22/11/2018
13 DEVASTATING NEGATIVE THINGS THE SCHOOL DOES TO STUDENTS.
BY: MUFTAU MUBARAK SH*TTU
EDUCATIONALIST
I will share them equally tonight. For us to be able to change anything about this apparently unsuitable educational system in Africa we must understand what is wrong. That is the crux of tonight teaching.
1. TEACHERS ARE UP THERE, STUDENTS ARE DOWN HERE.
This is one of the very negative things/evil about the school system. Teachers appear like they know, have all the answers the students want and need. And this is done without sense of respect at all. My few decades in this world with smart sense of observation have taught me otherwise! That I am the teacher on this forum tonight doesn’t make me the smartest. That you are reading and learning the principles I am teaching tonight doesn’t mean you can’t get better results than myself. The humility is what is missing in the system.
The lecturers/teachers are meant to believe the students are nothing without them and may never amount to anything. And this is not always true. I remember a certain man named Jesus, who was a prolific teacher yet washed the feet of his disciples. The educational system is not like that. The teacher comes with/prepared to teach but with very little chance for the students to share their own perceived insight for him/her to learn. This is why I love the Professor that facilitated two weeks ago. Prof Ogungbile is anti-system. He comes to class with open mind of receiving what the students have to share and he is always cool at receiving criticism of his stand when he is convincing us (students). But the system is largely not like this.
Do you know the killing effect of this point? Our school produce very intelligent and smart graduate who are very timid to express their own view in the boardroom when they are employed. Since their teachers were always with the right answers without their own input, then their boss’ opinion will be unanimously because their minds have been conditioned like that.
2. ONE ANSWER SYSTEM.
1 + 1 = 2
5 – 2 = 3
Which West African country is popularly known as Gold Coast? Ghana.
When you write ‘German-OBJ’ (fill-in-the-gaps) questions, there are specific answers that are expect.
Am I the only one who has written an examination with many other students yet the lecturer comes to the class to say: ‘You people really tried but none of you gave me the exact thing I was expecting? Has anyone been in my shoes before? The system believes in one right answer while other answers are wrong. They are not only wrong but also stupid. The student that says what is on the teachers mind gets a round of applause and seen as smart. Others are just unfortunately stupid bunch. Life has taught me otherwise.
Every wrong answer is either right in its own respect or it’s a point to another right answers. So, there are always multiple ways of doing things. Multiple answers for every solution. As we speak right now, someone somewhere is waiting to write UTME exams in order to get admission after trying for 5years yet there are other mates who are graduating this same year yet they got admission through other means.
Do you know the killing effect of this point? Once one person get ‘the answer’ the brain and creativity of everyone shuts down from thinking of other possible answers! When was the last time to take a solved problem to joggle in your mind just to see if you’ll get any other possible solution? Don’t worry, the school system did this to us all! Do I have your permission to continue please?
3. SAME EXAMINATION FOR ALL.
The system really doesn’t care about your ability, your human makeup, your comprehension of what was taught or your ability to apply. It throws the same test at all students. An examination in Dramatic Art may look like this: Act like a mad woman whose only baby was knocked and killed by a motorcyclist. Beautiful question right?
The issue is that this question is given to all 26 (A to Z) female students of drama. A scores 95% while Z scores 40%. A is seen as a campus drama guru, Z is seen as a failure who needs to work extra hard to be able to amount to anything. 10 years after school what happens? Z becomes one of the most sort after actress in the industry for any role of an urban lady while A hardly gets a film to act madness in years.
What’s my point? One test for all students can never be a fair system. That’s why life gives every person different tests and challenges. Even identical twins don’t get same. One of my lecturers in the College is a twin. She is married without any child. The twin sister now has teenage children. Don’t be fooled to think the other woman with children is having a rosy life. Her own life test is simply different!
4. LEARNING RESTRICTED TO CLASSROOMS.
Let me make a personal confession. The best time of my primary school life was when I hear the sound of the bell for break time (we called it breaking time). You get a great personal deliverance the day you realize and begin to act with the understanding that education is not restricted to school alone. And so, even in school, not everywhere is believed to be a learning place. Most times, the system taught us that the classroom is the only place learning takes place.
