?!#$\?/&$#”!?

Today Jenny, Sonja and me organized a one afternoon activity for 20 teenagers aged between 14 and 18 about social entrepreneurship. The goal was to teach them about what it is but more than that we wanted them to understand what kind of skills are required – we focused on critical and creative thinking and group decision making.

Briefly, we introduced the concept of entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship by inviting two local people who are entrepreneurs (one of them was Marcus, the painter) to share their experience. After that we made them indentify social problems; we clustered them in three main problems and then they had to decide, as a group, on one to work on during the afternoon. Once this was done they should divide in three groups and find a solution for the social problem that was found – in the end we had three different solutions. As last exercise they had to decide which solution was the best (considering social impact and resources).

When we designed this exercise I must say that I was quite relaxed because this is a very simple thing to do. But I have to say it was a very intense experience and not at all what I was expecting. Definitely this was the day when everything came together and now I understand what I didn´t before.

Critical thinking is definitely something that is not promoted at all here. They don´t know how to have a conversation in order reach consensus. They don´t know how to build arguments to defend an idea or to make a decision; there is definitely lack of logical thinking.

At a certain point during this afternoon we clearly told them that one important skill that an entrepreneur must have is to be able to make group decisions so we wanted them to decide as a group which of the three social problems they were going to focus on. Right after that a boy wrote the social problems in a paper with a “yes” and a “no” and made the paper rotate by everyone. In the end, the one with more “yes” was the chosen one. The amazing thing is that all of them were totally comfortable with the process so I guess that’s how they were taught to make group decisions.

Kids know what they hear and that’s it; they repeat the exact same words as they learned it just like when a kid says the alphabet. They don´t learn to think for themselves. I never thought this could be so easy to understand through a simple interaction.

Yesterday some kids showed up in the office saying that they “wanted to learn”. So we grabbed some exercises about child rights and sexual transmitted infections. At a certain point a kid was drinking water and when he finished it we saw that he threw the water sachet away. We brought them together and asked: “what do you do to your water sachets when you finish them?”. They all answered at the same time as if in a school choir: “we put them in the pocket and then in a trash bin when we get home”. So they all know the theory but minutes before one of them had thrown it on the floor; and just as this one did all the other do it.

These kids know a lot about malaria, about social problems and some of them knew more about sexual transmitted infections than all of us (the interns) – in this case they were aged between 10 and 13!! When I realized that I was extremely impressed. But now I’m not anymore. They know the theory but they never apply it. They have standard sentences that they all say in the same way. If we talk about social problems they all use the same verbal construction in their speech. It’s just absolutely insane.

Another clear example of this was what happened when we told them they had to find solutions for the social problem that they had chosen. The idea was to create a social business out of it. One of the immediate presented solutions for the lack of access to education due to lack of financial resources was “the government should create feeding programs for schools (so that kids can eat for free)”. When I told them that it had to be something that they could do; something that depended on them, then the exercise became harder; simply because I made them think for themselves. Note: they were aged between 14 and 18!

The thinking process is automatic. It looks like as if the most used teaching methodology is memorization. It’s simply unbelievable!

And examples go on and on. The NGO that I’m working at has a child right center which they are very much proud of: “kids have a safe space there to learn about their rights”. There is even a logo saying “safe space”. But then the NGO director doesn´t like to have kids around… Edem says that parents beat and shout at the kids all the time and that it is wrong but then he shouts at the kids all the time…

Actions don´t match words. Ever. The speech is beautiful. The actions that are supposed to follow it just  don´t happen.

The simple fact that this post doesn´t have a consistent structure proves that I’m still astonished and a bit lost trying to understand the pillars of this society.

So yes: !#$\?/&$#”!? I don´t know what to think…

16/08/2012