Learning Stops at the Fifth Row

“Before I met you Dr. Greg, I had no idea what education was… But now I think it is like water. It is important for everything in Life.”

-Three Cups of Tea (Mortenson and Oliver 312)

Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘One Goal: Education for all?’ Unfortunately we are still trying to aspire to the goal worldwide and still have not achieved near what we need to in the globalized world. Although we would like to think that everyone has an equal chance at education, this is simply not the case and millions worldwide are still in need of additional resources to help them get an equal step in the door.

Even in the Western world, students are left without the resources they need to compete in a global economy. The truth is that socio-economic status has a lot to do with how well a student will do in school and those affects often dictate how those students will grow up and compete in a competitive job market. Education is not just about the pencil crayons, multiplication tables, sending kids to school on the school bus or organizing after school play dates, it is a complex system that is intertwined with other parts of life. If students come from low socio economic standings, they can be disqualified from education for reasons like not having breakfast in the morning which consistently could result in low energy levels and low performance levels. Students might not have backpacks, geometry kits or other essential school supplies for the Canadian system of education. Students might have a more difficult time paying for post secondary education or might not be able to afford it at all. 

Resources do exist to help students who do not have the adequate social supports. Of course these resources could always be more plentiful but the fact that resources like Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Send a Kid to school smiling campaign, Pathways to Education, Strong Start, Books for Kids exist say something about a commitment to Education equality in Canada.

Another group of students who can easily be disqualified from education is students with disabilities. Not enough of the proper resources exist in a classroom setting to give students the support they need to exist and work in a normal classroom setting. Special Education budgets are often a major concern for Educational Assistants, teachers and parents alike who want to see students succeed no matter what barriers they may have. When I filled in my teacher’s college applications late last year, I knew that I wanted to make equity and social justice in education a central theme in my teaching philosophy and truly work to make sure that I could do my part to ensure Education for all actually takes place. Although our system has many flaws in it, I believe that we have committed people within our system who are trying to make positive change for the students who are challenged by the system itself.

Being in Kenya, it is extremely difficult to see the amount and variety of students who are left to the sidelines because they simply have natural barriers that prevent them from fully participating in the education system.  There are students in the classes I teach that absolutely must have a learning disability who don’t even know it. These students cannot hold their attention long enough to open their textbook to a certain page number and distract the circle of students working around them making effective classroom management for the teacher incredibly difficult. Students with far worse challenges like Autism are put into normal classes without any assistance and are expected to behave like a normal functioning child and do the same amount of work even though they do not understand and cannot get concepts above a certain level.  

Students with physical handicaps are lucky to go to school if they can go. Mostly students with handicaps are left out of the education system including a girl I met who does not have full mobility of her legs but was given special attention at an alternative school and now encourages parents with kids with disabilities to never give up on their children. Deaf children in Kenya are ‘incapable’ of going to school for a full day so are sent home before lunch to relax. No one actually has faith in these students to give them any sort of responsibility. There is a huge stigma that kids that are different in any shape or form are incapable to grow up to be functioning and productive members of society.

In large classes, especially those with between 60-90 students in them, learning stops in the fifth row. How are students to pay attention when there crammed right next to each other and are at the very back of the classroom and cannot see the chalkboard. On top of this some teachers will deliberately place students who do well at the front of the class so they are given all of the attention while students who need that extra support are once again left behind. Even when there are multiple class sections, head teachers can organize it so there is a smart class, a median class and a slow class so the poor classroom teacher with the poor performing students almost give up hope before the school year even begins.

I try my best to interact with the students that need the greater amount of attention but still feel at a loss to effectively teach them. I offer as much encouragement and empowerment as possible to them because I recognize the side effects of when teachers call them dumb, stupid, slow and retarded. I think this is where the difficulty comes into effect. How is Kenya or any developing country supposed to put in resources to support and enhance student learning when the people in charge don’t believe there is any problem with the system they have now or at least won’t admit it? Even more, if schools don’t have electricity or proper water and sanitation systems, then how do we expect governments to ever invest money into effective learning tools to develop the student experience and curriculum?

The truth is that students are being left behind in the education system. Having one goal being education for all is a lot easier to say then put into practice. Governments need to understand that investing in education means investing in leadership for the future. Like the quotation at the beginning this blog, education is as important as water; human beings need it in every aspect of life to continue to produce ideas that will get people out of poverty and into sustainable living. We need to want a progressive education system and we need leaders who will continue to strive and push towards education equality. It starts with teachers and administrators but there also needs to be community mobilization and people with brilliant ideas that know how to help students and their families and understand, believe in and endorse the principle of an equal education advantage for all students.