Sunday, February 20, 2011

The meaning of education

By Mario A. Dozal
             After reading about the three stories from the field regarding education on the positive deviance website, what struck me was the importance of education is not only viewed differently but also how we put different meaning into the education we receive. For the parents of Hanan, Dermi, and Roba, they all saw the value of education as being one that was empowering, as being an opportunity that could change their girls’ lives for the best. Hanan’s family even said that “We understand that it is only by education, not by labor, that real change comes to life,” while Roba’s family claimed that Allah made the decision that Roba would go to school. For these girls, their parents are the facilitators for allowing their daughters to be positive deviants by going against what is traditional in their culture and trying to ensure the survival of their daughters through education. While they are bucking the culture, they manage to adhere to it enough so that they aren’t completely ostracized, as we see with Roba’s parents who encourage her to go to school yet still have her promised to her marry her cousin.
            When we sit back and look at where the focus lies in education, we can see that for these girls in Ethiopia the focus is on them using education to better themselves and for their own personal survival. Education is also something that is a privilege to have and they are very lucky if they can get a formal one. What popped into my mind while reading about these girls was the difference in how serious education is taken for those in other countries and for us in the U.S. When looking at these girls and reading about how one, Dermi, had a lot of challenges to overcome (including a letter from a classmate requesting a sexual friendship) it occurred to me how important that one chance at formal education is to these girls. In the case of Dermi, if she accepts that sexual friendship and gets pregnant then her story will most likely end there: as a young mother who lost her opportunity. These girls seem eager to learn and the best thing that seems to appear from all of them is that their families are very supportive of the girls attending school and learning. I read all of this and feel inspired and then I think back onto my own little foray into the field of education as a tutor and it upsets me to know that while there are those that are begging to be formally educated so they have a chance to feel like they succeeded, we have those that just piss away the opportunity and don’t care. When I worked as a tutor for GEAR UP, the biggest problem that the higher ups and I had was concerning our ideologies. The higher ups, who never went into the classroom, believed that every child was inherently good and wanted to be tutored, with the rate of students passing meaning dollar signs for their organization. I myself, as the tutor who attended these classes on a daily basis, believed that not all students wanted to learn and those who didn’t should be allowed to fail. I don’t think my ideology is as extreme as my bosses made it seem but when I look at what these Ethiopian girls go through to receive an education, it really makes no sense as to why we give so many chances here to those that don’t want them. I’ve seen the kids that don’t want to study and demonstrate they don’t want to even put forth an effort but the teacher can’t fail them with anything less than a 50 and  the district puts forth an effort that the kids must be passed. Even when high risk teens choose to get pregnant, here they are allowed to finish school and have regular health checkups and free lunch, while girls like Dermi get pregnant and their educational endeavors end there without regular free checkups and free lunch. It just boggles my mind and makes me wonder what positive deviance method would work to actually get these kids to take advantage of those opportunities instead of throwing them away.

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