ReformK12.com: The British standard in Ethiopia

The British standard in Ethiopia

June 08, 2004

A personal story:

I've been haunting the construction site of the forthcoming Cira Center, where the best vantage point is from a newly-completed 10-level parking garage bordering the future skyscraper. Just so they don't think I'm yet another suspicious character, I've made friends with the staff that works at the garage, and most are from Africa: Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria are all represented.

Today I noticed a regular parking attendant studying chemistry and struck up a conversation. Turns out she's a recent high school graduate and is now a freshman at Temple University, studying to become a pharmacist. Being a high school teacher, I asked her where she went to high school, and she said, "Oh, I'm not from here." Turns out she's Ethiopian, and has only been in America since the 11th grade.

I asked her how she liked it here in this country, and she looked a little hesitant before answering.

"School here is so easy," she began. "I never used to get A's in math, but here I got nothing but straight A's because it was so easy. In Ethiopia we were educated under the British standard."

Ah, the British standard.

People are fond of talking about how dreadful "colonialism" was, especially under the British Empire, but much can be said for the progeny of the lands where this colonialism took root. (Clarification: Reader Jeffrey Boulier reminds us that Ethiopia itself was never a British colony, but they surely had a great deal of influence there.)

"Two Cheers for Colonialism" says Dinesh D'Souza, himself an Indian-turned-American who has a great deal of insight into there versus here, and sheds assumption-bursting light upon the whole question of the legacy of colonialism, being that India was so long a part of the British Empire. (Speaking of there versus here, we've quoted in full D'Souza's Ten Great Things About America.)

D'Souza argues that while colonialism was brutal for the people subjugated under foreign rule, the British imported concepts previously unheard of on the subcontinent, such as "freedom of expression, in self-government, in equality of rights under the law, and in the universal principle of human dignity."

He doesn't say the British did this out of any sense of altruism, but for their own best interests. Thus when they needed infrastructure they built roads, railways and ports, and when they needed to resolve disputes they installed courts of law (complete with the novel concept of "innocent until proven guilty").

The British also had to educate the Indians, in order to communicate with them and to train them to be civil servants in the empire. Thus Indian children were exposed to Shakespeare, Dickens, Hobbes, and Locke. In that way the Indians began to encounter words and ideas that were unmentioned in their ancestral culture: "liberty," "sovereignty," "rights," and so on.

That brings me to the greatest benefit that the British provided to the Indians: They taught them the language of freedom.

Which brings us to America, arguably the freest nation on earth. No one is teaching us the language of freedom, no one is imposing higher standards of education on our children from a faraway monarchy, no one is exposing us to expanded horizons.

So why are we shooting ourselves in the foot, educationally speaking? Why are we practicing what we call Educational Unilateral Disarmament on our children, gutting former rigorous standards, and even completely forgetting in many cases how to effectively educate children?

The British Empire is long gone from Africa, yet in the year 2004 there's good reason why many are still using the British standard in education.

They haven't forgotten.

Posted by ceb into Education Reform
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Comments

For what it's worth... the TIMSS mathematics test scores were nearly identical for U.S. and British 4th and 8th graders.

Eleventh grade may be a different story. High school students in England were not tested, but the U.S. 12th grade scores were nearly the worst in the world.

Chris C. June 8, 2004 09:08 PM

Chris,
Excellent point. I have a feeling that "the British standard" in Ethiopia may be "old fashioned" in that it may still in fact be rigorous. The more developed a country (such as the U.S. and Great Britain) the less "hungry" a country may become, and the more likely that standards will slip.

Just take a look at how many Indians are coming to the U.S. and getting advanced degrees in you-name-it.

Wouldn't it be sadly ironic if "the British standard" in places like India and Ethiopia eclipsed the actual standards in place today in Great Britain?

ceb June 9, 2004 05:45 AM

Chett, I like the post. One thing though, it always makes me wonder what people mean when they say something is easy. Does that mean it is a lower level than what they should be accomplishing or does it mean the task is put forth in an intuitive or organized way, making it "easy"? Back to the question of what does rigor mean sort of. Anyway, if you get time for a novel this summer, there is a good one set in India, called A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. A great story that really makes you think. Our daughter traveled quite a bit in India and she says the book, even though the setting is mid 1970's is a great picture. I celebrated reading the book by going to an Indian restaurant for the "smells".

aschoolyardblogger June 9, 2004 11:12 PM

Schoolyard, thanks for your comment.

Regarding "easy," if you could have seen the wistful look on this young woman's face when she said it was so easy, you'd have instantly translated it into regret at not being challenged.

And even an instructor skilled at putting forth the material in an intuitive and organized way should also be skillful enough to challenge her pupils, such that no one would walk away calling the course "easy." Easy means boring. :-)

Thanks for the book recommendation. I'll get it shortly via Amazon.

ceb June 10, 2004 12:03 AM

"Wouldn't it be sadly ironic if "the British standard" in places like India and Ethiopia eclipsed the actual standards in place today in Great Britain?"

I bet that it does. A recent survey in the UK showed that only 28% of kids knew what D-day was. It seems unlikely that teaching this poor would be limited only to history.

David Foster June 10, 2004 06:07 PM

She may have been to a British-influenced school, but Ethiopia was never itself a British colony. The Brits did intervene there several times, overthrowing Emperor Theodore in the mid 19th century and kicking out the Italians in WW II. They also controlled most of Ethiopia's next door neighbors at one point or another.

Sincerely yours,
Jeffrey Boulier

Jeffrey Boulier June 11, 2004 02:07 AM

Jeffrey,

Thanks for your comments. I've updated the original article accordingly.

chett June 11, 2004 02:56 AM