What has become of us? What are we turning into?
We have let our arrogance and our ignorance overcome us
completely. We live in a world where the pride of our parents has become more
important than their child’s true potential. We live in a world where students
honestly believe that a letter is more important than their honesty and hard work.
Students would rather tell their parents, “Well it’s not my fault! She doesn’t
teach us anything!” Rather than be honest, admit their wrongs, and ask for hard
work. It’s pathetic, but can you blame them? Students listen to their parents, who
would rather brag about a near perfect grade point average rather than their
child’s honest work ethic. It’s this blinding ignorance that has disabled us
from understanding what it actually means to learn.
Thankfully, on the other side of the world there is another
world that shows us exactly what it means to have the amazing opportunity of
education. That other world is called Abdasalam Saya.
Our first day at Abdasalam Saya we met Touria, the education
director. “Abdasalam Saya” literally translates to “slave of peace.” Which in
my mind is the best way to describe Touria. Touria emphasized how truly hard
working and grateful students are at Abdasalam Saya. This was displayed to the “T”
during our first day in the classroom. We have been teaching for two days now
and in every class, during every hour, and every minute, students treated every
word as if it could be their last, hanging on to every last syllable. They
seize every education opportunity that is presented before them. They show up
to school every day with an ambition to learn like their lives depend on it.
Because they do.
Mariam is one of the brightest, hardest working students in
my class. She is soft-spoken, diligent, accountable, and at appropriate times
she can even be funny. Yesterday we had the opportunity to sit down with Mariam
and her humble family inside their home. While there, Mariam’s guardian and
older sister admitted that Mariam will sometimes come home from school crying.
Crying because she has not understood the lesson that was taught to her class
that day. Her sister continued to say that “Every time she cries I have to
remind her that ‘we pray for those who teach and for those who want to learn.’”
She continued explaining that education is not about being the smartest in your
class. She justified it saying, “If education was about the smartest people
then we would only have good doctors and engineers, that’s it.” To be a doctor
or is an engineer is an amazing thing. But if we want to live in a perfect
world we must have great carpenters, great shoe makers, even great factory
workers. She continued saying “It doesn’t matter what you do, if you educate
yourself you will be great and you will be helping to change the world into a
better place.”
Education is not about talent, it is about passion. From
carpentry to law school it doesn’t matter what your profession is, what matter
is your willingness to learn and achieve success.
What is happening to the American education system is truly
unfortunate. Some might even say, “Well, that’s life.” But, in the words of one
of our translators Wassyan, “You can’t say ‘that’s life’ because that’s only
the life you know. Unless you go and experience another way of life you will
live your entire life thinking that there is no way to fix some of the life’s
greatest problems.” It is our job to experience all ways of life and apply what
we learn to our lives.
We, as a community, as a state, as a country must swallow
our pride and take responsibility for our wrong doings that are negatively
affecting our education system. We must stop blaming our teachers, our
principals, and our education system. We must stop telling students they won’t
achieve success if they don’t get a good grade in algebra. We must instead,
“pray for those who teach and those who want to learn.” Because those are the
people that will change the world.
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ReplyDeleteWell said Kevin!
ReplyDeleteAs a former educator, and one of those parents you write about...I couldn't agree with you more. Well said!
ReplyDelete