Originally published: September 16, 2010
I want to try to explore what
education is, what it can constitute, and what it can obstruct as well.
Yes, the thing we call education can be just as much a liberator as it
can be an oppressor. I wish I blogged more about my experience in Watts
and Compton and the Los Angeles area in general about educational
inequalities. Alas, I was busy being a student myself.
Now I am at the other
end in another world. And now that I have nearly a year of surveying
what education is in the Occupied Territories, perhaps I can draw some
parallels and throw in some research.
I include the above
picture because it blatantly contrasts groups or ideologies or even
approaches. We can call this pedagogy, any fancy word really. Here you
see one of nine civil rights activists, a black woman walking with books
in hand. You see angry white women. You see men meant to enforce law or
protection or order in the backdrop, along with other civilian men.
Why do I include this
picture in the first post under "Education" on this blog? Because this
picture is today; black and white, obvious, yet somehow casted as
fundamental knowledge everyone seems to accept as a part of their said
institutions.
First because I believe women
are the backbone to society. The ones going crazy are the white women.
The men are in the backdrop, they will follow as much as they carry guns
and look official. But we all know if momma is not happy at home, the
whole family is probably miserable. And if momma has an idea for us, we
sure as hell listen.
I have taught
workshops and tutored as a college student in Watts. I coordinated a
project that dealt with high school students who faced gang violence,
drugs, and a horribly failing educational institution somehow missing
from the famed notion of "American equality."
I will never forget
one particular student. It was my first year in college, and I met with him every
week after his school let out. He was high half the time, under
nourished, and from a single parent household with mom working several
jobs. He needed someone, and school was not that person. It took forever
to get him to talk--to be his true self. He would often look down at
his papers and give simple answers. And then finally, when we made that
breakthrough and he became comfortable, he got expelled. He was banned
from the school premise.
Consistency is what
is missing from the ghetto--consistency in figures, people, resources.
One program comes in, and then the next, and the students become these
sort of case studies or guinea pigs for new approaches so long as
someone can fund it.
But once our very own
center faced cuts, of course as puppets to our funder, the State, our
members wanted to cut site visits saying, "they needed to be paid else
they wouldn't go." I was outraged: was this how the communities at UCLA,
communities that came from the same harsh background, suddenly thought?
That they needed money and to be paid to create the so-called
revolution they dreamed of? I was disenchanted with these activists who
were suddenly marching for dollars and not their students. But then
again, they needed jobs, and if they had none, they too would drop out
or face terrible debt. Thus notice the domino effect of educational access.
Funding is a trap.
Money comes with a leash. You become its bitch and God forbid a dog bite
the hand of its owner--else it is put to sleep. Unequal, costly
education is a power mechanism
Although my student
was expelled and was sent to a school across town, he continued every week
to sneak onto campus to see me. And then summer came, I left. And he
disappeared. The guilt till this day haunts me. I hope he is ok.
I am now on the other
side of the world, and no one be shocked when I say that USAID and
European government donors fund so many of the schools here and
educational institutions like the one for which I work. And no one be
shocked when I say that once again, teachers and outreachers are again
made into bitches. Nothing is consistent. Dogs and students, teachers
and dogs. Administration like the one in Watts is like the
administrations of schools I go to here--pompous officials who have no
clue what the state of their classrooms are, or rather, purposefully
ignore it. Or volunteer their schools for UNRWA funded programs so that
they can make some cash, secure some sort of fame for themselves.
My students and I at Abu Dees university for a science fair. |
One principal
continuously interrupted my classroom with UN officials and Americans
from the Embassy so that they can look at my students like some pity case.
They showcase my students like those commercials you see that tell you to
sponsor a refugee child, and then they walk out. They were not invested in
these bright, beautiful students who were forced everyday to wear a
shirt and cap that branded them as owned by those who funded them. They
simply marketed them.
They called it "Camp Discovery."
It started under Bush as a de-militarization program--but us teachers
know, that despite the agenda funders wish to push, in the end we help
nourish the educational environment of our students.
And for me that is to
think with an open mind not just about the book. I told my students,
look at who writes your books, what words they want you to learn, who
are these people coming and visiting you? Why is the principal posing
with you for pictures in the middle of lecture and then disappears? Why
are they making you into a giant show? Why do we have to perform a skit
for all the foreigners and donors and showcase you all as products on
the NGO manufacturing belt?
Of course I didn't
literally say all this. They already knew, who was I kidding. They
rolled their eyes every time, but in other instances I saw the eyes of
children who needed someone when they held up their art and asked,
"Isn't it beautiful, Miss?" "Miss, come paint with us and create like
us." I enjoyed that we were together in this.
I wanted them to notice that next
door there was a settlement, an illegal one, of Zionist colonizers. Of
course, I didn't have to make them point it out. They knew it was them
who shot up the place or arrested their relatives or threatened them.
Just like in Watts there was an abandoned bomb factory next to the
campus. Environment shapes what goes on during school. Unfortunately
school gates and walls are the facade we believe lead us into an
unbiased and completely academic world. What the heck is an "academic"
world anyways when we see so much politics bleed into the books and
playgrounds?
Students, the ones who can
perhaps provide the most to the world because they have had no shelter
beyond a roof over their heads and who have witnessed the brutal reality
of life, are being used as mere pawns. Both here, in the US, and I bet
anywhere on this damned earth. Fund them, keep them subdued, but do not
allow them to climb the social ladder. Keep them in refugee camps or
keep them in the ghetto.
That
woman in the picture made a symbolic sacrifice, one that is good for
pictures. But how much has really changed? The only thing different is
rather than blatant physical forms of discrimination, the elitists have
poisoned the institutions to ensuring that black and white is education.
Not colored pages of real life, but just black and white print. No
wonder my students sleep and find it so boring at times--real life is
education, these buildings stagnation.
I suggest this book to get more of an idea of what it is like to be a teacher. Enjoy.
Thanks for the education on this topic. What an endearing, sweet photo of you and your students. Precious - too bad they are not treated as such.
ReplyDeleteMuch needed reform on this front... education shapes society, so what goes on in schools is a microcosm of Palestine. I truly believe our liberation will be in education.
DeleteAgreed, education is the key, both for your people and their future, as you imply, as well as humanity at large. It may be a cliche, but knowledge is power. I pray that that the journey to attain that knowledge is successful, and thus, as will be the journey to the freedom of Palestine.
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