This might sound shocking. But in my neighborhood, it's very common. I see kids everyday working. Our conversations go something like this. (Mind you, they're in Arabic.)
"Why aren't you in school?"
"I quit."
"Why?"
"School sucks. This (i.e. working) is better."
Sometimes there are other reasons. Like the Syrians or Egyptians don't know the system and don't have the right papers to enter the public school. (I'm working on this and contacting people who can give me accurate information so I can pass it along to them.)
But for the most part, the Lebanese education system doesn't work. The curriculum is too hard, and the teaching methods are antiquated. The Lebanese like to praise themselves for having the best education in the Middle East. Lebanese people are known for having good English and good French. It's because of the "French system." A system, based on rote memorization and public humiliation, that the French reformed decades ago. All educational research proves that the methods don't work.
Maybe less than 1/3 of Lebanese people over the age of 20 have a high school diploma. The numbers actually are extremely difficult to find. An education professor at the American University of Beirut told me that those numbers aren't published. In the US, 84% of adults have a high school diploma. The few high school graduates in Lebanon are really, really smart, maybe the smartest 10% of the population, or rich and somehow paid for it. A student has to have someone explain the lessons at home. Without educated parents or a tutor, most kids are doomed to fail.
I go to Mustafa's house at least three times a week to tutor his older brother, who's in 8th grade and is very weak in math. (Though the stuff he's studying is what I was taking as an advanced 9th grader.) He might have to repeat this year. Today, their mom and I visited the school and the teacher said that the youngest one, 7-year-old Yahya, will definately have to repeat the first grade.
I ask his parents, "Why don't you just keep Mustafa locked up all day in his room, with no television and no computer? After staring at the wall all day, he'll be begging to go to school." One of his parents are always at home.
"We can't. He will just run out and play. It's better for him to be at work and doing something."
I can't tell if they like having the extra income. His parents let him use $33 for spending money. The rest they use for the house. Because they are very poor, they won't even save it for his hopeful future schooling.
"So he's rewarded for not going to school. $33 a month is a lot for an 11-year-old."
But they say they can't convince him. He was kicked out of one school in the fifth grade, after repeatedly failing and then behaving badly. He even started wetting his bed at night because he was so stressed out. The next school he went to didn't have a good playground or his old friends, so he just quit. He says he won't go back, and he knows a guy who's going to teach him how to work with aluminum, and that's what he's going to do for the rest of his life.
So here's the dilemma.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
7 comments:
What would school give him? I think the kid is better off doing work. He'll make money and hopefully he'll save a tiny bit of it, and maybe he can start a business when he's older.
What you're missing is the fact that the Lebanese leadership (on all sides) does not want an educated population, just like other leaderships across the Arab world (and Iran). How will Hizbollah recruit 15 year-olds to fight the Great Satan if they're educated? How will Jumblatt (or Aoun) convince their supporters that the positions they held for 15 years, and the positions they have today, are in Lebanon's best interest despite the fact that they completely contradict each other. How will you convince them that the Sunnis are better than the Shiites and vice versa?
In the Arab world, you need an ignorant population to rule, and thats exactly what you have.
Lovely racist comments from anonymous.
I am afraid it is a universal that poor families get their children out of education early to work, and there is very little that can be done in this regards if the student is an average student and himself uninterested in studying.
The leadership does not keep people in ignorance because they want to reproduce ignorant Arabs; they do so because of the sectarian education system and the balance of power between sects prevents any real reform.
I'd say as well-meaning as you are, leave it be. I am sure they can decide what to do with their own lives.
I'm an American, and I see an upside to this story.
My father can fix a car, build a garage, paint, make a bicycle, all very well.
My mom can sew and cook and garden.
My crackhead neighbor graduated highschool, and her boyfriend got his GED with flying colors.
My husband went to AUB on a policeman's salary, and did very well throughout highschool.
If anything, the American system is broken. I wasted 12 years of my life staring at a ceiling, feeling out of place. I found it hard to make friends, I found the work to be too easy, and then later in High School in Advanced classes, way too hard.
A crappy college, Eastern Michigan University, immediately put me in extreme amounts of debt, and along with my peers, we pretty much all feel college was a waste of time and just extended our immaturity- we got to be children for 4-7 extra years.
I cannot paint, fix, sew, or cook.
The only thing I can do well is know how I'm "feeling." I know when I am sad, happy, or angry. My parents cannot do this as well as I can. What an amazing skill.
The system is so broken in America. We are just raised to be consumers. We spend our lives in debt to bills. We don't know what is going on in the world around us, and now we just want to elect a Democrat so we can get handouts like Free Health Care and Social Security. Go ahead and higher taxes, I don't know how to save or spend, so I need someone else to make sure that I am taken care of.
You cannot say the same for the Lebanese. They do not like to be in debt. They pay off their villiage homes and apartments. They stay close to their families and take care of their siblings and parents. They do not expect handouts from the government.
They do not work on just feelings- they have skills and responsibilities.
And don't forget that the most financially succesful people in the world did not stay in college or even finish High School. They learned in the real world.
We aren't always the Americans who Know Better. With rampant teenage pregnancy, STD's, medicated, drug-users, immediately in debt if their parents cannot afford to put them through college. Is that a succesful system? Describing a system that is "way too hard" just describes how our system expects very little out of the student and will push through anybody. It just extends our childhood and acts as a babysitter so both parents can work to pay a mortage- and all the other stuff- so that we can be big whining babies forever.
Why is school ment for everybody, anyways? Had I stayed home, I would have read, worked outside, learned to fix things, excersize more.
If the kid is happy with the job he has now and is able to make money, why try to get him back in school? He's obviously not happier there and from what you said that reflects in his performance in class.
Some people just don't do well in a classroom, you can make them sit but you can't make them learn. At least if he's doing something he enjoys he can learn from it
Although it'd be a bit of a pain to say this, but I recommend respecting Mustafa's decision. Of course, it would be great if he had the proper education, but he came to the realization that he doesn't belong in the school and prefers to work.
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