True Story 7.12
The teacher as the only credible authority in Tanzania
The setting for this story
Brian, an American, was teaching older students in Tanzania. He assigned each student one book to research, then teach its contents to the class. As Brian explains, it didn’t go quite as planned.
A story of misaligned minds18
My strategy got off to a good-enough start. My students readily accepted their assigned books and, as far as I could tell, read them and prepared notes to guide their presentations about their book.
I was accustomed to my students’ taking copious notes whenever I was teaching. But when the first student began teaching the content of the book he had read, no one took notes. Mentally, I blamed it on his poor skills in public speaking.
During the following week, my top student began giving a presentation about the book he had read, skillfully using an outline and notes he’d written on the blackboard. Still, none of his classmates bothered to take notes. So I directed everyone to begin taking notes. Lacking their customary enthusiasm, they all took sporadic, sparse notes.
After class, I approached one of them and asked, “What’s the problem with taking notes?”
His reply was, “He is just my fellow student. How do I know he’s saying the right things? I don’t want to take notes that turn out to be wrong.”
“So how do you know that what I teach is correct?” I asked.
“Because you are the teacher,” he said. “You were taught by other teachers.”
Brian’s question
I thought African students regarded both teachers and books as authoritative. What am I missing?
Critique of story 7.12
In most societies guided by communitarian values, the oldest members of the community – the elders – are deeply respected for their presumed wisdom, which implies that they are the community’s closest connection with the past. The distant past is when, most people assume, ancient savants worked out the truest, most effective patterns of thought and behavior: wisdom.
Texts left behind by the ancient sages, which convey wisdom, are treasured; examples include the Vedas of the Indians, the Koran of the Muslims, the Four Books and Five Classics of Confucianism, and the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The scholars who study those texts are held in high esteem, not only by academics but also by the public. Not surprisingly, the culture of classrooms in such societies virtually always is “knowledge-focused.”
In these societies, anyone who wishes to gain the wisdom residing in academic knowledge is expected to receive direct instruction and mentoring from someone who has already mastered that knowledge. This expectation rests on a key assumption: That one’s classroom teachers gained their expertise by studying under their teachers, who studied under their teachers …, and so on back in time to teachers who studied under the scholars who studied the ancient texts, or maybe even under the sages who actually wrote those texts! It’s true that one’s teachers rarely teach about, specifically, those ancient texts. Nonetheless, they are a link in an inbroken chain of accurate and masterful knowledge transmission, which renders them worthy of high esteem, respectful listening and – yes – copious note taking.
Now look at this as a student: How shall I regard a classmate who reads a book, then tells the rest of us about it? Not good enough! Yes, the book might have been authored by an esteemed scholar, and that’s a good thing but it’s beside the point. My classmate is not a link in the direct chain of knowledge transmission from my teacher, to my teacher’s teacher, and so forth back to a teacher who studied under a scholar or a sage. Sure, I’ll listen politely to my classmate’s book review. But he or she does not deserve the esteem implied by copious note taking.
For thought
Above I wrote that, in Tanzania, teachers are held in high esteem not only by students but also by the public. I first encountered this attitude decades ago when I lived in a small Portuguese village. It was explained to me that at the pinnacle of the local social status hierarchy was the priest. Just below him was the medical doctor. And just below him was – you guessed it – the local teacher. No university or even a high school was nearby. That esteemed local teacher taught primary school.
Take a moment to reflect on how that status hierarchy compares with ours here in the U.S.
Related stories
Stories 7.03 and 7.05 also address status distinctions among students and professors.
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Endnotes:
18 Arensen, 338.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.