COMMENT Secondly, you are experiencing a phenomenon particular to this era; you are bearing the consequences of being a legatee to the advancement and progress made hitherto; of the 3,000 years of recorded history that have made us inheritors of a vast amount of knowledge.

How banal it is today to be awarded a degree, how perfunctory and meaningless graduation ceremonies are or the act of framing certificates and affixing them on the wall. Sixty, seventy years ago, when the world’s population was half of what it is now, and university education was a privilege, it was different.

Even the award of a Bachelor of Arts in History would allow one to secure a comfortable job. Everything has changed now, because of the increase in population, the greater demand for education and the consequent increase in the rate of literacy and therefore, competition.

One would think that this would raise standards, but the result, according to Max Travers (2009), is “a shallow form of education that suits the credentialising needs of a mass society, rather than actually promoting learning.” (Law and Society, 178)

The private sector thrives on making education a business. It markets and sells education competitively, whetting the appetites of prospective consumers through the display of vulgarly attractive billboards and the use of deceptive marketing strategies, and sells it as a product below par.

Those who are to graduate seldom turn around and complain, because their attention is fixed on the procurement of a passport that sadly stands out purely as a rite of passage. The certificate is merely symbolical and as most symbols, supplants intrinsic value with ornamental worth. After all, it is trite that most of what needs to be known is learnt at the workplace.

Some educationalists even believe that the standard three-year duration of a degree is a device merely to create a new industry, and in an attempt to manage employment, delay the infiltration of job seekers onto the market.

Thirdly, I would like you to read about the panopticon in Michel Foucault’s ‘Discipline and Punish’. In a few words, it will clarify how institutions such as prisons, hospitals and schools exert a “ norm-alising ” gaze on individuals; a gaze that seeks first to standardise, then differentiate and ultimately label.

Foucault says: “Normalisation makes people homogeneous, but it also makes it possible to measure differences between individuals.” (Discipline and Punish, 1975)

These individuals excel because...

The labels I mentioned come in forms that you are familiar with: those who excel, those who pass and those who fail. Individuals subjected to this powerful gaze excel because they have learnt how to conform to the rules and ideals of the institution; rules and ideals which you may instinctively find senseless, useless or even nonsensical.

But please, don’t get carried away by what I have just said. I know many who misuse Foucault’s theory and allow themselves to look down on those who excel by denigrating them as herd-like or mere followers. No. It’s these rule-following members of society whom you would want as your doctors, your engineers, your accountants.

I can hear your protests: I can hear you ask me which of these labels should be stuck on you. You say that you don’t excel, so you are not the rule-following type; but you don’t necessarily fail. So does it mean that you should be classified as the average?

Before I can answer you properly, you interrupt and speak of your academic performance. You say that you are disappointed that you can’t produce grades expected of you; and yet when people meet you, they are impressed by the clarity of your thoughts, the fierceness of your intelligence, and the passion in your words. How should this contradiction be explained, you ask.

Well, I have an answer. It’s not the system that is anomalous, it’s you. You wish to operate outside the rules within this box that is the system of education. Your ideals in learning do not match the ideals of the norm-alising gaze.

Your position is outside all the brouhaha, that is the disciplining, the aligning and the punishing to discipline. You, dear Student, are what I call “The Other Minority”, the one that was not computed into the system, the anachronism that was not factored in.

If you think about it, the way to be a straight-As student is simple: take the test, or tackle the assignment question for what it is. Approach the study of the part-of-a-part mechanically. Don’t think too much. Don’t try to be too sincere by putting your heart and soul into studying for the sake of learning.

As educators often (and sadly) say: study smart. Learn the rules parrot-fashion, even if they don’t make sense, even if they don’t give you answers to those persistent questions, because that’s what the education system is all about today.

Approach education with a clinical dispassion, and the coldness and exactitude of Machiavelli. Seek to know only that which is necessary. If you can do all this, I can assure you that you will be that straight-As student.

But I’m sure you can’t do this. I’m sure that there is a force within you that is stronger than everything else, and insists on finding out the necessity of trigonometry to life as a whole, and the use of all the chemical substances with different properties. I am sure that what you fail at doing most, is at being a mere robot.

The Butcher-Teachers

Let me tell you that in this institution, you have been and will often be in the hands of teachers who would only butcher your talent and self-esteem. Teachers who will complain to your parents and say: “You should tell your child not to interrupt the class, Mr and Mrs So-and-So. He asks questions that are outside the syllabus. I have seen how everyone reacts because I get to stand before the class. They roll their eyes, Mr and Mrs So-and-So. The numbers have spoken. Your child must change and learn to behave norm-ally.”

I’ve heard these butchers, dear Student, Butcher-Teachers who will kill your spirit, Butcher-Teachers who will mar your talent, Butcher-Teachers who will force you to be aligned, to be norm-alised, according to a standard that preaches conformity to values that are not your values, not my values, that should never be your values, and that will hopefully never be mine.

Upon graduating, dear Student, make sure that you accept your scroll gracefully. Then, by all means go on and frame your certificate like everyone habitually does and put it up on your wall, in the most conspicuous place in your office.

But remember that it means nothing today but a passport for a job, a means to be plugged into a system like everyone else, so that you can be plugged into another system, and earn money, and fulfil a desire common to most: the ability to go effortlessly through all the stages in life. And after you have done that, look around. Don’t stop reading and exploring. Be persistent in wanting answers to your questions, and even when you don’t find them, don’t despair.

Remember, if you are profoundly dissatisfied with what you have been taught, then you are on the right track of being in search of true education. Because the more you know, the more you realise how little you know. Make education a lifelong enterprise, not a project solely for the first quarter of your life.

For now, don’t expect too much out of the system of education. It has been tailored to achieve practical purposes, and most people around you are not interested in the greater project of learning, of getting acquainted with the higher truths.

Most people do not wish for this relationship with life and are content with that which would never make you content. So carry on, definitely alone, because such pathways are always difficult. It will be hard, dear Student, because learning, being acquainted with the higher truths also means doubting yourself, doubting everything you have taken for granted.

I will end on a final note: let the message in this statement of mine not be interpreted as an excuse for not trying; or for giving up too soon. Let not this be interpreted as an attempt to disguise weakness to pose as strength.

By tending to you, by acknowledging your struggle, I hope I am not, in Jean Jacques Rousseau’s words, “paving (the) way (for you) to feel much greater…enervating your constitution, mak(ing) (you) tender and effeminate…” (Émile, 1762)

We have moved to a new era in education where we are increasingly fearful of thwarting the development of a child by affixing grades and marks to him or her. I am not entirely in favour of this apprehension, this over-protectiveness.

I maintain that the education system has no choice but to dispense education to the masses, and I accept its utilitarian aspirations. I only wanted to reassure you that I acknowledge your anachronistic existence in the system, and tell you not to be discouraged by the feeling of incompleteness.

I also wanted to tell you that the education you received and are receiving will never be enough, and that this is just the beginning of the long, tantalising journey of self-discovery before you.

Long, tantalising indeed, but certainly rewarding by way of instilling a sense of self-fulfilment and an invaluable feeling of inner peace.

Part 1 - Words for you, young student, wherever you be

SABAH CARRIM is a law graduate currently writing her PhD thesis on war crimes tribunals. Her works, both academic and of general interest, have been published in magazines and journals across the world. She has authored two novels: ‘Humeirah’ and ‘Semi-apes’.