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STUDENT REALITIES AND DREAMS
| What are some of the aspirations, desires, etc., of young people of Zambia? What are they like? Are people in the education system aware of these aspirations, desires, etc? John Mudalitsa, S.J., while at Nkrumah Teachers’ Training College, explored these issues in a book he wrote entitled Religious Education With a Difference: A Personal View. We publish here chapter one of his book which talks about students’ desires and aspirations. This book arose out of his interaction with the students using a set of questions to which the students provided responses. |
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What are our young people like? This question is of utmost importance. If Religious Education (RE) is to make a difference in their lives, we must know the way their lives are now. If their lives are all right and they are basically happy with the way things are, then why should we try to make a difference? But if the young are not happy with the status quo, then we must find out what they want and need so that we can design an RE programme that will be able to make a meaningful difference in their lives. WHAT ARE YOUNG ZAMBIANS LIKE?
Recently I had been introduced to a new class of almost 130 students at Nkrumah College, Kabwe. I wondered whether I would ever be able to come to know them personally or at least master their names since I already had 220 students. What a pity not to know these young people with such friendly faces and bright smiles! But then it came to me that I could administer a questionnaire to them and so come to know them -- not as individuals but as a group -- in a special way: I wanted to learn the realities of their lives and their dreams. I prepared and administered the following questionnaire to them: In order to help your lecturer make his lessons more relevant to your life kindly complete the following questionnaire concisely and to the point. Remember Jesus said that the truth liberates. Do not write your name. 1. Name two things in yourself you like very much. 2. Name two things in yourself you dislike very much. 3. Name two things that delight you very much. 4. Name two things that trouble you very much. 5. Think of the person you admire most. Name two things that make that person so special. 6. Rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being very bad and 10 being very good. 7. Indicate your sex. What did I do with their answers? First of all, I copied all the answers to each of the question. Then I studied those answers and started putting similar answers together. After many hours I was able to fit almost all the answers into 5 or 6 groups or categories. Finally I took my calculator to find out what percentage of those answers was in a certain category. Since I knew whether a particular answer came from a female or a male student, I was able to compare the two groups. I am telling you all these details so that you too can carry out similar research yourself. In this way you may come to learn much more about your pupils, fellow teachers or any other group of people you will be in contact with. Here I will concentrate on the answers to questions 3, 4 and 5 in order to learn about our students’ delights, troubles and ideals. DELIGHTS TO INCREASE Students’ delights have been encapsulated in the following five categories which are here presented in alphabetical order: good things in life, loving relationships, personal growth, religious practices and success in studies. Firstly I will present a summary of all the answers in each category, which will enable you to empathize with our young people, put yourself in their shoes and so be able to see the world from their perspective. Secondly I will express the delights mathematically in the form of a chart which will show their interrelationships in terms of importance and gender. And thirdly I will give brief appraisal of the delights. Good things in life include delights found in eating delicious food and sleeping without worries; listening to music and reading books; watching adventure movies and traveling to exciting places; playing football and having a drink with friends. Loving relationships involve delights of being loved by parents and siblings; receiving and writing letters; sharing stories and jokes with friends; having a good friend of the opposite sex; staying in a happy home where everybody is friendly and healthy; being in the company of godly and peaceful people; being in good terms with everyone -- even those who do not greet you. Personal growth includes delights like being in good health and at peace with oneself; arriving in solitude at a better understanding of oneself; realizing that one’s life is changing for the better; becoming more determined and courageous; feeling proud when telling the truth even if it pains; finding wisdom through good advice from friends; improving relationship with others and rejoicing in their goodness and success. Some students find much delight in practicing religion especially when they worship God with beautiful singing and joyous dancing; when they listen to a heart-touching sermon; when they feel grateful for many good things the Lord has done for them. Success in academic work includes attending a good lesson and learning new things; obtaining good marks in assignments and tests; discussing a problem with colleagues and finding more clarity; consulting a lecturer and understanding the topic better; but above all being at Nkrumah and becoming a good teacher. The students’ delights can be summarized in the following table: Table 1 – Things that delight students very much
