Teach 300 children under a project, you are a celebrity. Forget the teachers who have taught for a lifetime. Market-centric is the new smartThe new ageIronically, teaching does get appreciated when done under the garb of entrepreneurship, social business, and start-ups. No one dreams to be a school teacher anymore, unless that comes with the perks of a branding in the garb of “teach English to underprivileged communities” sort of attire. Then, teaching becomes smart. Teach 300 children under a project, you are a celebrity. Forget the teachers who have taught for a lifetime. Market-centric is the new smart. Classic is the new archaic. And along with teaching, learning for the sake of gaining knowledge has also met its end. Everything today, including learning and reading, has become more or less market-centric. Classic subjects like literature, language, philosophy are “outdated” -- never mind that Oxbridge or Ivy Leagues still have the classic subjects as the most prestigious departments. In Bangladesh, we study literature if we don’t get better subjects in the admission test. Then we sidetrack it to ensure enough time to prepare for BCS or a business degree. Reading Gora, Gilgamesh, or War and Peace is a waste of time unless we are intending to write for publication. Read Mahabharata to launch an exciting gaming app. Enjoying Gopal Bhar’s witty comments towards Raja Krishnachandra is useless if they don’t teach us how to manage our boss. It is unnecessary to learn to identify the coarse textures of various hand-loom saris unless we don it for next season’s fashion statement. We don’t study home economics anymore, we study fashion designing or interior decoration.Something was lostNothing flourishes unless appreciated. Academia stopped flourishing because it stopped being appreciated. We set up ideation labs but not reading centres. We have leadership training but not innovative teacher training, we have capacity building workshops but no interdisciplinary learning programs. The school and college teachers are celebrated till the board exams. University faculty are acknowledged so long they receive media coverage through talk shows or roundtables. But not as leaders. They are just people who give lectures, and sometimes publish books which few read. If a teacher becomes a popular writer, she or he remains “the writer” more than the academic. And thus, we prepare for the market. And survive. But survival is not living. While racing to the top, we have forgotten the joys of learning. Yet, once in a while, we shall come across someone who reads books not to pick up smart quotes for presentations, but to enjoy a good book, who reads voraciously not to provide numerous references, but to introduce the students to the diversities of the world, who solves crossword puzzles not to sharpen competitive cognitive skills, but because it’s just fun, who thinks listening to the nature is worthwhile as much as listening to Ted talks. And may be that person will be considered backdated, impractical. But then … The wizards were preparing for their big show. They had set up the high-tech gizmos, which through the sound vibrator would create the ethereal magic. The inventor who had designed the show was happy. But the vibrator malfunctioned. The only solution was to read the rune incantations and create the vibration manually. The inventor couldn’t, he always used apps. The illusionists had never bothered to learn the obsolete language either. Then came the young wizard, mocked for studying ancient runes. Taking a look at the ancient scripture, he tuned his voice to create the vibration. And the day was saved.Arpeeta Shams Mizan teaches law at University of Dhaka, and is a socio-legal analyst.
A while ago, one of my friends shared on Facebook a list of 15 young Bangladeshis celebrated in the field of leadership. Going through the list, I could not help feel strange, because the list was basically dominated by people undertaking business and entrepreneurship ventures.
Today’s Bangladesh, for good reason, has become the country for young entrepreneurs and start-ups. No matter what discipline the youth are studying, it is as if the most vibrant of the lot go for start-up initiatives. Or so it seems.
The “smartest” people are the ones who are in the business or social business sector. There are lots of trainings on leadership, entrepreneurship, and capacity building.
But what is leadership? What is capacity building? Is it only the ability to design and run a breakthrough project for solving a socio-economic problem?
Every once in a while, I need to remind myself that the society and the world is not besotted with business only. True, without business and entrepreneurship, society and economy won’t go very far. But one might wonder: Since when did capacity building and leadership become synonymous with start-ups and project management?
Social business is the talk of the town. Everyone is set on creating their own company, everyone focused on setting up own non-profit initiative. Go to the bookstore, most of the best-sellers are books on motivation, problem solving, and project designing.
But amidst this positive vibe, I feel a terrible absence. And I feel like the odd one out. Because when I hear the word “smart,” I picture a person who can analyse Wordsworth and Rabindranath’s interpretation of human life.
When I hear the word “capable,” I see someone who cannot only innovate but also use old traditional solutions for new age conflicts, one who understands what is necessary may not be what is needed.
When I hear the word “leader,” I think of a person who enables others to use their own qualities, who shows others how to know themselves.
And I sadly notice that teaching, learning, and academia are not in a leadership position in today’s Bangladesh.The first leadersThe first leaders in human history were the teachers, unless one argues that Socrates and Plato were not leaders. Today in Bangladesh, the word leadership does not convey the image of a teacher (and by teacher, I refer to primary, secondary, and higher secondary teachers as well as university faculty members).
Teachers are now perceived as passive, bookish, disconnected from reality, and are pushed to the background. The critical problem solving skills of leadership are frequently attributed to entrepreneurs, and seldom to academics.
