The blind leading the blind

This past Sunday I went with Faron, the volunteer from Scotland, to teach English to some kids. This was his third week doing it but he leaves today so I went with him to see how he taught so that I could take over next week. The classes are done in a lady´s house who does artisan work and then sells in here and in America (a lady in the US buys tapestries form her for $200 and sells them for well over $500 but that´s an entry for another day). She has a nice house and she uses her dining room as the class room for now as they are waiting for money an support to build a tutoring center not far from her house.

Faron and I got there and another professor came in who taught math. He went before us because he had somewhere else to be so we got to watch as he taught the children. He started with equations and seemed to be doing a good job until he got to one part where he had the equation to something like 12 + x - 4 = 3x + 8 he then broke it down to 12 - 4 - 8 = 2x. He was doing just fine until he told the kids that a +*+=+, -*-=+ and +*-=- which is right for multiplication but he used it for addition and so he said the equations was 24 = 2x. Now if you followed my explanation then you realize that x actually was supposed to 0 but this man did not know how to work out a simple equation. I thought maybe he just accidentally did that one wrong but he continued with the same reasoning and continued getting wrong answers. I didn´t want to crush the man´s pride because the rest of the day he was right but it still bugged me that this man is teaching the children incorrectly and at such a young age it is very important to teach them correctly since they don´t know any different.

It is a shame that, first of all, this man who is teaching students does not have proper education himself and, secondly, he is one of the few people willing and able to help the children. This is a common cycle in impoverished areas. They do not have access to proper education and so a cycle is started that is very difficult to stop. They same is true for violence, drugs, poverty, etc. People have to be willing to come from a better position and be willing to help those or are less fortunate than themselves. People who have proper education have to be willing to go into areas that don´t have proper education and speak up to get them proper education or, if possible, educate them themselves. People who do not suffer oppression have to be willing to stand side by side with the oppressed and say, "this isn´t right". People who know that violence isn´t the answer have to be willing to go to violent areas and help educate the people and give them a better option than drugs and violence. Sure this may be one isolated incident of one man who got his math wrong but it is a small picture of what truly is going on in a larger scale here and around the world.

Peace,

Brandon