His huge hands held the Certificate of Attendance for the beginners MS Office course close to his massive chest, with a discernible look of shame. The certificate is issued when a course is completed without a passing grade. I am very intuitive. I could almost read the silent thought as rapidly as it ran across his creased brow, like a neon sign fleeting from one end of a billboard to the other: Honey, I am ashamed of myself for letting you down. “I just don’t get computers”, he mouthed. I winced for him. Little is more heartbreaking than a big man diminished by circumstance or having to admit to failure of some kind, before the very eyes of his lady love. I reached out to draw him close to me and whispered the words I knew he desperately needed to hear; you are more than this. It was true. My husband, like me, was strong, loving, capable and always handling responsibilities with a great sense of purpose.
I looked at his latest certificate, one more course he had tried his hand at and failed, and begun to seriously think about this befuddling phenomenon I had grappled with for ages. You didn’t need my Bachelors degree in Education to tell you that he was an intelligent man by all accounts. Yet his grades, from primary to high school, were less than stellar. He never made it to college. Evidently, he didn’t lack comprehension skills, but something happened whenever he sat in a formal classroom environment. Matters inexorably worsened when faced with an examination. It seemed he experienced some kind of internal anguish resulting in mental block. I had noticed an almost frightened glaze in his eyes whenever I tried to assist him with his homework. Here though was the paradox; he understood technical stuff like electrical wiring! Patrick handled our home maintenance himself. Whenever I asked how he had come to learn this or that, invariably, he would say he was taught by so and so.
For years, I never connected the dots. Now staring at his certificate, I suddenly got an epiphany that blew my mind. Patrick understands practical based one-on-one teaching. If you take him by the hand and guide his fingers through the process, he will be a genius at whatever skill. Heck! he may even turn out to be a brilliant surgeon while you are at it! But once you introduce notes, desks, a blackboard and all the rudiments of formal learning, well you simply lose him.
This was a revelation. Previously, the approach I used for his homework was of a classroom teacher; the only way I had been trained to teach formal subjects. I would take out this big text book and then proceed to demonstrate on the computer, using my teaching voice. He couldn’t grasp a thing. This certificate proved the computer course teacher didn’t get through to him either. It occurred to me now that the teaching voice and big book may have been impediments.
Using real documents that he needed; introduction letters and business agreements, I made him do all the typing himself. He labored through with single finger acumen which is all he could manage but finished all just the same. By the time we were done, he had created a folder, edited and saved the documents. More importantly, he had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He wanted more. And just like that, my Patrick became “computer literate”.
Inconsideration! That is it. That is the trouble with inadequate education policy for learners. Sadly, school children of course bear the brunt, many of them scarred and suffering for life. Like my Patrick. I often narrated this story time and again to anyone who would listen, lamenting on the derision that is my country’s education system; a one-size-fits-all that relies heavily on two annual comprehensive national examinations, as the sole instruments of measurement!
One examination is taken after completing eight years of primary education, for three whole days. Just think, three days in which to demonstrate eight years of learning! The other, lasts for two weeks and is supposed to prove one has acquired knowledge worth their four years of high school! The results are announced by no less than the minister of education. Needless to state, the intensity of the pressure, countrywide, cannot be gainsaid.
I would wax lyrical as I sought to evince to no one in particular just how useless the entire system was, for a large percentage of students who were not academically inclined yet, could perhaps, learn if only someone would find their ‘hook’. Whoever said everyone had to be taught and measured the exact the same way? I opined.
When I first discovered the course, Instructional Design, here in America, I quickly realized it was the answer I had long sought; to teach me how to come up with solutions that could assist “Patricks” everywhere to excel at learning, regardless.
Granted, when I joined college at 19, I wasn’t quite as focused even though I chose to study Education; a very noble profession that is more of a calling. I did not feel particularly “called” but loved the idea of standing before young people, imparting, presenting, guiding, helping, creating and motivating. Teaching seemed to be a natural choice. However, I admit I did not take things as seriously as I should have.
Nevertheless, I have since grown up a whole lot and was able to rise in my professional career to the level of Advertising and Marketing Manager, with the main responsibility being training and mentoring sales associates. Prior to that, I was a Consumer Health Educator charged with delivering the Johnson $ Johnson Reproductive Health Education program in schools throughout East Africa. Each group had to be approached with uniquely different strategies in order to deliver exactly the same content. I happen to be imbued with boundless creative juice. It just begins to churn when presented with a challenge. Naturally I loved and excelled at these jobs.
Today, even though I am distanced and bereft of family in America, my newly adopted country, I continue to harbor the desire, 13 years after graduation, to motivate others, but realize I wasn’t cut out for the drudgery and routine of ordinary classroom teaching. I am more at home with dynamism and innovation and I am a powerful presenter. I have also been told I write exceptionally well. My passionate aspiration remains to design, initiate, and facilitate positive outcomes in learning. More than anything else though, I want to do it now in honor of Patrick; a thoughtful, kind, considerate and most generous family man, who was head and shoulders above all men; but who, completely unapologetic and in utter defiance of the age old African macho male generic, forever positioned me,his wife, supremely above all else in his life.
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