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Kwarlizzle's picture

Did the system ever get anything right?

I am currently reading "The Education of the British-Protected Child" by Chinua Achebe, and something that struck me was a quote he had that Kissinger what American was doing in Africa. When told that the America was doing EVERYTHING wrong in Africa (implying that they shouldn't have been there in the first place) Kissinger responded:

"Statistically that is impossible. Even if it is unintentional, we must be doing something right."

It made me think of education (both in Ghana and here).... We wax poetic about the failure of the school system and of teachers and administrators and everything in-between..... but truly, many of us are a product of many of the same systems we berate. The scholars and businessmen and white-collar and blue-collar workers, the activists, the tycoons - we all are products in some way, shape, or form, of that system. Surely the system coulddn't have gotten everything wrong. So the question becomes: "What did the system get right? What has it so far done correctly? And as we forge ahead and create new and better systems for education, is there anyway we can still incorporate what the old system got right?"

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