I've talked in part 1 about how the Ministry of Education has turned into a "Factory of Cheaters" selling the lie of education, while in fact inserting the germs of cheating into our youth. Allow me to tell you more about this here, as I reveal a lot from my past experience in teaching. Through the years during which I had worked as a teacher, I realized how there was lack of any real educational system. As a matter of fact, the system was there to make sure there would never be a system (sounds like a riddle I know). But it is all a bunch of nonsense. Our role as teachers was in fact to keep the chain of cheating going. How? Let's see..
For example, if you teach English at a language school, you have to teach not one curriculum, but two. Aywa wallahi two! There is the advanced level of the language school (cause students there learn English since KG1) and there is the curriculum taught at governmental schools. Now, to teach both curricula is absolutely impossible, not only because it is time consuming and pointless, but also because I'll make a jerk out of myself in class. Yesterday I am teaching Shakespeare and today I am teaching "My name is Om Luji"!
Let's move on to the process of examination. You may wonder what I meant by saying that students receive the answers before the questions. Hey, haven't you heard about the wonderful invention of "model answers"? Ahuh.. Yes, for every question there is a model answer that the students are given to memorize in order to write it back onto their answer sheets. It's that simple. And then we grade our own answers, the ones we wrote for the students to memorize. Teftekro momken 2a2ool el2egaba bta3ty we7sha? ady nafsy sefr maslan? Of course our answers are the perfect ones, so all the students do great. Except those who aren't careful enough with spelling or have a weak memory, those might get a bit less. But for sure everybody passes. Wkol sana wento taybeen. W2alf mabrouk. W3o2bal elsana elgayya.
*To be continued bardo..
First, we cheat ourselves into believing that we are teaching or educating, while in fact we are just there to fill a gap in a class full of students (ya3ni akeed class and students, yeb2a lazem teacher wala eih?). Then, we cheat the students and make them believe that they are being educated. Next, we cheat the parents by keeping their kids occupied by homework, making them believe that their children are receiving an education. And then we cheat the whole world by examining the students and giving them grades when they already had had the answers before the exam.
Bad enough? Well, that's not all. But let me first explain that teachers are not the evil guys here. The process actually starts from above. Yeah, ma3lesh, I'll once again refer to "the factory". See, the problem is that the curriculum itself is carefully made in a way to be too long, too complicated, too fragmented, too incoherent, that it cheats everybody. Once you lie your eyes upon the curriculum, you'll think "Wow, that's really difficult and full." Oh yeah, it is full, but full of rubbish.
For example, if you teach English at a language school, you have to teach not one curriculum, but two. Aywa wallahi two! There is the advanced level of the language school (cause students there learn English since KG1) and there is the curriculum taught at governmental schools. Now, to teach both curricula is absolutely impossible, not only because it is time consuming and pointless, but also because I'll make a jerk out of myself in class. Yesterday I am teaching Shakespeare and today I am teaching "My name is Om Luji"!
Those who used to come from the ministry for inspection basically cared about the ministry's curriculum. They are all 100% sure that we don't teach it, yet they also like to cheat us and ourselves into thinking that they are doing their jobs. There is a separate preparation book for this curriculum where all the lesson plans should be listed with the dates when they were given. There are also samples of notebooks and workbooks where the students answer its exercises. All these are a hoax. They know I know they know it is a hoax, yet we should all pretend that it's not so. We should cheat ourselves before we cheat everybody else. That's how the system works.
Let's move on to the process of examination. You may wonder what I meant by saying that students receive the answers before the questions. Hey, haven't you heard about the wonderful invention of "model answers"? Ahuh.. Yes, for every question there is a model answer that the students are given to memorize in order to write it back onto their answer sheets. It's that simple. And then we grade our own answers, the ones we wrote for the students to memorize. Teftekro momken 2a2ool el2egaba bta3ty we7sha? ady nafsy sefr maslan? Of course our answers are the perfect ones, so all the students do great. Except those who aren't careful enough with spelling or have a weak memory, those might get a bit less. But for sure everybody passes. Wkol sana wento taybeen. W2alf mabrouk. W3o2bal elsana elgayya.*To be continued bardo..
8 comments:
That's really so sad ya Om Luji.. What kinda future we have if this is the way by which our young men and women learn. It should be a dark future. Really I feel so sad to read what you have written. If this is the case in a high-profile language school, so how is it going in governmental school? Is that any hope that we will be able one day to have another Zowel or Farouk El Baz? Or it is khalas? Ba7? How could we aspire for any kind of development and economic welfare if our mental and educational infra-structure is like that? Sorry for being depressed, but you article was so strong and direct.
That is sad to hear! But not the only sad situation. Education is taken lightly nowadays I fear. In Romania, the only problems I hear of are related to teachers asking for more money. True, some might say, they earn little money. No one counts the hours they work and compare them to a different job though. No one evaluates their work. And half of their students pay for private tutoring just to pass. And the ministry says such practice is forbidden but does nothing to change it. The result, each year students know less.
First time to your blog, OL! Were you teaching in a private language school or in a govt school?
Salama:
So sorry to depress you. Your questions should all be posed to the ministry of education. I wonder why they don't wanna take any action with all the calls they are getting. Every time there is an interview with an Egyptian icon, they are always keen to bring up education in their talk. They stress the importance of education and how it has become a matter of life or death for Egypt. Bas la 7ayat lman tonady.
Ma3lesh.. It seems we must lose hope in a few generations.
Alina:
I felt as if you were talking about Egypt. Especially when you mentioned private tutoring. This is a huge problem here. It is truely depressing.
Cairogal:
If my memory is still working, I can tell it's not ur first time. But cause I had a new look for the blog, maybe that's what gave u that impression :)
I used to work at a private language school.
I've never really thought of it that way, great post.
I know what you mean about the advanced syllabus vs governmental syllabus. I remember both students and teachers feeling insulted when we had to shift from Charles Dickens and Bernard Shaw to The story of ancient poisonous spiders which was supposed to enlighten us some how.
ravine:
That's the problem, u see. The ministry doesn't care what the students actually learn as long as kolo tamam. No wonder we have a crisis when it comes to education in Egypt.
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