hat’s the common link between 16 year-old Huda growing up in the over-populated, under-sanitized slum of Mumbai in India; 11 year-old Ishmael selling rice on the streets of Moyamba after school in Sierra Leone; and 17 year-old Hrusik at home with her grandmother in Armenia?
Huda struggles to sleep every night. The sounds of altercation: screaming, doors banging, and babies crying rings loudly. The sounds compete only with the thumping of her heartbeat. “Why does he have to drink every night?” That familiar pit in her stomach echoes this question that she has spent years attempting to answer. At the same moment in time, Ishmael trudges home, clutching his pocket that holds the money he earned from the day. His tiny body is hungry and tired, his mind on high alert. “God please guard me till I reach home and give this money to father.” Somewhere around the world, Hrusik sits silently as his grandmother cleans up the kitchen. He stares at the wall while the television drones on. It’s been more than a year since he lost his older brother and father in the war. The grief of the loss, the dread of meeting the same fate, and the crushing loneliness make the burden too heavy for his young shoulders to bear.
So, what’s the common link between Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik?
When morning comes for each of them, they will walk to school where they will sit down to read and write, some of them in a language that is not their home language. They will take tests that will determine if they have met expectations for their grade level. They will be told how important it is to know how to calculate the circumference of a circle, to have a balanced diet, and to go to college. The truth of the conditions they are growing up in, their daily struggles, their inner conflicts, are ignored. The responsibility for making their way to a “better life” is placed squarely on their tiny, overburdened shoulders.
Like millions of school going children around the world, Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik are passive recipients of an outdated, oppressive education system. These systems pursue a narrow definition of success for all children regardless of their context. These systems disregard the complex, multi-generational challenges that young people and their communities are experiencing everyday. In standardizing what education is foundational and what isn’t, schools fail to prepare youth to navigate their current life experiences or to confront the systemic inequities they will surely face.
If the purpose of education was for every child to thrive, schools would be designed to respond to the context of the lives of young people.
So, what’s the common link between Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik?
When Huda goes to school, she is not permitted to wear her headscarf, humiliating her religious traditions and risking her ability to attend school. Ishmael is regularly found standing outside class as punishment for not completing his homework, his truth that he was working all evening dismissed. Hrusik spends the day in perpetual silence and his teachers have decided to just… leave him alone.
Millions of school systems the world over continue to separate the student from the rest of their life, in so doing dismissing the whole child. If school and life were integrated instead of fragmented, Huda would have the space to take pride in and celebrate her identity and religious traditions. Ishmael would get a warm meal and time in school to complete his classwork. Hrusik would be supported in working through his grief and fear, to perhaps add his voice to the global issue of war. If the purpose of education was for every child to thrive, schools would be designed to honor and love the whole child.
What do Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik need to thrive?
They need an experience of education that is connected to their current reality and context. They need an education ecosystem that accepts and validates them as they are, which is designed to respond to their poverty, trauma, and marginalization. They need an education system that understands that context must become the basis which informs the purpose of education systems. Most importantly, they need an education system whose guiding value is love, dignity, equity, inclusion, and joy for the whole child with their traumas et al. It is Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik’s human right to experience this kind of education.
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Responsive, Contextualized Education is a Human Right
Photo by Ley Halos via Unsplash.
September 28, 2022
In standardizing what education is foundational and what isn’t, schools fail to prepare youth to navigate life experiences or confront the systemic inequities they will surely face. Students need an education that is connected to their current reality and context, writes Kizazi’s Romana Shaikh.
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hat’s the common link between 16 year-old Huda growing up in the over-populated, under-sanitized slum of Mumbai in India; 11 year-old Ishmael selling rice on the streets of Moyamba after school in Sierra Leone; and 17 year-old Hrusik at home with her grandmother in Armenia?
Huda struggles to sleep every night. The sounds of altercation: screaming, doors banging, and babies crying rings loudly. The sounds compete only with the thumping of her heartbeat. “Why does he have to drink every night?” That familiar pit in her stomach echoes this question that she has spent years attempting to answer. At the same moment in time, Ishmael trudges home, clutching his pocket that holds the money he earned from the day. His tiny body is hungry and tired, his mind on high alert. “God please guard me till I reach home and give this money to father.” Somewhere around the world, Hrusik sits silently as his grandmother cleans up the kitchen. He stares at the wall while the television drones on. It’s been more than a year since he lost his older brother and father in the war. The grief of the loss, the dread of meeting the same fate, and the crushing loneliness make the burden too heavy for his young shoulders to bear.
So, what’s the common link between Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik?
When morning comes for each of them, they will walk to school where they will sit down to read and write, some of them in a language that is not their home language. They will take tests that will determine if they have met expectations for their grade level. They will be told how important it is to know how to calculate the circumference of a circle, to have a balanced diet, and to go to college. The truth of the conditions they are growing up in, their daily struggles, their inner conflicts, are ignored. The responsibility for making their way to a “better life” is placed squarely on their tiny, overburdened shoulders.
Like millions of school going children around the world, Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik are passive recipients of an outdated, oppressive education system. These systems pursue a narrow definition of success for all children regardless of their context. These systems disregard the complex, multi-generational challenges that young people and their communities are experiencing everyday. In standardizing what education is foundational and what isn’t, schools fail to prepare youth to navigate their current life experiences or to confront the systemic inequities they will surely face.
If the purpose of education was for every child to thrive, schools would be designed to respond to the context of the lives of young people.
So, what’s the common link between Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik?
When Huda goes to school, she is not permitted to wear her headscarf, humiliating her religious traditions and risking her ability to attend school. Ishmael is regularly found standing outside class as punishment for not completing his homework, his truth that he was working all evening dismissed. Hrusik spends the day in perpetual silence and his teachers have decided to just… leave him alone.
Millions of school systems the world over continue to separate the student from the rest of their life, in so doing dismissing the whole child. If school and life were integrated instead of fragmented, Huda would have the space to take pride in and celebrate her identity and religious traditions. Ishmael would get a warm meal and time in school to complete his classwork. Hrusik would be supported in working through his grief and fear, to perhaps add his voice to the global issue of war. If the purpose of education was for every child to thrive, schools would be designed to honor and love the whole child.
What do Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik need to thrive?
They need an experience of education that is connected to their current reality and context. They need an education ecosystem that accepts and validates them as they are, which is designed to respond to their poverty, trauma, and marginalization. They need an education system that understands that context must become the basis which informs the purpose of education systems. Most importantly, they need an education system whose guiding value is love, dignity, equity, inclusion, and joy for the whole child with their traumas et al. It is Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik’s human right to experience this kind of education.
