Three things worth considering in education.

In light of the current discussion (or re-discussion) on education – or reforms, curriculum overhauls, needs assessments, blueprints, master plans, parliamentary reviews – or whatever you may call it, here are my thoughts on the topic – having been deep in this field for a couple of years now.

1. Know thy needs well – Do we really know what we need? Or at least what we want? One of the experiences from my travels is that when I don’t know what I need, I tend to over pack. It happened many times. You don’t know what you need. So fear overtakes you. Instead, when I came to Macau, although I was coming for an extended stay, I just had one medium-size

   

   suitcase with a 20-piece clothing. It is because I have been here before and I knew what I needed. My serious doubt with our education system is that we really don’t know what we want – let alone know what we need. So we are over packing our curriculum with things that we may never use or with things that someone told us were necessary. It is better to teach less, and teach well, than to pump in contents and concepts that students will never grasp (which is actually the case) or would ever use. One visiting British maths teacher once told me, after going through our Class 9 text books, that she taught those stuff in Class XI in UK. Are we trying to beat the British?

   We saw NAPE being discarded, Shakespeare being thrown out – and then reinstated, REC being pushed around, CAPSS being transferred, relocated and renamed – and all the while trying to figure out if multi-grade classrooms were good or bad.

2. Motivating the teachers – Many talks and discussions on education end up, as a cliché goes, as old wine in new bottle. Over the years we have seen master

   

   plans being developed, policies being framed and reframed, curriculum overhauls being done, studies being conducted, surveys being carried out, blue prints being initiated. So much so that now there are no terminologies left to title any new initiatives or documents. However, all along we have also refused to take the bull by the horn – teachers’ motivation and quality. As long as teachers are treated at par with 9-to-5 civil servants, everyone will opt for the 9-to-5 life. And the longer we stay in that state of denial, the longer the top performers will continue to shy away from the noble profession – and nothing much will improve in our education system. We might get some temporary sparks but not long term solutions because whatever visions we have, plans we pursue or dreams we would like to achieve, ultimately it is the teachers who have to deliver the knowledge to students. A simple logic says good curriculum taught by bad or demotivated teachers will result in bad students. But a bad curriculum if given to a good teacher might produced good students. Ideally we should have an equation of good curriculum and good teachers.

   How to motivate the teachers? We could we start by building teachers’ quarters and by providing higher financial incentives – instead of erecting ceremonial gates and walls. His Majesty the Fourth King, whom we all boast as role model but only a few emulate, used to provide technical allowance to engineers (I was one) and one grade higher in civil service to doctors to entice Bhutanese students to take up these challenging professions. So all the toppers of my generation opted for medicines or engineering. Why is it so difficult to copy-paste that policy on the teaching profession, if getting good teachers is a challenge?

3. Nothing wrong with our students – We, Bhutanese (my generation especially), think very low of our young people. We either underestimate them or suppress them – or both. We making sweeping statements like, ‘our children are spoilt’, ‘boys are criminals’, ‘girls are irresponsible’ and above all, students are dumb. They don’t know anything. Well, having moved from Sherubtse to Royal Thimphu College to University of Macau (that has top students from mainland China and many international students), I must proudly say that

   

   Bhutanese students are, by any measure, no less. I have read, assessed and graded test papers and assignments here and back home. I feel proud of what I actually used to read – especially in Sherubtse. An expatriate colleague who now works in the American University in UAE confirms this too. Given the right conditions our students can perform at par with anyone – and will make our country proud and a better place. In fact, one Australian diplomat once told me (and this was also echoed by a Dutch professor) that they were very happy with Bhutanese whom they considered as top performers, hardworking, rarely creating problems and heading home when they are done with their studies.

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   I have also written on the same issue many years back. On my previous blog. http://dorjiwangchuk.blogspot.com/search?q=education

It is the Academic Writing class and we are going through a journal article by an American woman who taught English in Shanxi province in the 80s. “The provincial capital is Xian, right? Which was also the capital of a medieval Chinese empire,” I offer my comment to the class. My knowledge of China is quite limited and also superficial. “Not that Shanxi. Another one,” my professor replies. “Oh! There are two Shanxis in China?” The class (just three of us) laughs at my latest realisation. Jay offers to explain the difference between the two Shanxis. “This is Shanxi, pronounced as Shaan Xi, meaning “Land west of Shan mountain”,” Jay writes in Chinese characters and also the romanised version. “Then why couldn’t we call “East” of Shan Mountain the other Shanxi?” I propose with the inquisitiveness of a child and refusing to admit defeat. “Oh, east of Shan is Shan Dong, another province, Dong means East. This is where Jojo comes from,” Jay continues. I burst out laughing again. Amused by own stupidity.

Ok. To summarise: there are two provinces with same name (but romanised as Shanxi (west of Mountains) and Shaanxi with double a, which means Land west of Shan for the benefit of sentient beings like me who cannot read Chinese). There is slight variation in how they are pronounced but to an untrained ear they are both identical. Obviously, they are totally different when written in Chinese characters. The writing system is not alphabet-based (meaning phonetic) but pictorial and ideographic representations.

