June 19, 2023
I think I shall be thinking about the events and conversations of this first day of the work week at MGS for a very long time. I will remember the warm, sultry weather, the ride to Kigali and seeing the bustle of Nyamata, the traffic jams in the city, the pleasant conversation along the way. I will remember it all for its richness, the way it seeps into my understanding of education, changing ever so quietly my understanding of its meaning to our future. So I won’t be able to capture it all here, in this entry. But, believe me, there will be more to say!
For me, the conversations one can have on the road to Kigali are always terrific. This trip, Sister Laetitia told us about how she has set up the study routine to prepare the girls for their exams. (Which begin tomorrow!) She described what she calls the “importance of studying with discussion.” The study time from 6:00 – 7:00 is “silent prep.” The students read quietly or do the exercises or work sheets their teachers have provided. The students have a meal. Then from 7:30 – 8:30 the students have “discussion based prep.” They can ask questions of one another about a tricky math problem, a complicated biology unit, a vocabulary word that is new to them. Students who understand a concept seek out and help a student who needs more information. For Sister, this discussion prep is essential. Not only to help all the girls do well on exams, but to underscore the idea that we are educated together, to be a community, to help one another. Learning is not a competitive sport; it is a time to share, to take responsibility not only for our own achievement, but to contribute to the learning of others.
A Rwandan ideal of education. Different than our Western notion of education as an individual achievement alone. Respect, Responsibility and Leadership in action preparing for exams!
SOLA
My former student, Ellie Murphy (Tufts IR, 2022), is currently teaching at the SOLA School in Kigali. Rwanda was a nation that invited Afghan girls who could not continue their education under the Taliban to continue to study in Rwanda. SOLA, (the School of Leadership for Afghanistan) accepted the invitation. The founder, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, met with Sister Laetitia twice before deciding to accept President Kagame’s invitation.
At the SOLA gate. Ellie met us and took us through the site. Throughout the tour we met students who were studying for their exams in outdoor spaces and the library. They seemed happy, proud of their opportunity to study and learn.
It is hard to truly grasp what this learning space means from my Western, privileged perspective. On one side of the building there is a mural a local artist helped the girls design. It is a woman in traditional Afghan dress, dancing , free, joyful. Above her head are butterflies, fluttering and free, in the colors of the Rwandan flag. One of the classic Ira Shor chapters I read each year before classes begin is Education Is Politics. Reading it this morning, I found this passage:
“No curriculum can be neutral. All forms of education are political because they can enable or inhibit the questioning habits of students, thus developing or disabling their critical relation to knowledge, schooling and society…”
Written in 1994, I assume Shor did not have the Taliban treatment of girls education in mind. (Although Joni and I watched Charlie Wilson’s War on Netflix last night which shows the US covert involvement in Afghanistan began in the 1970s. Charlie wanted money to build a school after the Russians left but Congress did not agree.). But the idea that education and politics, two very powerful influences on our identity as nations, are inextricably connected.
Today I visited SOLA and saw girls pursuing learning in exile. I wonder if there is a cautionary tale there for me, for all of us, now and in the future…
Linda V Beardsley
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