A personal story from a young, new mother seeking the best path for her child
Growing up, there are a few things I remember very clearly and one of them is the fact that I didn’t feel challenged in school.
Hilda Kabushenga Kragha | KEY academy contributor
The teacher showed up, we had a bunch of things to learn (read memorize) and that was that. I could ace an exam simply by cramming the textbook a week before exams. THIS WAS NOT LEARNING. Or maybe in a way it was because I learned a whole lot of stuff this way, but I know it could have been better and I want to do better for my child.
The traditional education systems be it African or British (what’s the difference again?), define success and achievement in a very narrow way and then spend years drumming into the minds of young children that if they do not meet this narrow definition of success, they are all round failures. I cannot, for the life of me, support another generation of young minds being fed this narrative.
When I got my first job 9 years ago, I was shocked at the number of 1st class degree holders in the room and in a way, this is used to validate the system. The people with the 1st class degrees get the best jobs and better opportunities, better outcomes etc. However, think about how many people the system has left behind because to be on the path to a 1st class in anything, you need to have aced geometry at age 10 and should have been able to recall details of the French revolution by age 15. Moreover, the environment that’s created by a bunch of 1st class degree holders is not necessarily the most creative or innovative one because our education didn’t teach us creativity and innovation. Instead, it taught us to cram and sometimes with a cane as an ever-looming deterrent/motivator.
I want better for my child. It took me three decades to get to self-actualization because until I figured it out myself, I didn’t know it was important. Society gets us to Maslow’s 4th hierarchy of needs (self-esteem) because in today’s capitalist society, there is value in having insecure workers, forever trying to prove a point, to prove that they are successful, so they do more, feeding off the approval and accolades that society bestows. I will be so sad if my children are stuck in that race. From the start, I want my children to understand that they are enough, that they have diverse talents, that it is genuinely okay to be anything you want to be (not just the well celebrated doctor, lawyer or engineer).
I am convinced that the only way to do this is through a transformative education system, a system which looks at child development in a more comprehensive way than just solved algebra. I want my child to have a say in how he is taught, that way if something isn’t working, you troubleshoot it as opposed to leaving a child behind because he understands the concept but not the teacher’s methodology. I want my children to be immersed in a learning world anchored on empathy and a genuine desire, leveraging the natural curiosity and creativity of our children instead of stifling it. I believe this is the only way to make sure that our children are prepared for a future that is extremely uncertain given the rate of change the world is going through.
I understand that education is one of the most important decisions we must make for our children, and it gets especially tougher for young urban professionals, especially those who have achieved society’s definition of success. If the old system worked for us, why change it? This is a conversation I have very often with my husband and a lot of our friends.
My answer is that we thrived despite the system not because of it. Nobody could have imagined the speed at which the world is changing, yet we have accepted these changes whether it be in technology, transportation, healthcare, entertainment, virtually every field but education. We’re not ready for the world that’s in the process of being created; and we won’t be ready until we make the same radical adjustments in education.
Written by Hilda Kabushenga Kragha (KEY academy contributor)
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