It is not elitism that worries me about Brown graduates. That elitism is defined by a quest for higher learning and knowledge. It is not the large number of students who pursue careers for no reason other than a desire for money. It is not the graduates who spend their first year out of Brown engaging in activities with no motivation other than to build their resumes. At least they are honest about the relative value of their careers.
It is an idealism bordering on religious fervor that truly scares me. Every year, we send new graduates out into the world, and with their highbrow education, many of them choose to go to far-flung regions kept obscure by poverty, lack of economic opportunity and political disenfranchisement.
Some of these students participate in programs like the Peace Corps, which stress immersion in the local language and culture in the hopes that America's youth will better understand the diverse world we live in. Others embark on service projects, building houses or schools or attempting to augment local medical services.
Most of us agree that these are noble endeavors. But there is one activity that fundamentally unsettles me — the project of teaching English to the poor and disenfranchised youth in non-English speaking countries around the globe.
Organizations such as the China Education Initiative — a group that has recently contributed to bathroom stall decorations — say that they produce teachers who "develop a deep understanding of the causes of educational inequity" and that their program creates "long-term systemic change." The organization's website states, "Chinese language skills are a strong asset" but not essential. Never mind the fact that the State Department ranks Chinese in the top tier of most difficult languages to learn, which would suggest that a six-week crash course would not be enough to communicate with those who have had minimal English language exposure.
How does a two-year commitment begin to address systemic challenges? How does minimal knowledge of local languages or dialects create an atmosphere where teachers can get a real sense of the causes of educational inequality? And why is English the most important skill to teach children who have limited opportunities to be educated in their native language?
The idea that knowledge of English is more important than literacy in one's native language or basic math skills is preposterous. But it has roots in Western notions of civilizing and proselytizing. Europeans brought their languages to Africa and the Americas — even when indigenous peoples managed to obtain political control, prevalence of European language persisted, such as that of English and Afrikaans in South Africa after apartheid.
By teaching English to poor people with little access to education, we are making our own lives easier, not improving theirs. We are ensuring that we can communicate in our own language wherever we go, rather than taking the time to learn a bit of the local tongue. We are ensuring that our own national ideas and philosophies — such as democracy and Christianity — can be transmitted with greater ease to other countries. We are, with a nicer varnish, attempting to civilize.
Not many people take the time to notice that efforts to increase native language literacy rates would be much more useful. After all, it should be more important for people to read labels on food containers, street signs, job advertisements, government documents and local newspapers than the New York Times.
It would also be more useful to help with math education so that children who will most likely grow up to be farmers or small merchants will be able to grasp the basics of accounting and banking. It does not take an extensive knowledge of a foreign language to teach basic mathematical concepts. If foreign teachers could do this, it would free up the native language teachers to teach reading and writing, which they are probably most qualified to do.
It would be lovely to think that all students could benefit from a young, foreign teacher coming into their village or town for a couple years to teach English. It would be lovely to think that this will help them go to college or get a better job. But in places where most kids are barely literate by the time they graduate high school — if they even make it that far — it is far more likely that the best we can do right now is help with basic education, even if that does not include English.
In faraway rural areas, teaching English is about as useful as teaching calculus in sixth grade. All we are accomplishing is a process of indoctrination. We are saying that America is on top, so everyone else should be able to understand us.
Susannah Kroeber '11 is a Slavic studies and history concentrator who has spent 13 years living in the developing world.
