Concerned citizen and one of the most level-headed twimbo I know, Zanda Toto, is pissed at how our education is failing to mirror back to our society and basically failing to translate according to the societal needs.
In a tweet he sent out on the evening of April 10, Toto stressed out on why a nation that so claimed to be top literate and creative at most would still use superannuated and “the ugly kind” logos as the face of their academies, schools and rural councils institutions.
We would be darned if we think that he’s majoring on the minor and that we should overlook this tweet. I for one feel that this has been an elephant in the room for decades. Perhaps it is time we endeavour to share our two cents on the matter.
Now, for the longest time, our Zimbabwean educational system has been subject to whopping criticism. At some point in history, later former president, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, boasted that the country had a 94% literacy rate on the continent. Sad to note, under the leadership of this highly educated, wily politician who subsequently became the caricature of an African dictator, the once bespoke success story of Zimbabwe turned sour as the granduncle destroyed an entire country to keep his job, among other things. His regime stifled freedom of expression and those that dared criticise him publicly paid dearly, his critics said.
Regardless of how mean of an uncle he was and how he always had a sour look on his face, talking crap to everyone in the family and neighbours and carrying a knife in his front pocket while our aunts and other uncles chorused how he fought in the war and took part in the Uhuru movement, he will always remain a hero who brought independence and an end to white-minority rule.
What we will, however, harbour grudges against him is the illusion that he created in our psyche about our education system. The man emphasised Math, English and Science to the extent that a lot of us forgot how important creatively-inclined subjects were, hence most of our educational and government logos and brand interfaces ended up looking like epitaphs of lost souls, faceless, nameless and forgotten.
There is a saying that goes, “What if the cure to AIDS is trapped inside the mind of someone who cannot afford an education?” Well, what if the cure to HIV is trapped inside the mind of a child whose capacity to think creatively has been wiped out by their education system?
Zimbabwe claims to be the home of the literate ones but this country’s school curriculums have had a terrible lack of individuality. I have a stake in education, but I find there to be many people whose interests lie in education, and everyone has other opinions about the way education should be illustrated. Our education system is one of the most uniform and immutable on the continent. In providing education to kids in an attempt to prepare them for an unknown future, our education practices remain rigid despite all of the expertise and predictive statistical data. It seems as if the only thing we are practising is, well, inapplicable insanity.
I believe all kids have talents and the capacity to learn, but the way they are taught consistently squanders those talents and abilities, and in turn, diminish the possibility of reaching their full potential. I remember sitting in a classroom full of disengaged pupils or seeing students who never challenged the curriculum because they take the information as absolute, or don’t know that they should have a say in what and how they’re learning.
For me, that still problematic to this day. Creativity in education is just as important as science and math, even literacy. Most young people are unafraid of failure, but as they travel through an educational system that does not cater to the multiple types of intelligence, they lose the confidence to take chances.
When we neglect creativity, we are only cultivating a portion of their brain and end up ignoring their creative capacities. This becomes an implicit hint that their individuality has no value because this is what we believe they should learn for the benefit of capitalism or the continued monetary functioning of this nation. Bored and underpaid teachers and lecturers tell (lie to?) students that showing strong academic ability guarantees success in life. They stigmatise differences and put labels on unconventional characteristics, which drive kids to conformity. Therefore, highly talented, creative people sometimes internalise these beliefs and feel as though they are inadequate because their non-academic talents are worthless simply because we do not see them as beneficial to Zimbabwean capitalism.
As society searches for answers to generational poverty, rising suicide statistics, divorce, addiction, boredom at work, etc., no one seems to have an answer. Perchance it is partly because education does not teach us to approach problems creatively. Imagine what the world would be like if our education system teaches us how to heal from the psychological, spiritual and emotional injuries we sustain regularly.
Woe is us, we have lost the creative, meaningful aspects of what makes life so dynamic and this processed, cookie-cutter way of thinking has imprisoned us.
OK, agreed; education has the capacity to save lives. But the academic inflation and the increasing number of college graduates will exacerbate this because there will eventually be a need for a new way to measure qualifications for jobs. This will be difficult if there is no way to distinguish one person from the next because everyone has adapted to a conditioned way of thinking and problem-solving, so we don’t see any problem with those “ugly kind” logos which seems to follow us wherever we go.
People experience the world in a myriad of ways; visually, kinetically, abstractly, through sound and movement and it is important to find a way for students to express how they interact in all these ways. We just hope that we consider what a versatile, adaptive education system can offer us in the future. While politicians and other policymakers keep on promising the best quality education, there is a need to walk the talk. There stands the need to unearth the norms that can help address the technical questions in our education and make it relevant to the needs of today.
Wait, is the amazing bird perching on a tree outside my window hinting me that is what former Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora was rooting for? I won’t mind it. It’s probably a lonely and lost creature trying so hard to get the human attention by chirping out.