Here are two tips on how to read the table correctly: 1. The table does not indicate that only so many students delight in something. Let us take the success in studies. Only 32% of the students have explicitly indicated that they find their success delightful. That does not mean that others do not delight when they get a good mark. Remember each student could only name two things that delight him/her very much! 2. The table does indicate the hierarchy of the students’ delights. Let us take personal growth and good things in life: about two thirds of the students have indicated they find much delight in the area of personal growth and about one third have indicated they find much delight in good things in life. That simply means that the group as a whole delights more in personal growth than in good things of life, that for example, for them the inner joy is more important than a good meal. Remember we are not saying that a good meal is not important but that it is less important than inner joy. What can we conclude about our students from the table above? Basically they are good people who enjoy praiseworthy things like inner growth, love, success in studies and practice of religion. Ladies seem to find more delight in religion and successful studies. On the other hand, gentlemen do not only delight in material things but find personal growth and genuine friendship even more delightful. Our students yearn for delights – for the fulfillment of those noble desires that would bring them joy. For as Arstotle put it, humans cannot desire not to be happy! However, that does not mean that their lives are full of delights: their noble desires are often frustrated. They have many troubles as well! TROUBLES TO OVERCOMEThe troubles the students have indicated fit into the following five categories: difficult people, inner problems, poverty, sickness and studies. Difficult people include irresponsible parents, corrupt politicians, immoral intellectuals, noisy drunkards and bothersome womanizers. Troublesome people make fuss about irrelevant things, slander and insult, exploit and abuse, manipulate and dictate. As if there was a shortage of trustworthy men and stable women in the world in which we live! Many troubles are inner and personal. They do not originate in the environment but within the students themselves -- in their minds and hearts. Here are some of them: anxiety about one’s future whether one will find success and salvation; fear of getting HIV virus and dying young; lack of self esteem and self confidence; inability to understand why one is so highly sensitive and easily upset by trivial things; failure to control one’s temper and sexual desires; weakness to face and overcome sufferings; inability to open up to people and make friends; and difficulty to apologize and forgive. Poverty does not only mean being broke and admiring things one cannot buy. Some students are not able to pay their boarding fees as well as provide for their hungry brothers and sisters. There is a sense that the standards of living are on decline and the AIDS pandemic is on increase. Students find their studies troublesome: the amount of work is overwhelming and the information coming from different sources is often confusing. Some lack study skills and do not know how to organize their work and manage time successfully. Many fear tests and exams for they may fail either to understand the question or to recall the right information and consequently get a poor mark or even fail completely. Some students are troubled by various sicknesses from simple pimples to the inability to have children. Some suffer from constant fatigue and many are scared of contracting dreaded venereal diseases, especially the deadly HIV virus. The students’ troubles can be summarized in the following table: Table 2 – Things that trouble students very much
What can we conclude about our students from the above? Our students encounter many problems and experience much tension and pain. The majority of those problems come from within themselves and from their immediate environment. Lady students find considerable problems in studies. However, a closer analysis reveals that most of those problems deal with fear of failure, lack of self-confidence as well as lack of study skills. On the other hand, gentlemen seem to hide much pain behind those tough looking faces and macho behaviour -- much more than ladies. Our students yearn for enlightenment and empowerment to overcome their troubles; they need much hope that the future will be brighter and determination to work hard to make it so. ASPIRATIONS TO ACHIEVEQuite a number of people explicitly mentioned the person they admire: their parent or spouse, Mandela and even a poor lecturer. Some female students said they admired Nkandu Luo for her self-confidence and assertiveness. The students mainly used adjectives like wise, smart, loving to answer this question. Their answers could be put into five categories: appearance, good morals, inner strength, knowledge and wisdom and tender loving care. For some students one’s appearance matters very much. It includes lovely complexion and nice voice as well as impressive posture and smart dress. However, it is obvious from their answers that good appearance has personal nuance and may mean something quite different to different people: some admire calm people with serene smile and some admire cheerful people with a big laugh. Students admire people with good morals: people who are committed to what is good in word and deed; who are truthful and genuine without pretence; humble yet dignified; self-disciplined and other-centred; democratic and patriotic. People with tender loving care are friendly, gentle and kind; tender, compassionate and caring; concerned, understanding and supportive; generous and patient and (very interesting!) always faithful and forgiving. Admirable people have knowledge and wisdom. They are focused and thoughtful; they appreciate what is good and criticize what is bad; they are open to new ideas and eager to apply them; they are willing to change themselves as well as to challenge others to change; they are able to think for themselves and express their ideas without fear. People our students admire display inner strength. They are firm and confident; they are able to stand on their own and differ with others if necessary to affirm what is true and right. They should even be ready to suffer for the sake of human rights and the common good. Admirable people have succeeded in life in spite of the odds: they are not only good in theory but in practice as well; they are well organised and productive. They are basically happy whether they are single or married. They are able to work with others to bring about social change. What our students admire can be summarized in the following table: Table 3 – Things students admire in others very much
