As an English teacher I wanted to know what the concept of being
educated meant to my students. Through discussion we realized that
learning how to read, write and speak English was not enough and
concluded that it was more "knowing how to question, listening to
others and learning how to be civilized". This definition of education
then involved a development of the self along with literacy. Thus,
here reading and writing becomes more a means to an end rather than
the end itself. My question is why no one ever takes this definition
of education into account when walking into the classroom.

Since childhood, school had always involved a separation from my
immediate environment and the texts that we studied in the
classroom. I was a voracious reader and consumed Enid Blyton
regularly. In school, where I was supposed to demonstrate my mastery
in writing, I wrote skillful stories on Christmas parties and snowy
days. I could empathize with blue-eyed British girls called Kate and
her frustrations with friends, parents and that darned weather and was
marked handsomely. Writings about my family or my experiences in
Pakistan never went beyond the superficial "what I did last weekend"
and that too was slathered in cheery Bobsy Twin style and was
therefore more befitting amongst Kate's expeditions with Mum rather
than Fazilat's expeditions with Ami. I never really thought about
the absurdity of this whole situation until I left Pakistan for
undergraduate studies and was introduced to a phenomenon that seemed
very bizarre at first - South Asian experiences in print. That too to
be studied in the classroom - usually the mosque-like sanctuary where
upon walking in, you left your immediate environment out like rubber
slippers. Now that I am teaching however, I am once again faced with
students relating more easily to essays where they must assume the
identity of a schoolbag rather than describing their sister's Mehndi.

I cannot blame my students however. They will write what has been
modelled to them which is only English and now increasingly American
authors. What is to blame is a stodgy old Brit-based education system
that has been around for too long and has made the "chalk-and talk"
classroom approach synonymous with teaching. What is also to blame is
a passive acceptance of these decades old teaching methods and a lack
of questioning on what it is we are exactly trying to impart to our
students. Unfortunately, the validity of our education system
world-wide is based on how well we can replicate the original
British-system. Those schools who have done a better job at this
preservation are held in higher repute than others. The rest remain
cheap imitations of the original.

But aside from being something that "exists from the beginning", to be
original also is "created not copied by the artist etc himself or
herself". Where is the invention that should arise from invention that
Caribbean writer Derek Walcott writes about? The teaching of English
in Pakistan, as far as I know it, has never bothered to include the
experience of the student and thus requires them to assume an English
mentality for successful analysis of textual material. Sadly, the
study of literature then requires no creation just mimicry.

The importance of integrating the student's immediate environment in
the text was demonstrated to me through my own experience. I left
Pakistan in class 9 and moved to Canada. In my first year of
university I stumbled upon a Post-Colonial literature course by
accident and was enthralled enough to continue this line of study for
the next three years. Most of our tutorials were not too different
from group-therapy sessions where we heatedly discussed the "othering"
of all but the canonical English literatures. A conversation by a
classmate in my last year of university however quelled my impressions
of these discussions as revolutionary. As a creative writing student
she had complained that her professors were insistent she take up the
study of post-colonial literature. It was then I realized that
revolutionary was customary and these exciting discussions were only
the token discussions that took place in the token "other" department
in a big university. We were having these discussions because the
categorizers had allowed us to. My instinct after these classes had been
to respond bitterly to the suppression of ethnic voice by the
colonizer, which is just what post-colonial literature was supposed to
be - angry and beaten down accounts of the homeland. Therefore I was
approaching my Pakistani experience as I had been while in Pakistan -
just as the Western outlook prescribed.

The debate about post-colonial literature is long and complicated. My
purpose of mentioning my experience was to expose how the reading and
writing only development approach to the study of literature is not
sufficient to educate students. To involve students' lives to their
studies is imperative. I believe education extends beyond "five on
five" answers. I agree with the afore-mentioned discussion's
conclusion that education is a more holistic development of the
student. And frankly speaking, I don't see how this can be achieved by
pretending you are someone else, somewhere else.

I do not mean to suggest that English texts should be booted out of
our curriculum. That would be a ridiculous thing to suggest not only
because the citadels of colonial enterprise tower too high to be
broken down with such ease but also because censorship only breeds
ignorance. I would suggest including the student in literary
analysis. Literature of all kinds can have global relevance if
interpreted that way. I also think that the English curriculum should
introduce South Asian writers. Students should be encouraged to relate
their own experiences to those in the text. Student writing should be
shared with the class so that the mystique behind "the author" is
unmasked and students can feel more free critiquing and questioning
the 'authenticity' of writing. A refreshing comprehension exercise I
used in my class was using one of the students own essays as the
comprehension passage. Students were thrilled at personally knowing
the author and engaged in a discussion more enthusiastically than the
Rhodri Jones unit on Wanting a Pet could ever stimulate.

Unfortunately, the projection-style approach to teaching English is
still the most predominant one. I say projection style because while
studying English language or literature students are required to
literally project themselves to another part of the world. The
pressure of O level examinations and rigid assessment methods don't
allow room for change. My sentiments on examinations that are set and
marked in London, England are another essay in itself. These
restrictions do not mean, however, that we wean our students to
believe that the only lifestyles worth studying are of those who speak
in clipped accents and freckle on a sunny day.

I would like to conclude by amending a statement I made earlier in
this essay. I was wrong before to say that our education systems are
not creating anything, for we seem to be creating masters of mimicry. I
feel that's a fine pertinent example I can use the next time I want to
explain irony to my literature class.