Children curbing crime?

The police in the North have apparently launched a "crime awareness" project for schools. It's interesting to see that the police have to be actually involved in the process of telling children that there is crime. I suppose it's good in the sense that it's also a step towards coherence and developing a framework for... well... sniches in schools:

Police media officer northern Constable Luke Rawalai said the ongoing program would foster a good relationship between the officers and students in their bid to control crime."Since last term we have been visiting schools and we are soon going to begin again this term as we strengthen our ties with the blue light ambassadors in each school."Children are a very useful source of information and the club we have set up in various schools in the north through our blue light program last year has been very useful."

Personally, the idea of getting children to tell on other children presents two things to consider: we are, in a way, destroying solidarity but, secondly, we are attemtping to create a sense of community monitoring.

Firstly, the solidarity of students, running to the police everytime they think they see something. I for one worry about the ideas developing that children aren't allowed to learn from little mistakes as well as I worry about the development of paranoia.

Consider the "don't touch the toaster" senario. A child isn't going to learn no to touch it unless they burn themselves. They are often at an age of being unable to understand things conceptually. We have also always had that one person in our class who'd tell the teacher every single time they think they see something. Consider that that behaviour is praised. It will spread and turn the next generation into a bunch of whiny babies... but I'm just being negative there.

There is the possibility that this might actually do some good. Schools often spend a lot of time telling children to do their mathematics and english  (and occasionally shove religion down their throats) that we might need someone else to tell our children what to do when bad things go down.

Time will tell of the effectiveness of the project, but one of my highschool experiences comes to mind; the police telling us about drugs. A police officer came to do a presentation about uprooting marijuana. I was concerned when they "burned" the plants to get rid of them and very little got sent back to Suva. Sure. "Burned". Slowly.

Lastly, I find it entertaining that FT has decided to let the "youths" disease develop into "managements".

Lefts, Rights and In The Beginning

Religion has come forward to tell people to teach their children about women's rights. Well, Interfaith Search Fiji has:

Interfaith Search Fiji representative Dr Rajesh Maharaj said the discussions at its monthly meetings had centred around the mention of women in scriptures and why they should be respected so much. "All religions say we must respect women and treat them equally but the message is not going through in many circles," Mr Maharaj said. "A lot of education is needed in our communities; we need to instill these good values in our young children from a very young age."

 Personally, it makes me wonder what part of the current system ingrains children to see the differences of gender. It's parents, communities, media and everything else that says "you are different so you must be treated differently".

Although above it all, we are different. We have different gendered needs, maybe that's what should be taught. That while there are differences, people should be judged on personality, merit and experiences not gender. To some, this is common sense, but to others "our culture tells us otherwise".

I guess in that sense I'm glad Interfaith Search has said something. Addressing the misconceptions is a step in the right direction, isn't it? It's not as if culture doesn't change.

We could blame science for pointing out the differences between gender, or the whole human rights movement, but to be fair, there's a lot of ways that women and girls suffer because of culture.

FGM is a practice not called for in the Koran but has developed through culture. It's terrible, inhumane and just all round a bad thing to do. 92 million girls have had that affect their lives. Culture did it.

And then there's accessing education. When in a patriarchal society, girls aren't expected to get jobs or do much else out of the home. So she says home. She learns what it means to be a mother, a wife; no necessarily a person. In all honesty, it's fine if a woman prefers to be a housewife, but she should be given the same opportunities as her male counterparts. She should be allowed to determine her interests, which involves access to primary education. That in itself is an MDG. 

That's why it's good that everything is being raised within the community. Mainstream education isn't going to be sufficient to address the issue, especially if the ideas about gender differences are stuck in their heads. Typically, in class one, children don't see ethnicity or gender. The ideas develop as their parents lay down the rules, as they are influenced by more forms of media. They become the walking, talking stereotypes unless allowed to do otherwise.

They are only children, after all.

Out of Date

There have been recent concerns that the education system is not up to international standard, and has recently found itself in the Fiji Times:

"The question that I want to pose to you is whether our curriculum has kept pace with the international trends and more so the last revolution which took place internationally, that is, the ICT revolution.

"It is my assessment on the basis of materials that I have seen both in primary and secondary curriculum, that our curriculum has not kept pace.

"Unless the curriculum in the education system keeps pace with changes both internationally and domestically, I don't think we will be able to produce students and teachers who will be able to fit into society to higher stages of development."

In response, Minister for Education Filipe Bole yesterday said it was difficult at this point in time to say whether Fiji's school curriculum were modern or not.

 In all honesty, has the Fiji curriculum been lagging behind for a little more than these past few years?

As someone who went from what I termed "normal high school" to the International School in Suva, I was shocked at the level of analysis I had to develop in a matter of weeks.

In a typical school, you're meant to regurgitate all the notes that you get in class. It's about cramming, not understanding.

In the IB, doing science meant that you had to memorise formulas and when I went to do Physics at ISS, you had to understand why things happened. There were actual questions, not just use the formulas you crammed.

I went to ISS to do this programme. It has it's own logo.

Learning to analyse and see what's credible and even the Fiji times is using Wikipedia, which is highly worrying.

In this Digital Age, while we have courses like UU100 to force people to learn whats  credible on the internet, that should find its way down to primary school. It's a time for the molding of minds and no internet cafe proprietor is going to turn any source of money away.

that is to say that children are going to get online and they need to know what to believe and what not to. That goes for the radio and tv, not to mention newspaper; we believe what's there because it has to be credible, right? It's on the airwaves, on our screens or published in print.

No one is going to learn until they question what they're given and understand what they should know.