The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi Education Correspondent
Zimbabwe is full of doctors and professors in almost all of our aspects of life; Medicine, Engineering, Agriculture, Law, Commerce and Industry. Perhaps Education has a monopoly of these highly learned men and women. In Africa Zimbabweans contend honourably with Nigerians, Ghanaians, South Africans and the world knows Zimbabwe has its fair share of intellectuals.
Where is this story going?
It is going towards a serious interrogation of the usefulness of Zimbabwean intellectuals in proffering desirable changes in national development. Efficacy. I will stick to Education because that is what this page and column is all about.
When will our doctors and professors for example see that the study of classical English Poetry is not mentally necessary? Advanced level Literature offers compulsory papers in which ‘unseen’ texts are set for Practical Criticism. I have no problem with the ‘unseen’ issue. I do have a serious problem with the useless complexity of most of the poems, for this compulsory paper and any other that examines or tests literary appreciation of poems.
The poems are extremely difficult to analyse, some to the level of being impossible. Even black or African poets have not been easier in their authorship of poetic expression. You cannot blame them. They are products of a system that views ‘difficult’ poetry as something to celebrate.
I have no problem with the difficulty of poetry. If poets the world over have agreed that good poetry is incomprehensible poetry, who are we to change their perception? But why do we drag this fallacy into our examinations? What do our teachers and learners benefit from these locked hard nuts-to-crack? What is the benefit or satisfaction derived from subjecting our learners to ‘impossible’ poetry? How is that good for the mind? How long will it take those doctors and professors who have the honour of designing school syllabi to realise that there is no intellectual value or gain in analysing ‘nonsense’ that is difficult to make sense out of?
The African scholar was taught to believe that if you easily comprehend a poem, that is not a good poem. The more you do not understand it the more it becomes appropriate for study. Is that true? Even our own poets have adopted this skewed, twisted, off-centre perception of poetry. . .this ridiculous definition of poetry, and so they overload schools with difficult nonsense called poetry.
Is it the characteristic of educated people to be difficult? And to have an imaginative curiosity that is wild, far-fetched and removed from our social customs, our own history and geography, our flora and fauna? Why should our learners be forced to understand unfamiliar phenomena that occur in the British Isles? Is it the obligation of doctors, professors. . .educated people to make sure learning is that difficult? Would learning be less valuable for humanity if it were easier and enjoyable? Or is the joy of learning in grappling with the impossible? Intellectual genocide!
Some of our own Zimbabwean fundis. . .many of them, sadly including those tasked with identifying and determining teaching and learning content (curriculum and syllabi designers) have the same mentality. They think a good examination is a difficult one. . .one full of jigsaw puzzles and incomprehensible intellectual matter. They celebrate examinations set in heaven to be written here on Earth by earthly candidates. They set examinations only the above-average can manage. Why then do mediocre learners and below go to school? To confirm the brilliance of those above average?
Our own managers of educational content and examinations have not yet departed from the mindset of the colonial master whose agenda it was to bottleneck the consumers of their examinations. The colonial agenda was to allow a calculated percentage of African students to pass examinations. And they did it so well that only that percentage proceeded to further studies.
How different is our education system today? It is only able to allow through its exams between 25 and 30 percent. . .and in a good year only 35 to 40 percent? This has been the scenario since independence (1980). Why is it still like this? I am asking our learned friends, doctors and professors?
Literature, in my view, has been an Achilles heels for all this time because those charged with designing content for learning and examinations still have the misguided thinking that DIFFICULT means quality, and it means the BEST. The best example to illustrate and defend this opinion is the continued overloading of ‘A’ level Literature students with impenetrable poems for the average minds in the name of standards. What standards? Invitation to Radio.
Topic: There is nothing to gain / benefit from difficult poetry.
Anyone who wants to dare me on radio on this topic and issue, make a date with me. . .Let’s go Head-To Head with MM. Your views and wisdom are most welcome. Catch me on my cell number 0773 883 293 or email me on my address [email protected]
