Is Progressive Education coming to Iraq?

March 13, 2004

Periodically we like to link to stories related to education in Iraq. (See Iraqi Schools and the U.S. Military and Slice of Life: Iraqi public school students.) But now we have some bad news, more closely related to education reform: Progressive Education may be creeping into Mesopotamia.

The title of this Christian Science Monitor article says it all: "Lesson for Iraqi teachers: Loosen up!"

While a very important task in the rebuilding of Iraq includes repairing and restocking schools, Creative Associates International Incorporated (CAII) has been also contracted to train Iraqi teachers in American-style education.

US teacher-trainer Nadia Al Jadir hardly considers student participation a revolutionary educational concept.

But her audience of 400 Iraqi high school teachers at Al-Kharka High School for Girls look stunned when Ms. Al Jadir tells them to "listen to your students and let them express themselves."

"There will be chaos in the classroom," protests one teacher, in a pink head scarf.

We suspected that the new teacher-trainers parachuting into Iraq were in fact Progressive educators. To be sure, we emailed a representative at CAII and asked him what the Institute's educational philosophy was (since we're all too familiar with the battles between content- and teacher-centered Traditionalists and child-centered Progressives).

We received the response: "The methodologies we are training for promote student centered learning."

Hoo boy.

In CAII's press release on their Iraqi project, they write:

Education reform efforts will underscore accelerated learning and enhanced teacher and school capacity, breathing life into an education system that was once among the strongest in the Middle East.

What they don't ask is why the Iraqi school system was once so strong. We'd suggest it was not due to child-centered approaches! Rather, it was one grounded in a solid, rigorous curriculum, taught by instructors who were in full command of both their subject matter and their classrooms.

But here's what the edu-experts say about that:

"They are used to a dictator style in which the teacher's power is unquestioned," says Hind Rassam, senior education adviser for Creative Associates Inc., of Washington, D.C., the educational company contracted to improve education in Iraq. "We tell them you can be strong, but also respect everyone and not rule by fear."

This is very disrespectful. While one description of a teacher-centered approach is a "benevolent dictatorship," it is very thoughtless to compare Iraqi teachers to dictators after their country has suffered under one of the most brutal dictatorships in modern history.

So, even though Iraq has had for decades a well-educated populace, long before the Butcher of Baghdad ever appeared on radar, here the "experts" arrive to tell the Iraqis that their teacher-centered approach is one based on ruling by fear.

It would be nice if these experts did their homework. When the teacher has a thorough knowledge of the subject matter, the teacher-centered approach has been proven to be more effective than the student-centered one. Without a butcher in sight.

The Monitor article closes with a telling quote:

"American classrooms are very free. I see in the movies that the students challenge the teachers," said Dalel Khamel, an English-language teacher at the Baghdad High School. "Maybe we won't do everything like they do. But we want to be exposed to all the new techniques, and then we will decide what is useful to us."

Thank goodness for Iraqi skepticism!

We hope that they remember what's worked well in the past, and stick to that, no matter how these innovative teacher trainers try to convince them otherwise. Sure, it's good to learn new techniques, as long as they are proven to be more effective than what they replace.

Just go with what works!