La Mala educación - ichi

Well this started out as a comment for Abu Shreek's post but then carried on a lot longer than it should. so I decided to post it here .

This will be a series of posts that move from my years in school to university, decisions that I made along the way, and a conclusion for how things are now, since am out of the system and more of an observer than anything. WARNING - expect a lot of sleeping so i can't recall moments
LOL ! (my summary of the article)
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Background(were am coming from) : coming from a person who spent his first 12 years sleeping in class, and spent the next 4 years skipping class and still managed a 3.1/4.0 GPA to earn a BSc in EE I might be slightly out of the average in my comments (i am not boasting here but preparing for what i want to say. since i don't want to come off as a lazy idiot of the class, or the highly involved model student) - dont take it against me that I hid this
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Well this trip along memory lane brought back so much joy and frustration and was meant to be a short critique to the system that ended up being a long study & critique of my educational life. plus a realization that I slept too much

My enrollment in the system came in the form of nursery school, a place once called Sindbad. I actually owe it to this nursery for my English language since it was my first interaction with native speakers, which was in fact the empitus for me to get better at an astounding rate in the English language, and defined my usage of the language later on (or so I came to believe!). I can't really expand much more than that due to a hazy memory. it was so cool as a kid to be friends with a prince

Of course then came KG (tamhidi), in a certain historical monument of Jordanian education located in Jabal Amman. one of the girls in my class there got married last summer i was happy for her

- - passing note : "i loved those turtles and that sand box in the middle of all the classes" --

Here was the first time that my artistic abilities been recognized something I am really fond of, to the extent that I still have them to date. what I want to point out is that during this stage the people responsible for me where able to focus on education rather than spoon feeding.
They were able to boost my imagination and help direct my energy into productive things, and rules were set to direct not inhibit the students.

Then came elementary school in the same line as my KG, that boys school in Jabal Amman, then my dilemma with the system started from as early as 3rd grade. At this point my interest were starting to take shape. I started to draw more in classes, and started to be interested in having a discussion as an adult. school teachers there were of such archaic nature that the generation gap and understanding was always a hurdle to get over.
Something else started to develop, the fact that I was not being taught anything that wasn't already understandable and available in the book ! coupled with the fact that my father was teaching me third grade math and science when I was in first grade didn't really help those teachers either. one funny thing is one time in 2nd grade a kid was cheating of me, that didn't bother me. When the teacher corrected the test she noticed something peculiar, the kid misspelled his family name. turns out he even copied my family name from the paper

now that is novel

So since I could not learn much from the classes I stopped paying attention due to boredom. Plus the other classes that I wasn't good in didn't hold any interest to me, and being the stubborn kid I was every time they made the point that i don't have a choice in learning them made them so much less appealing to me. Regardless of that I was always able to achieve good grades. Except for my French and P.E grades those were horrid. "2is2alo labeeba" was a true marvel

the curricula that we were taught was a mixed bag, Arabic language was some how out of context and was written to people who have grown up in the 60's now that was exciting. Religion was a tough one since you were always reminded not to think about it. Social Studies even at that tender age was a joke. Science was actually pretty good and exciting in a way(although maybe am biased). Math was pretty good although I was more occupied during that class with sleeping. P.E was so frustrating I could never understand whats the point of winning the football game, so i like to sit as a goalkeeper and do nothing :)
music was too queer, we even had a mummy as a teacher (the guy was as old as my grand pa "2allah yirhamo", his name was Mr. Charlie but he was nice). I was even in the choir for 2 years (people who know my voice now will frown in disbelief) think Rachid Taha but slightly more tone deft

Arts always had the beautiful young female teacher but that was a minor reason I liked. its too bad the other kids always made a mess of this class. I got back at them by messing the football games so we were even


The summary of the situation was as follows;

uninteresting teachers that laid the law, and where there to spoon feed. that made school an unappealing thought for me, that is except for the fact that I could sleep well.

Students that were competitive and the comparisons made between students was moral crushing to them.


btw this part one has been tucked away in the draft since 8/14 wow ! i think it would have better to leave it there. I hope i'll get the other ones out as well