I have had many occasions where I've seen the damages of rote memorization in this society. The education system here believes in shoving endless amounts of text into minds of children who can't read and barely count to 10. So what happens to these children? They get weeded out to the final top students, and when I say top I mean barely passing at like a 50.5%. So these children are considered successful students because they are capable to retain only half of the information they are required to know. And when I say "retain" I truly mean just be able to keep the information in your memory banks so that one day you can regurgitate the information without any knowledge of what it means.
Ok fine, this posting is not fair. There have been a number of occasions where I have had wonderful meaningful conversations and discussions with my Sierra Leonean peers but those insightful conversations are rare. Critical thinking and the ability to thoughtfully discuss a topic is something that we cultivate in the American school system whereas in Sierra Leone everything is a memorized definition. So the Sierra Leoneans that are capable of having meaningful conversations are either self-taught or have spent a good number of years in a western society.
Insightful conversations aside, let's just talk about something basic. Like knowing your area of expertise. Case in point. I was sitting down with one new Home Economics Teacher, Princess. Princess is a product of the HTC (H Teachers Certificate). An HTC means that she was able to finish high school and wasn't smart enough to go to university. Where she then made her way through the system at the bare minimum of 50% or purhased the grades or slept with the teacher. Those are the 3 main ways to pass your class in Sierra Leone. I was asking Princess when the girls will start doing practicals. She told me that she was going to start cooking with the girls next week and saying that Week1 they will be cooking meals for pregnant women and Week2 will be for vegetarians. I was actually impressed for a minute, like wow, she's ready to do different stuff and teach about healthy cooking. She must know her stuff, right? So she said that she was going to prepare things like salad for the vegetarian. I told her how much I love salad and asked what kind of salad she was going to make. She said: lettuce, carrot, egg......ok, she then clarified that the meal is for a lacto-ovo vegetarian. Ok, fine I accepted, egg is ok. Going back to the ingredients: lettuce, carrot, egg........LUNCHEON MEAT.........whoa, hey, wait up......luncheon meat?!?! Sometimes in situations like these I just continue to smile and nod but this time I couldn't, I had to interject. Ums, ya, I'm sorry Princess, but Luncheon Meat is MEAT and not vegetarian. Then she used the Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian term again. And I really hate sounding like a douchebag know-it-all but I didn't want her to give a vegetarian left-over pig parts in the form of a cube and say its vegan, lol. So I kindly explained to her that "Lacto" means dairy and that "Ovo" means egg and that luncheon meat is neither dairy or egg and is clearly meat just like the can says "MEAT".
What freaks me out is that she is a teacher and she is going to teach these girls and say that putting luncheon meat is a healthy meal for a vegetarian. When the truth is that luncheon meat is neither healthy nor vegetarian not even lacto-ovo vegetarian. Sadly, she will ignore everything I said and still make the "vegetarian" salad in this manner..........con carne style, lol.
Why is Princess like this? Well, she is a product if this poor education system. So you have the blind leading the blind because she memorized terms and "kinda" passed and never understood a single word from it.
Am I singling her out and hating on her? I mean, should I mask the truth? This is just one occasion. How many times have I had to correct "well educated" adults here and tell them that America and Europe are two different places. So yes, that is where I come from London, America: Obama's village. The WHITES are so powerful that is why America is a great place so we need to bring more British people in Salone. No, not a joke, these are things people say to me.
So it's obvious that comprehension is a complete NO GO and sadly even just basic memorization isn't working so great either. All of them take Geography classes for several years and in the end they can't even memorize the difference between Europe and North America. 90% of the population won't even be able to point out Sierra Leone on a map of Africa, wait, just change that to 90% of the population won't even be able to point out the continent of Africa on a map.
I'm sorry SPAM is not a vegetable.
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