Passion for Purpose August 19, 2007
Posted by mobius in A Page a Day.trackback
I would like to share my passion for going to Tanzania this semester to teach while conducting my dissertation research outlined on the page entitled Tanzania. My means of accomplishing this research is to be an active participant in the educational experience of University of Dar es Salaam students as a visiting lecturer. The importance of education with regards to development is validated by the literature, even to the claim that the education correlates to life expectancy. Sachs (2005) observed:When children die in large numbers, parents overcompensate and have more children, with devastating results. Too poor to invest in the education of all their children, the family might educate just one child, usually the elder son. If children in malarious regions manage to survive, they enter adulthood without the proper education they need to succeed. (p. 198)
This means that families are literally making the decision of which child will live and which will die. Unfortunately, women are not empowered enough in many families to participate in these decisions because they are often not educated. Sen (2001) saw education as “the solution of the problem of population growth (like the solution of many other social and economic problems) can lie in expanding the freedom of the people whose interests and most affected by over frequent childbirth and child rearing, viz., young women.” (p. 226)
Midway through the United Nations Millennium Goals we find that 30% of the 348 million youngsters are not enrolled in primary schools, 29% of children less than five years old are underweight, and 166 out of 1,000 will not even reach the age to go to school. Conditions are not much better for their parents. Disease continues to extract its toll with 2 million deaths from AIDS in 2006 and no abatement in TB and malaria predicted, and only 45% of child deliveries were attended by skilled health personnel meaning 1 in 16 mothers would die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth (Information, 2007).
Hence, the challenges for women are magnified in the context of African development. The hope through education and therefore, life, exists as expressed by one interviewee of my previous study showing the importance of access to technology:
And I’ve known actually friend of mine, a friend of mind, who miscarried, and by the time she was taken to the hospital, it was too late. But if she had a phone, to be able to call, that life would have been saved. So when we are saying, when we are talking about female-headed households, when we are talking about looking at the needs and concerns of women, it is really a concern for some of us in our places. I mean, horror things happen everywhere. But you have to start from somewhere to try to address that. (Personal communication, June 2005)
I remember a story shared with me while growing up. It is about a man and boy walking along the seashore where the tide had just receded. The beach was covered with hundreds of starfish that would surely perish unless they were returned to the water. The man bent down and picked up one starfish. Tossing it back in the sea, the boy looked at him disgruntled and asked, “Why did you do that? What difference does it make when there are hundreds left?” The man replied, “Because it made a difference to that one.” I do not expect correct all the problems of
Africa during this journey. The links between education and development appear to be there for all people, I’m just hoping to make a difference for at least one. Greenleaf (Greenleaf, Beazley, Beggs, & Spears, 2003) expressed that a teacher might “create an island of serenity that enables some to cope, and be a constructive leaven, in an environment that is cold and tense and hostile” (p. 239) It is with this in mind that I will fulfill the other obligation and passion beyond the research: To teach as if someone’s life depends on it.
Have been getting cards and flowers sent to the house for Pam so I called Barry have him come over and get them, he tells me Pam had a tumor removed on her tongue they had to send her over to Seattle to have the procedure done they could not do it in Spokane. Just FYI
Kevin
Thanks for the heads up, Kevin. I had heard that Pam was in the hospital, but was not aware of what the problem was nor the extent. Please keep me posted and extend my thoughts and prayers back to the Smith family.
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