You dare not stay on the ‘playing’ field when you are supposed to be back in class. It’s a sign that you want to be a dullard. Amazingly the university isn’t much different. Though New Buka of University of Ife (Nigeria) is widely believe to be a spot for promiscuity, smoking, drinking etc., I met and had some of the most amazing friends there. Yet I had friends who pretend to leave hostel for night classes in the name of reading only to either end up sleeping or chatting/gisting and playing through the night.
So how is learning restricted to classrooms? Most of the new things I know about business today were not in class, yet we were in the class! What is all these stories about friend? You must know and understand these negative things about the system so you can position against them.
5. PROUD AND RESIST CHANGE.
How many of us are like me that from your year 1 in the College till you graduated you kept hearing that the syllabus would be reviewed yet you get to know that the current students of your department are still being taught the same with the same curriculum?
To a large extent, the system knows it is not equipping students the challenges they will face afterwards yet it is very arrogant to humbly go to market forces to learn what it students really need. Think about it, school decides what you and I will learn and how long only for it to release us to the employers. Shouldn’t the reverse be the case? Should school not consult employers and the market forces on the skill set they will love to employ for their ventures and then build syllabuses around such skills? No, our educational system is proud. Even when some scientific calculators and computers have been made to do some really complex calculations, the system is yet arrogant. It will insist on ‘wasting’ the time of engineering students by teaching them how they will do the calculations manually because that is what the teachers were taught 30 years ago! My job is to expose some of the very negative things about our educational/school system. Who thinks I’m doing a good job?
6. INDIVIDUALISM RATHER THAN COLLECTIVISM.
This one is one of the things I really don’t like about the conventional school system because of how much life has dealt with me as an entrepreneur whenever I tried doing things on my own to prove that I’m smart.
Think about it. A lecturer give: 5x + 14 = 34, find x to 50 students. 15 pass, 35 fail. 15 jubilate, 35 are rather sad and seemingly lose self-esteem. So, ‘x’ is one challenge, the individual self-worth of the students is another challenge. So, instead of the students to all come together and face the common problem ‘x’ collectively, they are set up to do it individually. Let me even ask you friend. How do you feel when you narrowly pass an exam but your good friend fails?
Business life is different. I have pulled off far more deals in collaboration with others than all by myself. Its far less stressful, higher accuracy, better quality, maximum use of time.
Why can’t school works be group task that promote cooperation, team-building and excellent human relations?
7. PRODUCES JOB SEEKERS.
I am never one of those who say/think employees are dumb people who are not creative. But is it not from primary school you hear things like “make good results so as become a GM, general manager instead of GM, gate man? You see the whole mindset is being an employee right?
In higher institution, lecturers drum into your ears that only top grades will get top jobs. Yes, top grades will get top jobs but does creating top jobs require top grades? Watch it well friends, most top graders in school end up believing they will have great jobs. When most of them fail, they run back to school and make more top grades in higher degrees only to end up being a lecturer like their own lecturers, telling the next generation the same thing. Wait, how else can we define scam?
I didn’t come here tonight to make you hate school. I came to show you the major loopholes in the system. Ahead of much later in this series, please begin to think of how you can immunize yourself to these effects and how we can collectively transform this system that is giving so little. Thanks for your time, good evening. Let me humbly call for your astute comments, additions, subtractions dear friends.
8. NO FINANCIAL EDUCATION.
Sincerely, don't you think the system is more of a scam when it claims to prepare us to get good jobs and earn fat income yet never teaches how money works?😥
Over the past 6 years, I have been on my personal journey of financial education and its been really saddening to know that the school only prepare us to be subtle slaves to those who pay our salaries.
Do you think the rich work hard than those who are not?
Do you think the rich are smarter than those who are not?
One of the things that will never make a lot of people free from financial shackles is that they don't even know the difference between an liability and an asset.
So Mr A gets his first paycheck of $10,000 and spends every single cent on liabilities thinking he is rich. Don't blame him too much, the school system only teaches us how to work for money and never teach us the rules of money.
