Tolerance should be a priority in schools

Tolerance should be a priority in schools

Simon Marcus Gower, Executive Principal,
High/Scope Indonesia School, Jakarta

It is rare indeed that education and the world of school
systems makes international headlines but recently, there can be
little doubt that, the French system of education has gained
renown the world over.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to state that a certain
amount of infamy has been achieved. The controversy surrounding
France's ban on the wearing of religious apparel in schools has
been much discussed and reported. But in a very real sense this
issue strikes at the heart of education and systems of education
the world over.

All over the world debates rage about the successes and
failures of education. Consistently critics complain that schools
are failing and that standards are falling. The drive for higher
standards is consistently associated with the aim of achieving
high test scores and a misplaced association of success with
higher grades and students passing standardized tests.

The shallowness of such assessments of the success, value and
worth of schools and schooling systems is practically pitiful --
not least because it misses one of the most critical concerns and
factors in any system of education or formalized schooling --
namely what is the social worth and benefit of attending school?

France has chosen to follow a policy that, for many people,
would be seen as being counterproductive in developing and
enhancing social worth and benefit. If only viewed from the
perspective of personal freedom and choice France's ban would be
considered as being of a questionable nature but in a wider
context such a ban has to be viewed as an unfortunate, if not a
negative, act towards civil liberties and diversity in society.

The social worth and benefit of attending school is surely a
result of being able to mix and socialize with peers, juniors and
seniors and adults in the form of teachers. If, as unfortunately
often seems to be the case for many people, the value of
attending school is solely predicated on the notion of academic
development, the passing of exams and graduation, then it might
be said that schools have no social purpose and so children might
just as well stay home and study alone.

Of course there are factors that preclude the notion of
children simply staying home and gaining an exclusively home-
based education but the choice of "sending" a child to school
should be carefully considered.

There are relatively few people in the world that could manage
or even afford to maintain their child's education exclusively in
the home. The vast majority of people follow the norm of sending
children to a formal school setting but surely a significant, if
not vital, element in that decision is that children will gain
exposure to a wider society.

But what does that mean -- exposure to a wider society? It
evidently means people beyond the immediate family circle; people
that are essentially, on first meeting anyway, strangers but
people that may become friends.

Alternatively, the people met in school may not necessarily
become friends; they may just be acquaintances but this is
acceptable. This would be a model for the life ahead in which
sometimes we make friends; sometimes we remain more distant from
people but can still say that we have met them and know of them.

Whether people become friends or merely acquaintances in
school is, naturally, dependent upon many, many factors but these
are human, natural factors of interaction, involvement and
discernment. The way in which we interact in schools should not,
though, be based upon prejudice. Prejudice is to conclude in
ignorance and ignorance is not something that schools should be
advancing. But ignorance can fester and breed if we are not
careful and if we misstep in our actions or policy-makings we may
unwittingly spread ignorance.

Ignorance, it is probably reasonable to state breeds on a
concoction of insufficient knowledge and understanding mixed with
elements of fear and doubt. This veritably wicked combination can
create an environment ripe for intolerance which in turn will
only breed more ignorance.

Our ignorance of difference and intolerance toward difference
has been, throughout human history, one of our most damaging and
devastating problems. Today too, the dangers that the world faces
from conflict and strife are significantly borne out of ignorance
of the other; ignorance and intolerance of difference.

Difference, though, should not be viewed as something that
might or even should be feared. Difference is a wonderful, even
beautiful, aspect of humanity. Diversity should be a great joy
and a great opportunity for learning, the growth of understanding
and the quashing of ignorance.

Schools must surely be at the center of this effort. Diversity
is there to behold in every classroom. Every child has
differences whether subtle or profound that can be learnt from
and should be understood as much as possible.

Choosing to ban the wearing of religious apparel seems to
speak to eliminating difference. It seems to suggest that school
students should look the same even though they are observably and
self-evidently not. It simply makes no sense to hide away
difference and so suppose that by doing so you are increasing the
chances of harmony.

A Muslim student that is not allowed to wear her head scarf in
school is still a Muslim child. It has been argued that a child
wearing a head scarf to school is representative of religious
zeal that would be construed unacceptable; this seems quite a
stretch.

Is it acceptable to think that demanding conformity and
denying that child opportunity to make a choice is going to
prevent that child from being a religious zealot? Is it not also
likely that child is the victim of zealot-like behavior that
restricts, confines, denies and unflinchingly imposes its will
regardless of and uncaring of individual choice?

Schools must promote individual choice within the context of a
caring and participative society. Understanding and tolerance
have to be foundation stones of any society and indeed school. A
school that would exclude or hide away diversity is surely a
school that is existent in a fallacy; pretense -- that is not
recognizant of the realities of our beautifully diverse world.

In Indonesia, it has been possible recently to meet teachers
who have asked whether it is acceptable for them to wear their
jilbab. Perhaps they have been concerned by the news from France.
But no overtones of zealous religiosity have been observed and so
only intolerance would lead to any denial of their right to wear
what they choose to.

The opinions expressed above are personal.