The class continues. The topic for today is contrastive rhetoric – the difference between Anglophone and Chinese academic writing styles. A paragraph, in particular, from the journal article catches my eyes:

All Chinese know the standard procedures of Chinese courtesy: 
"This food is not very good, we are not good cooks, you must eat 
more." "This is Chinese candy, Chinese candy is terrible, this 
is especially terrible Chinese candy, you must have some." 
Certainly, all language-users rely upon idioms, clichés, and 
set phrases, but the Chinese seem always to rely upon them...

My face brightened as I noted the astonishing similarity to my own culture. If I just execute the “Find” and “Replace” function on my Word document of just one pronoun, it will be a valid description of popular courtesies we followed back home. I just translated them in my head in my native language and they fitted word by word. I smiled even more.

This is what I like about learning. A discovery such as this. First of all, in a place that is so far that I didn’t even know the existence of two similarly named provinces and yet to find out a similar tradition of basic social norms as mine.

It just reinforced my confidence in my own culture.

NB – “This food is not very good, we are not good cooks, you must eat more” are widely said in Dzongkha as Zhego tshuebchi ga nay ya bay matshub. Zhay may la and in Sharchopkha as Toh tshutpa thur hangraang drangmay may la. Zhey na la.  

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Going back to school is fun. You get to relive your life – the so-called “golden” student life all over again. However, it becomes more difficult as you age because you have to cope up (and sometimes put up) with other realities. In this article I will lay down some key issues and skills and chills of going back to college.

1. Zeal For Learning

   

First and foremost, you got to have a genuine zeal for learning. You have to look at yourself and ask, “Do I really enjoy learning? Or was learning just a part of an ambition that I pursued?” You need to answer
these carefully because if you have made learning a MEANS and not an END in itself, you will suffer. Learning itself should be the end goal and not something that you do expecting a better job, career, money or fame.  I am not saying that this is wrong. But this is something you do when you are much younger – when you are, as the Italians say, in your primavera (spring season).

2. READ? You. Can. Kill. Me. Instead

We (especially Bhutanese) don’t like to read. Not even something that we sign on. It is a national disease. We would rather be killed than be asked to read, for example, Bill Clinton’s 1008-page autobiography, My Life. I am not a voracious reader but I would easily pass the national average. Post grad studies requires you to read, read and read. In communications studies we are made to read even more – and on a variety of subjects – philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychology, mass media, religion, history, politics, economy, current affairs, public relations and many more. If reading is your nightmare, don’t even attempt the post grad dream. But if you DO read, you are already a step closer.

3. Shed off your ego

Ego is in our blood. I wish it showed up in our complete blood count (CBC) reports so that with another prick of a needle we can bring our ego level down just like we do with blood pressure. You should HAVE pride – but not ego. Pride gives us dignity. Ego destroys them. Now going back to school, can you rub shoulders with people half your age? Share a room in a dormitory? Get lectured by people younger than you? Seek help from anyone from a janitor to a gardener? Admit that you can’t even use your own mobile phone? Can you be, suddenly, nobody all over again in a strange place?

4. Simple Living High Thinking

The increased income level in Bhutan in recent years has made us more materialistic than ever. I am amazed to see how much we pile up with stuff that we actually don’t need. In 2013 after I lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Sherubtse for a semester I decided to scale down my life. I realised I could live more with less. When I got back to Thimphu I started sieving through my wardrobe. And out came things that I never wore and didn’t even remember buying them. I returned to Kanglung for two more semesters – with 3 suitcases of cloths and 2 cartoons of old shoes that I gave away. I also gave away both my silk gho to my younger brother.

Going back to school means you have to detach yourself from that materialistic lifestyle. And adjust in a modest one-room flat after living in a house (in my case, in a villa). Can you do that? Do not romanticise these things? It is not fun after the second day. There is absolutely no private space. You have to line up for food instead of being served at the table. You have to do your laundry, clean your room, wash the toilet and scrub the basins. And if your roommate doesn’t care it is even worse. But living a simple life, you have more time for yourself, time to read, moments to reflect and time to pause – especially for someone like me who has been running since I graduated some 21 years back.

5. New place Strange Place

Being in a new place is nice but NOT if you have decided that it will be your home for the next 3 years. You are not on a paid-holiday or a romantic honeymoon but for a more serious stuff in a strange land for an extended period. You have to make yourself at home – and quickly. Of course, there are services and supports centres. But unfamiliar surroundings can be dreadful. No friends to support you. No family members to rely on.

And in my case no compatriots to even seek help. I am the only Bhutanese in this mini-country (Macau is a SAR of China and administered independently like Hong Kong). What happens if you have a medical emergency? Or if your money runs out faster than you had planned? What if you lose your passport? Or if you cannot catch up with the rest of the class? And fall behind with assignments? And like in my case what if you have just two classmates whom you don’t even meet? Yes, you could be lonely. Being away from your family, friends, comfort zone could be terrible. The social, cultural, physical and mental challenges are big. If you are not up to it, you will collapse.

Now having given you all the “bad” news here, from my next blog entries, you will only have the best of being back to school, I promise. I will also share about how YOU can also do whatever you want to do when you grow older (which everybody will). A sneak preview to that: at the core of everything you do or you want to do in life is your health. Take a good care of it.

My friend, Ugyen Tshering (former Paro NC member), used to tell me, “Stay fit. Your chance of your lifetime may come when you hit sixty.” I followed his advice.

Eleven years to go for my chance at sixty.

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