El Filibusterismo: 13. The Physics Class Summary & Analysis

Plácido’s physics class is exemplary of Dominican-led education in the Philippines, insofar as the students are not taught to understand and experiment with scientific theories, but only to memorize and recite the lesson for their teacher. The teacher, Father Millón, is a rising star in the order, despite his own hostility toward basic theories of physics, like heliocentrism. Millón grades his students exclusively on the basis of their recitation, mocking and degrading them when they make mistakes. The current lesson is about mirrors and the reflection of light. Millón toys with his students, asking them theoretical questions they are incapable of answering and quoting Latin to intimidate them.

Millón turns to Juanito Peláez, who is unable to answer his questions without Plácido’s help. Millón notices Plácido’s frustration and quizzes him instead, going out of his way to humiliate him. Millón accuses Plácido of having 15 absences. When Plácido counters that he has only been absent from the roll call five times, Millón explains that he counts each actual absence as five in his records. He gives Plácido his first mistake in the gradebook, prompting Plácido to ask how he can simultaneously be marked as absent and given a bad grade. Millón mocks Plácido as a “budding metaphysician.” Plácido, who has finally had enough, storms out. He declares that the teacher can give him a bad grade but has no right to insult him. The outburst stuns both the rest of the class and Millón, who spends the rest of the lesson denigrating his students and the Filipino people.