What can we conclude about our students from the table above? If you meet our students, you notice immediately how important it is for many of them to appear elegant and smart. One is surprised to learn that there are five other personal qualities that matter even more to them. Ladies tend to admire people who are wise, strong and successful slightly more than gentlemen do; on the other hand gentlemen admire slightly more people who are loving and morally upright. Indirectly, our students have stated their own ideals. They have characterized not only the type of people they admire but also the type of persons they themselves would like to become. There is much idealism in our your adults which, for sure, great Plato himself would admire. Would they not impress Jesus himself like that young man from the gospel for whom the evangelist says that Jesus simply “looked at him with love” (Mark 10:21 )? CIRCUMSTANCES TO CHANGEOur students’ lives must be seen within the circumstances that surround them. Here are few facts and figures which show the conditions in which our students find themselves. AIDS is killingAIDS has become the most devastating disease humankind has ever faced. “AIDS has become the biggest threat to the continent’s development and its quest to bring about an African Renaissance” (UNAIDS 2001:18). The following article summarizes the situation in Zambia quite well and gives it a personal touch. DON’T DIE SO YOUNG by Precious Maiba Recently Professor Michael Kelly gave a seminar on the impact of AIDS on education in Zambia . Here are some figures from his presentation and articles he left behind: Zambia is among the worst HIV/AIDS infected countries of the world at about 20% in persons above age 15. About one third of our children aged below 15 have lost their mother or father or both. Life expectancy in Zambia , which stood at 54 years in the not too distant past, has plummeted to 37 and is projected to decline in the coming decade to 30. Teachers themselves are not immune to HIV virus. In 1998 on average four teachers died per day and their mortality rate was 70% higher than the mortality rate of the 15-49 year old age group in the general population. Are you going to die when you are about 35 years? Wouldn’t it be sad to see you in the coffin so soon? You are needed in the classroom and not in the graveyard. So please take good care of yourself! If anyone, teachers should know about AIDS and yet they still get it even more than ordinary people! Why? Is there something wrong with the education we have received and now offer to our pupils? Poverty is incapacitatingZambia is among the poorest countries of the world. The following socio-economic indicators are taken from UNICEF’s The State of the World’s Children 2001. You can contrast our country’s performance to the United Kingdom and Malaysia : the former is considered a developed country, and the latter was, according to Michael Soko of the UNDP in Lusaka , approximately at the same level of development as Zambia was 35 years ago. You can also compare Zambia ’s performance to the average performance of Sub-Saharan countries as well as of all the countries in the world. Table 4 – Some socio-economic indicators
What can we conclude from the above table? We produce less, starve more and die earlier than those of other countries. Why should it be so? What has gone wrong? Corruption is destroyingAccording to President Mwanawasa (Zambia’s Republican President), the main reason why there is so much poverty in the land is corruption. The impact of corruption is ghastly, as the President remarked: It is not HIV/AIDS; it is not poverty, but corruption, which poses the greatest threat to our people and nation. The evident reversal of all the major socio-economic indicators is largely due to the diversion and misapplication of national and public resources. Corruption has virtually wrecked the economy of Zambia. Indeed, it is corruption that has destroyed the reputation of our people and institutions. Corruption costs the country trillions of Kwacha a year, increasing costs of goods, deterring investment and holding back development. Why is there so much corruption? Has RE offered in our schools for decades had any impact on the society? But people are coping bravelyNevertheless, in spite of these enormous problems, our people do not complain much but rather show much resilience and buoyancy. It is said that a European woman spends a week in hospital when giving birth but her African counterpart goes and resumes household chores the very same day she has given birth. Koffi Annan has paid a great tribute to the African people (ordinary not apamwamba, the rich!): Our people never cease to inspire us by their cheerfulness and enterprise in the midst of calamity and deprivations. Against all odds, they keep society going by their unfailing solidarity with their extended families and communities and their generosity to others, including refugees and displaced persons. They are a model and a reproach to other parts of the world, especially the richer parts. This simple study has disclosed our students’ delights, troubles and ideals. Could we not extend our finding to the whole sector of young Zambians who have completed their secondary education? My answer to this question is positive for our students come from all corners of Zambia, from Mwinilunga to Chipata and from Sesheke to Mbala. What then, can we say about young Zambians as a result of our survey? Above all, they delight in personal growth and loving relationships; they are troubled with inner problems and difficult people; and they aspire to become persons who are loving, upright, wise, strong and successful. However, the environment in which they live is not easy but affected with AIDS, poverty, and corruption. We will end with two big questions. Are the curricula in our educational institutions really relevant to our students’ dreams and realities? Do they help students overcome their troubles, increase their delights, realize their ideals and alter the environment in which they live? John
Mudalitsa, S.J. |
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