Feature

It was the Summer of 1976, while attending a course on Business Law in a prestigious American University our instructor Dr. Jim Mack asked if the class knew anything about the first signatories of the American Constitution. In a class of thirteen, all of whom were Americans, except me, the answer had to come from me. The instructor was embarrassed and so was I. Dr. Mack said, in very annoyed voice that Americans unfortunately think they rule the world and could not care less what happened to the rest. I thought Dr. Mack was unnecessarily being too harsh generalizing his views about the Americans. Thirty years later it seems after reading Patricia Cohen's article that things have not improved much and perhaps Dr. Mack's views were correct in my class of Summer 1976.

Cohen was discussing Jacoby's book and her experience with average American's depth of general knowledge. The adorable platinum blonde Kellie Pickler from “American Idol,” thought Europe was a country and never heard the name of the country Hungary. Some Americans think it was Vietnam that dropped a bomb on Pearl Harbor and triggered the Vietnam War! More than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college education could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel on a map.

Recently a popular TV channel in Britain conducted a survey on 3000 TV viewers whose age was below 20 to know their depth of knowledge on simple facts of history. A quarter of the respondents were convinced Churchill, Charles Dickens and Gandhi were fictitious characters and were created for movies. They were sure Robin Hood, Mona Lisa, Sherlock Holmes and the Three Musketeers were real life people.

A survey carried out by the prestigious National Geography on young people in Europe in 2007 to assess the knowledge of their geography came out with some startling revelation. A report on the survey was published in the Guardian (UK) of November 14, 2007 where it was revealed that one of three European think Mount Everest is in Europe and only half were aware that the Nile is the world's longest river. Europe is a continent of museums and only 9% of the Europeans have visited their local museum. The most visited place is the local super store! Visiting museums is something that should be left to the tourists they think.

Big B Amitava Baachan once hosted a talk show for the fifth graders. He asked if they ever heard the name of Madhuri Dixit? Of course. They even had the name of her husband. Madhuri was just married. Do you know who is the President of India? Is that something we have to know? Big B went for that commercial break and asked the audience not to go away. The talk show hosts usually tell you that.

How is our own Bangladeshi generation doing? I do not have any survey result. I am not sure if anyone conducted one. From my own experience I can promise it is not better. When Tengratila was burning I asked my graduating students to do a paper on the Bangladesh's Natural resources. A smartly dressed young man wanted to know where was Tengratila. I always carry a map in my pen drive and flash it on the screen when I have to. Doing that I asked the young man to locate Sylhet. He seemed lost. Once I asked a young learner to locate Washington DC. She was fishing around the continent of Africa. My flight to Hanoi was routed Dhaka-Bangkok-Noi Bai. Hanoi's International airport is officially known as Noi Bai airport. I requested the lady at the check-in counter at ZIA to book me all the way to Hanoi. She handed me two boarding cards, one Dhaka-Bangkok and the other one Bangkok-Noi Bai. While handing over the card she said 'this is Dhaka-Bangkok, and here is your Bangkok-Nairobi boarding card and your luggage has been booked all the way to Nairobi.' I sort of protested. But I am destined for Noi Bai, not Nairobi I told the immaculately dressed lady. She smiled at me and said 'it's all the same.'

Whenever I experience such incidents in my class I never forget to tell my students their sky high ignorance of history and geography is not their fault it is the fault of the system. The school kids have to carry so many books these days that they need a trolley bag and the omnipresent mothers or abduls as their luggage carriers. But how much of history or geography is held in those bags is a big question. Most schools do not have maps and history is something that is thought to be useless subject. Youngsters these days find it more rewarding fiddling with the mobile phones and playing computer games than getting a lesson of history or geography either from their teachers or parents. Some teachers and parents also could not care less.

Ms. Susan Jacoby lays the blame for the pitiable condition of average young American's knowledge of history or geography on the failing educational system. 'Although people are going to school more and more years, theirs is no evidence that they know more.' She says. Her comment is no less true for Bangladesh as well. It is only through complete reform of the educational system, especially at the school level that we may expect to stop the rot.

Last time I met Dr. Mack was in 1978 and since then I lost touch with him. Few months back I was visiting my school in US and went to meet some of my teachers who were still around. I could meet only one. Others retired or died. Last time the office heard from Dr. Mack was from Israel. I hope he reads Patricia Cohen's piece in New York Times and realizes that American youngsters are still doing their mark time in the same place as they did in 1976.

The writer is a former Vice-chancellor, University of Chittagong, currently teaching at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. abman1971@gmail.com