The Education Corner - I Am Not a Success... But!

Mrs. Nahla Marwa Shuman is a true friend of this magazine who took part in its editing for a time, until the duties of married life claimed her on her farm at Jezzine (the Bekaa)...

With open arms we welcome her today in the first installment of this delightful series, into which she pours her experience and her valuable educational knowledge, in a charming, childlike style...

Most of the primary schools in Lebanon still follow the old methods of teaching, which do not suit the mentality of the pupils. The classes are crowded, and the large number in a class gives the teacher no room to attend to the pupil as an individual; instead he treats them all as though they had one way of thinking, equal intelligence, and similar temperaments. The book is the sole important instrument in the class: if the pupil knows the contents of the book, he is diligent and clever and is promoted to a higher class. Yet these contents are most often remote from the pupils' mentality and their environment — and nevertheless they are forced to memorize them. How many pupils are branded as lazy, undiligent, and lacking in intelligence, and made to repeat their classes, so that their mental growth is retarded and their personalities degraded! And many of these, if the right educational care were available to them, would show progress and success.

In the following paragraphs is a talk in the tongue of a pupil ten years of age — and his talk reflects exactly what goes on in our schools today:

— No, I am not one of the successful ones in my class. This is the second year I have spent in the fifth grade, and I am now bigger than the other pupils in height and in body. But they like me, even though I take only a small part in the discussions and recitation in class — they like me because I help them in the playground and teach them many things outside the lesson.

— I do not know why the teachers do not like me. It seems they think a pupil knows nothing unless he can name the book from which he got that knowledge. I have many books in my library at home: for instance, I have "al-Munjid," the "Yesterday and Today" series, and some booklets about automobiles and others about carpentry. And I use my books when I want to clear something up or explain some word.

— At school we are forced to memorize only the things that are in the books, and I cannot learn them by heart. Last year the teacher shut me up in the classroom the whole day, all through recess, to memorize the names of the kings and rulers of France, but I tried in vain. Of course I know some of them, like Napoleon Bonaparte and Louis the Fourteenth, but there are thirty others I could not manage to memorize. I think I am not good at memorizing historical names.

— In any case, this year I am studying on my own about the big trucks, because my uncle owns three of them, and he has promised me that when I am eighteen years old and become able to help him, I shall drive one of them during the summer holidays. I now know exactly how many horsepower a truck has, and I have learned a great deal about the automobile "motor" and how it turns.

— Last Tuesday, during the science lesson, when the teacher was carrying out an experiment with us on air pressure, I wanted to tell him about the automobile motor and the air pressure in it. He cut me off at once, saying that he saw no connection between the automobile and the air-pressure experiment. Of course I fell silent at once. But after the lesson was over, some of the pupils gathered around me and began asking me many questions, so I took them to my uncle's garage, and there I explained to them at length about the automobile motor and how it turns.

— In geography, too, I am not successful. Last week we had to memorize by heart the names of the rivers and mountains in the country of Chile, but to this day I cannot remember a single one of them. Perhaps the reason is that I was absent from school yesterday. My uncle took me with him to Tyre in the truck, for he had to buy thirty tons of wheat from there. Before I left the house my father gave me a map of Lebanon and asked me to write on it all the names of the villages and towns we passed through. Then my uncle asked me to work out for him the price of the wheat he was going to buy, after telling me the price of a single kilo. And of course, on top of all this, I was watching the driver as he drove the truck. After our return in the evening I wrote down on a sheet of paper how many kilometers we had covered from Beirut to Tyre and how many liters of gasoline the truck had used.

— How I wish I could solve the arithmetic problems at school with such ease! But it seems I cannot fix my mind on the operations the teacher gives us.

— I am always writing letters to my aunt and my uncle in Africa. And my father says that my writing is good and that I make only a few mistakes. How I wish I could write compositions at school with such ease and without mistakes! The last time, the teacher gave us a composition on the subject: "Describe a violet in springtime" — and believe me, I did not know how to begin that subject!

— The civics lesson is also hard for me. All last week I was forced to stay at school after the pupils had left, to memorize all the points contained in the Lebanese Constitution. The teacher said we shall not become good citizens unless we memorize them. And I do want to be a good citizen, so I tried my hardest — but truthfully, I hated staying at school after the pupils had gone, because I was busy with some of the boys clearing a small piece of ground in the quarter near our house, to make it into a playground for us and for the little children.

— My father says he is going to transfer me to the trades school or the wireless school, and in truth I agree, because there are many things I want to learn. And as my uncle says, I am bigger now than before, and my growth is moving forward — not backward...