True Story 4.08
Responding to a misprint on a major exam in Zimbabwe
The setting for this story
The following first-person account was written by Gerald, a Canadian who volunteered to teach math in a rural middle school in Zimbabwe soon after that nation gained independence.
A story of misaligned minds10
Annual student exams set by the ministry of education were known locally as “external exams” because they were not developed by the school’s faculty members. External exams were a serious matter for my students. So before one of these exams, I acquired several past exams to review with them. In one instance, we came upon a misprint in a math exam that made the calculation impossible. When I explained that there had been a misprint, I was met with looks of utter disbelief. Many thought that I didn’t understand the question or didn’t know how to solve the math problem. I finally persuaded most of them that, indeed, there had been a misprint.
Then they asked me what they should do if they encountered a misprint on a real exam. I replied that they must first make certain that it really is a misprint. If it is, they should write a statement on their paper explaining why it’s not possible to answer with the information at hand.
LOL! My students found this to be the funniest thing they’d ever heard. I must be joking!
When they finally finished laughing, they asked, “But really, sir, what should we do?” When I persisted with my advice that it’s best to write a statement on their exam paper, they collectively decided that, no, they would try to answer the misprinted question as best they could.
Gerald’s question
Why can’t my students tolerate the idea that, if they encounter a misprint on a major exam, they should write an explanatory statement on their exam paper?
Critique of story 4.08
In our individualistic, equality-oriented society, the notion that people should “speak truth to power” is widely admired but nonetheless fraught with peril. In a communitarian, hierarchy-oriented society such as Zimbabwe, such peril is reality-based! Speaking truth to those who qualify as “elders” simply is not done. Elders are assumed to be wise repositories of what’s Right and Good. And that includes those anonymous, out-of-sight elders who, at Zimbabwe’s ministry of education, develop the external exams given to all the nation’s students.
For American middle-schoolers, it’s an appealing, culture-aligned idea to write a statement on one’s exam about why an answer cannot be given, thereby implicating those who set the exam as people who make mistakes. For Zimbabwean middle-schoolers, that’s an idea that is so culture-contrary, so fraught with danger, so morally wrong, as to be LOL hilarious!.
For thought
This story includes two features worthy of curiosity. First, let’s wonder why the students were laughing? Was Gerald’s suggestion that they speak truth to power, precisely speaking, amusing? Or did their laughter reveal their evaluation of Gerald’s suggestion as ridiculous, even dangerous?.
Second, note that I described American society as “equality-oriented” and stated that, here in the U.S., Gerald’s idea about dealing with a misprint would be “culture-aligned.” On the other hand, we’ve all heard of cases in which employees who “speak truth to power” find themselves reassigned to perform low-level work, furloughed, or without a job at all. (After all, why do whistleblowers go to great lengths to prevent their identity from being known?)
Our equality-oriented culture harbors a contradiction: Speaking truth to power is valued, or at least admired, by most of us; but sometimes speaking truth to power results in the truth-speaker’s punishment, which reveals that their principled action was not valued, at least by the boss.
What are we to make of the bosses who hand out such punishments? It’s easy to imagine that, as teenagers and twenty-somethings, many of them admired the notion of speaking truth to power. Is it believable that their values changed as they climbed the ladder of success? Wouldn’t that indicate that they lack integrity, a quality Americans presumably admire?
Related stories
Story 1.04 is about a teacher who mistakenly interprets his Chinese students’ laughter as signaling amusement. Story 4.14’s “for thought” section discusses the meaning of integrity.
Go to Chapter 1 Quick-Links | Return to Chapter 4 Quick-Links | Go to Chapter 7 Quick-Links | Go to Chapter 10 Quick-Links
Endnotes:
10 Fast, 95.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.