Intelligence

Time for some doom and gloom. Get comfy.

Let me start this post by reminding my readers of the disclaimer at the right side of my blog. The views expressed on this site are solely my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of the Peace Corps or of the United States Government. There, I said it.

There is something that has been weighing heavily on my heart since I got here, and I think it’s time I shared it with all of you. It is a sickening feeling that America’s presence here is irreversibly damaging (and in some ways, completely destroying) the culture of the people.

I know that’s an extreme thing to say, but stick with me. Yes, in many ways the US has helped the people of Micronesia. We’ve financially supported their urban development, building of infrastructure, “improving” schools (that is a subject for a whole other post, and probably not one suitable for online publication), and assisted in creating numerous opportunities for the people to be successful. But the question that boils deep within me, that keeps me awake some nights when I think about my family members and what will come of them in the future, is whose definition of ‘success’ are we using?

Most people in America would argue that in order to be successful you need to either be very good at something (say music, sculpting, or playing football), or you need to be well-educated and intelligent. And for most people, unless they are born with some inherent talent, chose option two. They go to college, get a nice job, and live on—successful.

But there’s a catch. Let me set the stage for you.

Imagine that you live on a tiny island, that for most of its existence was completely secluded and cut-off from the world. An island so small that often times it is simply left off of maps (a fact that infuriates me). Now imagine you speak a language that until Anglo missionaries came to your island and wished to create a bible, was purely an oral dialect.

Now imagine that you go to school and are forced to learn a completely different language, one much more complex than your own, in order to survive. There are no textbooks in your native tongue. This unfortunate fact is due to two things: first, your island is too small and without the proper resources to produce such a text, and second, your language does not have the words with which to fill the books. Yes, there are numbers in your language for counting, but they are very complex and would make computation near  impossible, let alone the fact that there are no words to describe the sometimes complicated operations of mathematics. Scientific words about the body, or health, or the world around you? Don’t exist (except of course, words pertaining to oceans and ocean life—that they have!). There are flimsy and tattered spiral-bound social studies books filled with culture and history of your island, but you will probably never learn about the world beyond—its people, cultures, geography, and history—because, you guessed it, there are no words to describe foreign things. So instead, you have hand-me-down books, generously given from America to use in the classroom, which is all well and good if you can read and understand English.

So now the task is: learn English. Seems simple enough, if you have a good teacher. But now imagine that you don’t actually need any kind of certification or training to be a teacher. To some, teaching is just a job, and a good one at that. It has excellent job security, good hours, lots of breaks and days off, and a steady paycheck.  Your teachers are simply doing the best they can. After all, they are a product of the same school system you now attend. They happen to be part of the lucky few who were able to learn English and graduate from high school. Most of the also attended the college on your island, which was established less than 20 years ago, but very few of them attained a four-year degree, and even less have a degree in Education or Teaching. There are some with degrees and training and passion for their jobs, but they are vastly outnumbered.  (Recently, at a ceremony in which Teacher of the Year was awarded to a teacher at every school on the island, several schools’ teacher was selected purely based on who had the least absences.)

Now imagine that your parents, aunts, and uncles did not finish high school. They feel intimidated by your teachers, so they rarely venture to school for PTA meetings, and they have little knowledge of what you are doing in the classroom. When you get home, nobody takes an interest in what you learned that day, nor do they inquire about homework, so you don’t do it. Besides, you’re too busy playing with your friends outside or helping around the house with chores and cooking.

Let’s stop for a minute and consider the purpose of school. Some say it’s to acquire knowledge. Sure, okay, but why? In the US there are several ways in which knowledge acquired in the classroom can be applied to daily life, but the information students learn here at school has almost zero real-world applications for them. Nobody needs to know how to find the circumference of a circle when their main concern is ensuring they help their father catch enough fish this week to feed their family.

So then we look to the less-attractive, but no less true purpose of school: to get a good job. That would be true, if there were good jobs to find, or if you even want one of them. Most people in my village, for example, run small stores or fish for a living, and it suits them just fine. The kind of jobs necessary to be successful by the Western standpoint exist only in government here—a rich elite that most of the people here have little interest in. So that leaves one option: to get a good job you must leave the island and go to Guam, Hawaii, or mainland America in search of employment. Fine. But here’s another problem: a one-way ticket to America costs roughly $2,000. So, the harsh reality for most people is they will probably never be able to leave. And if they can leave, they can likely never come back.

