
As to which of the aforementioned styles is most effective is hard to determine. Those espousing the “Contingency Theory” claim that there is no best way to organize a corporation, to lead a company, or to make decisions. They add that the optimal course of action is contingent upon the internal and external situation. This is the principle that guided me when I was given the opportunity to lead.
In my experience as school administrator (1994-2012), I figured that there is no one-size-fits-all kind of leadership. I realized that the way to supervise people is a decision that designated leaders could arrive at only when they assume office. They may have a blueprint on how to lead when they take the reins of leadership in their organization but such is not set in stone. Whether as leaders they become autocratic, democratic, or free-rein depends largely on the kind of people being led.
Douglas McGregor, in his Theory X and Theory Y, presented two opposing perceptions about employees. Theory X assumes that employees inherently dislike work, avoid responsibilities and seek formal direction and should therefore be coerced, controlled, or threatened with punishment. Conversely, in theory Y, they (employees) are viewed quite the opposite. They need not be controlled and closely supervised because they love work, exercise self-direction and self-control, accept and even seek responsibility, and make innovative decisions.
When leaders have already determined under which set of those perception the people they are supervising belong, they begin to devise what they think is the best way to lead them.
Experts in human behavior are saying though that people working in organizations are not necessarily either one type or the other. They said that between the two extremes, there could be a combination of behaviors. Thus, leaders need to be careful not to implement policies and operate in response only to either (or both) of those two assumptions about employees. They need to be flexible.
The best leaders are those who could devise a way to have a complete inventory of the different personalities of people in the organization they are running and calibrate their approaches to leadership to the categories of personalities that would emerge from the inventory. That of course is easier said than done especially if they are overseeing a big group, company or association.
What about teachers? Generally speaking, where should teachers be classified – under theory X or theory Y?
It is hard to imagine teachers disliking their work and avoiding responsibilities. To be in-charge of the teaching-learning process is not a walk in the park. It demands the highest form of professional competence which means doing a lot of work and accepting a lot of responsibilities as well. The list of the things that teachers are expected to perform is long – prepare lessons; construct exams, mark tests, quizzes and assignments; prepare reports; attend seminars and trainings; and keep abreast with the current innovations including using technology in instruction. The teachers’ primary function, of course, is instruction. If they are in universities, they are also expected to do research and get involved in community extension programs.
That’s a lot of things to do for teachers and with their plates that full the teachers cannot possibly be theory X type. When they embraced the profession, they know the kind of work they are doing. They know that they don’t stop working after class hours. Teachers always walk an extra mile or two.
The prevailing perception about teachers is that they are consummate professionals – the embodiment of the theory Y assumptions.
Teachers are responsible and independent. They don’t need to be micromanaged because they are happy to work on their own initiative and their strong sense of professionalism and self-motivation always lead to the successful completion of their tasks and responsibilities and strict adherence to policies and guidelines. They also need not be told as to what to do because they have strong sense of self-direction and self-control.
Are these assumptions about teachers true?
I have been in the academia for almost 31 years as a teacher. I worked with different kinds of teachers across demographics – age, gender, race, education, religion, and philosophical persuasion – as a colleague and as administrator (for 18 of those 31 years). Based on my experiences (most particularly here in South Korea where I have been teaching since 2013 and was briefly a head professor for 3 semesters), I can say that that prevailing perception about teachers is not true.
Some teachers are theory X type, some theory Y, and some are in-between.
The worst assumption that school owners and administrators could make is “all teachers conduct themselves within the bounds of professionalism.” They ought to check carefully the background of the teachers they hire. They need to strictly monitor the performance of the teachers and ensure they are following school policies and guidelines. This should not be construed as lack of trust but rather enforcing excellence and ensuring that the students get what they deserve, what they pay for.
The ones leading schools ought to make sure that their teachers are not engaged in what I call “mercenary teaching” – interested only in the money and disregards professional ethics.
K-Drama
Dulang May Isang Yugto
Mga Tauhan:
Jack
Arnold
Joy
Waitress
Rose
Korean Man
Korean Woman
Customer
Tagpuan:
Sa isang restaurant sa South Korea.
Panahon:
Isang araw, buwan ng Marso sa kasalukuyang panahon.
(Magkakailaw sa tanghalan. Makikita ang interior ng isang pribadong bahagi ng isang restaurant sa South Korea. Nakasabit sa pader (nakaharap sa audience) ang mga larawan ng mga pagkain na inihahain ng restaurant katabi ang isang malaking larawan ng Jeju Island. Makikitang nililinis ng waitress ang mga ginamit ng mga papa-alis na customer. Nasa gitna ang mesa na kasya ang anim na katao. Walang upuan.)
Waitress: Kamsahamnida! Tashi Oseyo. Annyonghikaseyo.
Isa sa mga customers: Ne! Kamsahamnida!
(Tuloy lang ng paglilinis ang waitress. Nilagyan ng mga bagong hugas na kutsara at chopsticks ang lagayan. Maririnig mula sa labas ang mga usapan.)
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M.A.D. LIGAYA
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