If you are here and you assume that you know the rules of money but just reading it in one book or the other, that isn't good enough. You will need to master the rules by practically trying them out.
But how do you do that when the school system has always taught us to get a job, live below your earning and save for your old age?
#8 negative effect = No financial education in schools.
9. SYLLABUSES AND CLASSES.
The system puts us in classes. This may seem like a brilliant idea in order to measure progression of students but I can assure you its also a liability on the overall system when view holistically.
I remembered vividly how I was denied the opportunity to write common entrance examination in my primary school when I was in Primary 5 but at that time, I was already solving New General Mathematics JSS 2 questions!
So A has to stay in a class when he can learn all that is in that class within 3 weeks? B is surely going to be promoted even if she is still struggling with some lessons of a class as long as the session has ended.
The system tells us what to learn and when we ask questions outside it, they will tell you something like: "don't worry in 2 years' time when you are in so so class, you'll learn that"
I can't thank my brothers enough. They gave me head start in life. I used to think they were wicked. By 4th week of a new session I would have solved all the topics in my mathematics textbook, leaving me to be unmotivated for the session.
My brother took the pain to teach me things that weren't in my syllabus and guess what, I didn't just coped, I thrived!
And talking about syllabus, who else has noticed that every time our lecturers promise that they will review the curriculum, it's simply a scam?
WHY?
Here is my thought:
If they were taught and equipped with that curriculum. If that is the curriculum they teach and have come to master over the years yet they have many years head of them before retirement, then whats the feasibility of them changing it?
Will they now start again learning a new thing? How will they be able to teach what they themselves are just learning? Where will they get their pride and ego from?
Think about these.
10. SOCIAL CLASSIFICATION.
I remember when I was growing up in the children. I used to feel really bad because I was in Junior Secondary School 2 while my friends were preparing for GCE and JAMB (University Entrance Examinations. I was behind for about 4 or 5 classes).
It was always a difficult time then for me. Though I would do well in intellectual discussions and no one really got close to me discussing but academic classification/social grading was a morale killer.
Fast-forward some 17 years later, we are all graduates, a few have done their masters degree though, but life has really shown us a different means of grading.
How long will the school system keep influencing our sense of worth of people based on their academic qualification?
11. LITTLE LINK BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE, POWER AND WEALTH.
Were you like me who kept hearing knowledge is power when I was young? That is what the school system teaches. Deep investigation has shown me that knowledge doesn't equate power not wealth, wisdom does!
Wisdom is the practical application of facts that you know.
If knowledge is power why are our professors of International Relations, Public Administration and Political Science not in the helms of governance?
The school system lacks basic mentoring!
We are loaded with lots of knowledge but not with guidance on how to use it to produce results in real life.
Who will even mentor you? Are they doers themselves?
This will take me to the next point.
12. TEACHING IS LEFT TO ONLY TEACHERS
See, for young children, you can bombard them with information. Adult who deal with real life issues need more than information or knowledge.
They need information, inspiration and mentoring/motivation.
Information - What to do
Inspiration - How to start
Mentoring and Motivation - How to stay focused until results show.
So, if Aliko Dangote is invited to teach Economics or Obama to teach grassroot politics do you think he will only be passing information?
This is where school system gets it wrong. It hires only teachers and not professionals who are on the field using their theories.
Our secondary and tertiary education needs more than passing of information, making students cram theories.
Theories are awesome. They make us explain practice. But we need mentors who are practical people and inspirers who are also achieving results on the field.
Someone finish with a first class, comes back immediately for masters degree and PhD, why not let him teach the principle and you'll bring a school certificate holder who is a captain in the industry to jump-start students know-how?
14. NO MISTAKES
I remember when I went to have a holiday class in a school my brother was teaching so many years ago. Because my English grammar was very poor (still not best yet), my brother would give me 20 questions to solve. For every single question I missed, I get a stroke of cane.
Sometimes I get as much as 7 or 8 every single day then.
That is the school system. It makes you feel terrible for making mistakes.
How about real life situation?
STAY TURN
