One of the most famous heroes of the Philippines is Jose Rizal. It was easy to study about him because aside from all his travels abroad and the many people he met that wrote about him, he kept an intensively detailed autobiography. It's as if he has planned for his life to be full of lessons useful for the next generations. He was a scientist afterall, that explains why he has so many journals that scholars and students read and study. For our Araling Panlipunan, we have Biographies lesson where we study a prominent persons in the history. For now, we're focusing on local historical figures. Although she's already starting to ask who George Washington and Queen Mary I is. The first person we studied was Gabriela Silang, then we moved to Jose Rizal. We have just finished Andres Bonifacio's biography but before we proceeded with that, we first had a field trip to Luneta Park in Manila as part of our homeschooling journey.
Luneta has always been my hangout place back in my college days. Whenever I want peace and quiet, I would either go to the Japanese Garden or Chinese Garden or at Halamanang Filipino. Most of the time though I choose Japanese garden because Halamanang Filipino looks a little bit to foresty for me and Chinese Garden has become the official rehearsal spot for sabayang bigkasan or dance or any other school performance. Japanese garden proved more conducive for reviewing and studying, or even just peaceful reading.
I never noticed the other potential hangout place sitting right beside the Chinese garden called Ang Pagpapakabayani ni Dr. Jose Rizal (The Martyrdom of Dr. Jose P. Rizal.) This part of Luneta celebrates the actual act of Rizal's martyrdom and everything he did in his life.
This was where he walked to from his cell in Fort Santiago to his execution site. He was made to stand up in front of Filipino soldiers, all forced to shoot him on command. If they didn't, they will be shot. Rizal only requested that he be shot facing the squad. He was shot though at the back and he attempted to turn around as they shot him.
Before you enter the main garden, there is an inscription that describes what happened during Rizal's execution at the Bagong Bayan (now Luneta). At the very entrance way of the garden, right after a small bridge is his last poem Mi Ultimo Adios written in English, Tagalog, and Spanish. A wall mural is right next to it where you'll see a sort of summary of Rizal's life. It shows his childhood where his mom tells him stories, a 3D image of Rizal teaching his students in Dapitan, Rizal as an ophthalmologist, a scientist, a scholar, etc.
Once you enter the garden itself, there is this amphitheater like stone seats. In my head, I kept saying "This spot would have been a perfect for peaceful reading, studying, and reviewing." During the time we were there, except for one group of students on a field trip, the place proved to be really tranquill.
Right in front of those seating stones, are statues of Rizal, the soldiers, the spectators, and a dog. It is exactly as it was described in the books. I'm not sure about the dog though but I thought that was a nice touch. I wanted to have a picture of my daughter standing up close to the statues but there were yellow do not cross lines around them.
All around the garden, are more statues of snippets of Rizal's life. There even was a statue of Leonora Rivera and Rizal together. My daughter cried because of anger and heartbreak when she learned that they never got to get married because of the Spaniards. Well, not directly because of the Spaniards, but it's them she blames for that love story's sad ending. She was able to move on though when she found out how many other girlfriends Rizal had in his lifetime.
Of all my minor subjects back in college, Rizal studies was my favorite. My professor asked me to research about the rumors about Rizal - mga chismis sa buhay ni Rizal was exactly what was written in my index card. I made use of Ambeth Ocampo's Rizal Without an Overcoat as my reference and it is very rich! My daughter though digested a kiddie version. She read Halo-Halo Histories Espesyal: Jose Rizal. It was comical, rich in history and trivia, and so much more.
This field trip sealed the lesson in my kid's memory - and even in mine - because she had so much fun. We are using living books in our studies. Living books are books that are written by an expert who has profound knowledge and passion for the topic that they are writing about. Living books has the ability to captivate its readers so they could understand the topic more deeply.
Even with living books, seeing what you read visually helps paint the picture a lot more clearly, making it stick more to the the child's core memory. Part of our homeschooling journey is going on field trips that would help us in our memory keeping. I know this would potentially cost us some money but these field trips will surely be money well spent.
