I sat awake last night unable to fall asleep after some illuminating ideas presented by Professor Gita Steiner-Khamsi at ACMS lecture series. The unsettling facts and outdated system of secondary education in Mongolia, that were brought into attention by Khamsi’s research called “Mongolization of Imported Education, are standing up like spikes begging for some good hammering. Whether these spikes need good hammer or gentle extraction from its roots may appear as a question of choice. In accordance with old teacher centered system the appropriate thing would be to give it a hammer and get rid of the problem. The power hierarchy that extends from the school principle all the way down to the so called class monitors “angiin darga” needs to be re-examined and questioned here once and for all. The 1960’s United Negro College Fund changed the tide of history for many blacks in America, hitherto classified as citizens of secondary order, by a singular propaganda quote: “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste”. Now, wouldn’t it be a “terrible thing to waste” as such as a Mongolian child’s mind, impressionable, flexible, fertile, innocent and most of all full of creative dynamics? Before I blindly “hammer” the education issue I want to bring out several points that were discussed at the lecture.
Firstly and clearly through the eyes of an American researcher, Khamsi spreads the issue of reward system, that is salary of teachers. Her research was mostly focused on finding why all the money poured from foreign donor organizations is not effective at all. She found that although Mongolian public schools adopted bonus and reward policy, it nevertheless, found other way around, that they also learned to heavily penalize the teachers. Would you be shocked by the fact that an average Mongolian teacher gets penalized everyday for his student’s misbehavior, lack of discipline and loss of school property including small sundry items such as books and pencils? Khamsi says: “No wonder everything is locked up in schools and in classrooms here”, because the teacher’s accountability is tied directly to his salary. Everything lost, damaged, misbehaved, and undisciplined is translated into semi Mongolized capitalist system of money. On learning about this issue it remains only to applaud these abused teachers of secondary education. I’m trying to wrap around this fact and meanwhile I suggest separating the teacher’s responsibility from clearly economic chores such as looking after integrity of school property. This should be matter of the school administrative staff and not of the teacher. His sole responsibility should be academic, that is teaching and feeding young minds with ideas, knowledge and inspiration.
Since we’re liberally touching the subject of teaching and the teacher why not we question here the subjectivity of his figure here? The visual image presented at the lecture by Khamsi was one of a compelling example about Mongolians’ attitude towards the figure of a teacher. The image clearly depicted figure of Lenin at the center and children dressed in school uniform looking up to him in awe. The description under the picture reads “Lenin bagsh” (Our teacher Lenin). Khamsi gently pointed out to Mongolian traditional attitude towards their bagsh, someone whose authority they look up to with awe. However, what Khamsi did not mention is that this traditional view was shamelessly manipulated by Soviet authority resulting in final translation of Mongolian culture into Russified version. That’s why instead of lam bagsh or ardiin bagsh we see the image of Lenin bagsh; the bastardized version of Russian cultural colonization. Therefore, if we are to free the minds of Mongolians, we need to get rid of any bastardized versions to look up to. Ideally, the teacher figure should be questioned here and we should not be afraid to ask questions anymore and open our critical mind towards this authority. Yes, the teacher is an authority and he is part of institution that nevertheless has to instill social discipline, yet to close and not to encourage creativity of a young mind is indeed a “terrible waste”. The question, why Mongolia is not creating iphones, facebooks, computer networks and why we keep copying the technological advancements and we are not creating any, are stagnant issues and indeed need to be traced to the origin of our education. As long as we keep seeing the state authority and the authority of bagsh in the classroom as ultimate and omnipotent knowledge generators we won’t walk beyond cheap copycats of western and other developed countries’ inventions. So long, we, Mongolians won’t be paying attention to the reforms for our specific needs, the developed nations will still continue pouring money along with their prescribed policies and solutions that hardly seem to work here. Who better knows the problems and flaws of our education system better than us? We should welcome their technical expertise but we should come up with our own solutions and into content. Let all library buildings open up, let all locks from bookcases disappear, let the teachers worry only about what to teach and how to stimulate young minds rather than cut in their salary because of someone’s irresponsibility. Until we pay attention to this sector Mongolia will always remain dependent intellectually and culturally on other countries. A mind is a terrible thing to waste and closing up our future generation’s mind is an act we should immediately respond to.
