True Story 7.08
Arab American can’t ask questions
at a Middle Eastern university
The setting for this story
This complaint was voiced by Ahmad, an Arab American college student raised largely in the U.S. who relocated to the United Arab Emirates before finishing his first university degree.
A story of misaligned minds10
When I began attending the American University of Sharjah, I found that many of my Arab professors there didn’t like to be questioned in class. If their lecture provided information that was difficult to understand, it was almost impossible to get them, then and there, to clarify anything. In fact, some of them became short-tempered if I dared to ask a question during class.
Ahmad’s question
Why is this behavior of my Arab professors so unlike that of my former professors in the U.S.?
Critique of story 7.08
In the journal article that was the basis for Ahmad’s story, the author quotes a fellow scholarly authority on Arab universities, who writes that, among Arabs,
The teacher is usually the one responsible for his or her students’ learning; if they fail, it’s the teacher’s fault, and if they pass, the teacher gets the credit. Good teachers are usually described as those who are highly educated, who are caring, who know the answer to every question, and who are formal and highly skilled in classroom management.”11
In an Arab cultural context and others as well, it is rarely tolerated for a student to ask a question during a professor’s presentation. This doesn’t mean that the professor views himself as having no responsibility for his students’ learning. It means that the professor views himself as in the act of discharging his responsibility by delivering a planned presentation within a set length of time. No interruptions, please. Students will have other opportunities to ask questions.
The norm against students questioning their teachers during classroom lectures is a typical feature of secondary school and university instruction in knowledge-focused cultures of learning. From the students’ perspective, the reasoning behind that norm goes like this:
- Our teachers know everything about the knowledge to be learned. Their responsibility is to transmit to us what we need to know. Our responsibility is to master whatever they transmit.
- A classroom lesson is our teachers’ opportunity, within a limited amount of time, to deliver to us planned presentations of a portion of the knowledge that we need to know.
- We must not interrupt our teachers during the presentation; we must focus on what they are saying.
- If our teachers want any kind of input from us during a lesson, they’ll ask for it.
- If we have questions we’ll ask them later. Our first opportunity is immediately after class.
Indeed, at the secondary and university levels of some knowledge-focused cultures of learning, students with questions gather outside the classroom door immediately after the presentation, waiting for their teacher to emerge so that they can get their questions answered.
Note that “if our teachers want any kind of response from us during a lesson, they’ll ask for it.” At the secondary and especially the university levels, teachers rarely expect their students to make any kind of oral contribution during class. But it’s a frequently used practice at the elementary school level. For an extended discussion with examples, see Chapter 6 my book A Mirror for Americans.
For thought
In societies where knowledge-focus prevails, teachers are viewed as storehouses of knowledge, which in turn leads many people to revere them. (The word “teacher” in some languages is best translated into English as “master.”).
People’s reverence for teachers is comparable to the reverence that many religious people around the world feel toward their ministers, priests, rabbis, or imams. During religious services when a spiritual leader is delivering his or her message (sermon, homily, derasha, or khutbah), congregants don’t even think of interrupting to ask a question. But at any other time – including after the service ends – spiritual leaders generally are open to discussions with and questions from their congregants.
Related stories
Stories 1.16 and 4.13 also discuss differing cultural perspectives on students’ question-asking. See also, in Chapter 8, the section entitled “Students’ question-asking.”
Go to Chapter 1 Quick-Links | Go to Chapter 4 Quick-Links | Return to Chapter 7 Quick-Links | Go to Chapter 10 Quick-Links
Endnotes:
10 Al-Issa (2005), 166, incident 4.
11 Meleis, 443.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.