So now we’re back at why go to school? If the purpose of school is to get a good job, but you know that most likely can’t ever get that good job, then why even bother with school at all? Well, because it’s the law. Just like in America, students are required to be in school until they are 18, at which case they are free to drop out. Unfortunately, due to arbitrary starting ages for schooling, sometimes 18 rolls around while you’re only in 7^th grade (as was the case for one of my students just recently). So you drop out before ever reaching high school, but at least you learned a little something before then, right? Not necessarily. It is common practice to never ever fail or retain a student based on academic performance (they can, however, be retained for poor attendance—so take a student who hates school and routinely skips class and make him repeat a grade, that’ll definitely make him want to come to school). Regardless of what students earn or achieve in the classroom, they are promoted onto the next grade.  So imagine you’re one of these students. You know you essentially just have to show up. You don’t even need to turn in a single assignment all year, and you’ll still pass. So would you put forth effort? I probably wouldn’t.  So you just stick it out until you’re 18, and then you’re free.

This is your school environment.

So what do you do as an American teacher sent here to help? There are definitely kids who try hard, who want to learn, and who are largely successful in the classroom. But they are few and far between. And those are actually the students I worry about most. Will all their hard work have been completely in vain? Will it ever pay off for them? I hope so with all my heart. And how do you motivate the other students to want to learn? Lots of students get labeled “slow” or “stupid” (the concept of being politically correct is completely lost here), but I would argue that is not true, they’ve just learned to be lazy because no one ever asked for more from them.  And the more I hear professionals essentially disregard certain students because they are “not smart”, the more I started thinking about intelligence.

So the first question is what is intelligence? I’d say it’s some inherent aptitude that manifests itself in different ways for different people. I would also argue that there are no unintelligent people, but that some people’s intelligence is more conventional and therefore more apparent than others’. In my own culture, an intelligent person might be a scholar or professor, a computer programmer, an entrepreneur, an inventive architect, a trusted doctor, a gifted novelist, a head-strong political mind, a tactful lawyer, or a talented song-writer. Now, if we remove all Anglo influences here, these life-paths I’ve just described simply do not exist. So I realize I have to think about intelligence differently when it comes to the people here.

Intelligence is my Pahpa, knowing exactly the right time to go fishing to make the best catch. He rises abruptly from his sleep and rushes off, returning with an enormous bounty. Intelligence is also my Pahpa, able to create an entire house out of only what he finds in the jungle. Intelligence is one of my sixth grade students who knows exactly where the best ground is to plant yams so you can reap the best harvest. Intelligence is one of my colleagues, who can explain with passion and excitement every detail and delicate nuance of his culture. Intelligence is my Nohno, who knows which plants can help with any imaginable bodily ailment, and how often they should be eaten, drank, or applied (I can attest to this first-hand). These amazing skills and understanding are what make these people here who they are. They are intelligent, without a doubt. But unfortunately, their intelligence is not the kind you can measure on a test.

So what’s left? To be thought of as intelligent, you must be good at school. So, based on the situation described earlier, the sad truth here is that “intelligent” is synonymous with “can speak English”. And I don’t know about you, but that leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

What message are we sending the youth here? That their culture, their language, their country, their lives are not good enough? That instead they should abandon all that they know, understand, and love, and embrace a new language and culture in order that they can attain this “success” that is imposed on them? Has anyone stopped to ask the people here what they want? Because it seems to me that my family, most of which are uneducated and unemployed are actually quite successful. They are happy, healthy, and have the love and support of their family. And isn’t that what we all really want anyway?

This is a very complicated issue, and I’ve only just barely touched the tip of the iceberg. But my point is, something is off-balance here. And the truth is there is no one person or entity to blame. It’s not big, bad America taking over poor, helpless Micronesia. The two countries are united in a unique and complex symbiotic relationship, and a tremendous amount of good has come of it. And yet there is something terribly wrong.

 And it is a bigger problem that just trying to identify intelligence. That is merely an example of the greater issue: trying unsuccessfully to meld two cultures. The differences between my home culture and the culture here are huge, and in some ways utterly incompatible. So the ultimate result is that one culture will eventually overcome the other. That is my fear.

 And the victor is already evident.