T is for Teachers and Teaching

This graduation season I believe T stands for both Teachers and Teaching. Teachers…those amazing people that impart knowledge and feed our sense of wonder…well, ok not all teachers, but hopefully we all have had at least a few amazing teachers in our lives.  We all remember those teachers who pushed us just beyond our comfort zone to think a little deeper. The first teacher I remember who pushed me a bit further was Ms Hanna in 5th grade. I submitted an essay on the Ku Klux Klan. All my facts were correct; I had references as required but she still sent it back to me for a rewrite. Go deeper she said, what did these people think, what were their beliefs, how did they get to the point of such hate?  Move beyond the facts and into the why. I did and I ended up with only a B+ for my effort but never forgot the push to go deeper.

For most of us in the US our educational process includes being taught to think, to question, to inquire. I attended 14 years of Catholic education and inquiry was at the core of most of it. It wasn’t always easy being pushed to ask why?  how,? or what caused what? We couldn’t simply answer for X; we had to show how we  got to the X.


 As my education continued my teachers increasingly engaged in a Socratic Method of teaching…debate, disprove to prove.  As frustrating as it was at times, without those teachers pushing me to think for myself I wouldn’t have achieved the life I have now.

But for many students growing up in developing countries the educational process is extremely different.  The basis of education for these students is learning by rote; teaching focuses on the memorization of subjects. I am not talking about phonics, the alphabet or multiplication tables where memorization is crucial, but rather all subjects. Students are taught to memorize everything with little or no inquiry into why of the subject. Dates and names are the focus. There is no exploration of process, no discussion on the evolution of an event in history or even how a scientific fact came to be. These are not classrooms filled with discussion let alone debate. The goal of teaching is strictly to impart basic knowledge.  And nowhere is this truer than in Haiti. 

The adult literacy rate for Haiti is about 52 percent.  Less than 30 percent of Haitian students complete 6th grade and only about 20 percent of eligible students attend high school. 


This data became important to me when I recently visited a nursing school in Leogane, Haiti. I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but I think it’s worth some additional space. The school is the only baccalaureate nursing program in the country. The other nursing schools are either two or three year certificate programs.  The most significant difference for FSIL*  is that it teaches its students to think; the school promotes the development of critical thinking and problem solving skills. It is a major shift in the education of nurses; it is empowering these students to be leaders as well as amazing healthcare providers. 


The transition to this type of learning isn’t easy for some students even for those who have defied the odds and graduated from high school and have gone on to pass the schools’ entrance exam.  Unfortunately more than a few students drop out during their first year.


I don’t want to paint the Haitian education system as Dickensian, it isn’t. The teachers know they have only a short period of time and they use that time, many would say wisely, to impart as much of the basics as possible before the students leave school at very young ages. The high dropout rates are largely due to the fact that families simply cannot afford the school tuition and fees. All schools, public and private, charge tuition and in addition to other fees for such things as books.



For the most part, nurses in the developing world are taught by rote and taught to the task. In other words they are taught to insert an IV, take blood pressures, and distribute meds and the like. It is an education focused on the technical.  In some countries chemistry is not required for a nursing certificate and the biology taught is often equal to that taught in most US high schools. Few nurses in emerging nations are taught anything about holistic health…looking at the whole body for illness as well as strengths.  What is missing is teaching diagnostics, the ability to assess a patient, to look beyond the task and into the needs of the patient and to engage that patient on his or her own behalf.

The FSIL baccalaureate program in Haiti is changing all that; About 100 nursing students in Haiti are now learning to problem solve, to do research so they can learn more and continue their own learning outside the classroom. Many of the faculty at the school are alumni as too few nurses in Haiti can teach to this level. Some of the classes are also taught by Americans who take time out from their own work to supplement the school’s teaching capacity. We are trying to raise funds to launch a Master’s program in collaboration with Rutgers to advance faculty education. To continue the school’s high standards for education the school needs a cadre of highly trained Haitian educators: teachers who know how to teach others to think for themselves.

Unfortunately, most folks are too wedded to the idea that the basics are good enough…it’s a rather condescending view of both the capacity and needs of people living in the Global South.
*Faculty of Nursing Science of the Episcopal University of Haiti