Cultural Goals

A School of Their Own was an interesting interjection into the educational difficulties of Nepal. This is one of the few times we have been taken out of the American context in examining education and the only time during this seminar that we have moved away from the Western world. This really struck me as significant because we are forced to confront the struggles of education completely immersed in the political and economic context, and not just from a theoretical point of view where the influence was insidious. There were many interesting political and social dynamics that the move focused on, but I think it raises three important question about the situation of education in Nepal. How do thousands of years of history of institutionalized class and gender inequality affect attempts to make education progressive? Is the Riverside school overwhelmed with authoritative perspectives from outside cultures who are trying to impose different standards on this foreign culture? And one that was the most interesting to me: What is so culturally different about Nepal that children who are growing up in such extremes of poverty can still create such big dreams and set huge goals for themselves?

I feel like the first two questions are inextricably interconnected. The reason why it might seem like the Dutch man, Mr. Ingo, has an ethnocentric perspective is because his culture and cultural value are fundamentally different from that of the Nepalese Hindu culture. In Hinduism, women are second-class citizens and are systematically oppressed, but does that mean that Mr. Ingo goes about bringing them into the classroom in a socially acceptable way? His chivalry in saving the girls from the brothel and making it mandatory that his classrooms have a 50 percent population of woman is challenging these historical locks on gender inequality. Do his Western ideas of gender equality serve the community in a beneficial way that takes into account the holistic nature of their culture? Also, in dealing with violence in the classroom, I think the fact that these teachers are not allowed to discipline the children with physical violence could be seen as a Western intervention into classroom discipline, however, most people would agree that if physical violence is involved then the cultural background of these rules does not matter. I personally do not think that he consciously attempts to impose a Western dogma on the school environment, but naturally some of the rules would reflect his own cultural point of view. I ultimately do not think that his intervention into Riverside school has any negative cultural effects. Even though I am raised with a lot of the same Western social constructions that he is raised with, I think his perspective has a positive effect on the school environment.

What is most striking to me, as I said before, is the question of the dreams that these children set? Why in America are we faced with apathy as the biggest problem in education? What about our culture prevents American children from setting dreams as big as the ones that Nepalese children set, even though we seemingly have opportunities laid out in front of us?