FREEDOM
Having it, holding on to it
“I spent the weekend working on a Letter to the Editor of the Omani Herald …. about freedom in Oman,” Joyce tells me excitedly, as we ride our school bus to the tech college where we have been working for a month. “It's my first act of activism.”
“Because of what your students were saying last week?”
“Yes! I was so upset, I had to do something! I’m hoping a letter to the editor will at least prod the English-speaking people in Oman to think about how students don't appreciate personal freedom. Maybe a reporter will do a story, eventually, to make people aware of this so viewpoints can change. I spent Thursday and Friday thinking and writing.”
The two of us are English teachers at one of the post-secondary technical colleges in rural Oman. The year is 2003. Young adult students are to study English intensively for a year of three semesters with us, before taking their tech courses in English, not Arabic, their first language.
Previously, teachers from India and other Arab countries looked after the English courses. But usually they knew Arabic; we anglaphone Canadians are an experiment. We are to immerse students in English to make them fluent within a year. (No-one informed us we were to work that miracle, until after we had arrived).
Our contract company vaguely referred to how our being in a foreign culture meant we were to make adjustments in our own cultural assumptions, while imparting something of them, in order to help the students become accustomed to ‘Western’ ways, particularly critical thinking skills.
Joyce believed freedoms were the starting point to developing critical thinking. Students free to think for themselves, to analyze ideas and choose those they supported, and free to reject others they disagreed with, were engaged in critical thinking. An education based on critical thinking would improve and strengthen individuals who, in turn, would strengthen their society.
You'd think!
This approach was not without precedent on my colleague's part. In the past, she had taught in Bulgaria where young adults clamoured for information about Canadian rights and freedoms. Joyce saw those students as hungry for changes because they were in the process of rejecting much of how life had been under Soviet Union dictates; Bulgarians wanted freedom!
Now in Oman, Joyce was curious about her students’ opinions of freedom. She planned to use their ideas as a first step towards critically thinking about their own lives.
She never expected her students to comment as they did:
“No, teacher, I no freedom.”
“Why, Mohammed?”
“I respect father.”
“But, can you not respect father, and mother, and still have the freedom to think your own thoughts?”
“Father thoughts same-same Mohammed thoughts, teacher.”
“Thank you, Rashid for speaking on Mohammed's behalf. What about deciding your future job, Rashid? What do you want to do after you finish College?”
“My grandfather tell me work for business my father.”
“OK, Rashid! Salma, then; what about you young women? Do girls have freedom to choose their husband, for example?”
“Teacher, freedom Canada word, no Omani word.” Salma politely chided; “Canada people no respect rules.”
And on it went. Rather than a discussion about freedom, the class became one clash after another against it.
Joyce sought out other teachers' advice.
At lunch, where we all sat round two long tables, she turned to a Jordanian teacher. We deferred to the Arabs on staff to explain matters of culture. “Saleh, when I asked my students to say something about freedom, I was shocked by their responses!”
He smiles kindly, “I suppose they made some comments that were not in agreement with your ideas?”
“Yes, twenty of them, from the whole class.”
“These students are not used to the word. I have no problem with it, as an Arab and a Moslem. However, you see, we are in the desert and many of these Omanis live among their tribes, as their ancestors did. Family traditions and religious instructions are very important. Omanis obey the head of their family, and the leader of their tribe. Also, they obey the leaders of their religion. It is like that.”
“Do you mean their ancestors didn't have freedoms, so these kids don't, either? Joyce presses on. Saleh just chuckles, nods to the rest of us, and leaves the table. I notice his plate still has some lunch on it.
Another Canadian teacher, Greg pipes up, “Forget it Joyce! Nobody is free here, us included! Remember, the Head told us we can't talk about religion or politics in class? It means we aren't free to discuss topics we consider essential for critical awareness.”
Anne-Marie joins in the chat by saying she didn't need to teach anyone in Oman about freedoms. We had freedoms in Canada; “I don't care if I'm “free” in Oman! I do my classes, collect my salary and go to Muscat to have a social life.”
I feel for Joyce! She is older than the rest of us. Her father died in WWII, fighting for you-know-what. Younger teachers shrug this off when she tells them. They agree they don't need to think about freedom in Oman, only about doing their job.
Nathan, sitting beside Joyce, pats her hand, “Never mind, dear! Perhaps the idea of inculcating concepts of freedom among our obedient scholars is a bigger task than we can realistically undertake, new as we are to this country. I'll settle for getting their English to a point where they can use it to some degree by the time they leave us!”
“Yeah, he's right,” nods Anne-Marie. “Just do your job, Joyce. It's not like a concept of freedom doesn't exist. It does exist, apparently …. but as a big fat negative! Their belief system is about rules and obediance, and that's it.”
“Besides, Joyce,” Keith adds ernestly, “ you couldn't just introduce “Freedom” as such; you'd have to convince these students that their basic belief in obedience should be questioned! I know when they start asking me to question being a Christian so I can love their deity, l just tune out! I don't want to be converted to their religion and they probably don't want to be converted to freedom. Let them come to critical thinking through their reading!”
“Actually, I don't think many Canadians feel very strongly about the abstract of 'freedom’”, says Dave. “ I know it isn't even part of how I look at critical thinking. I'm doing games to get students to examine sentences critically so they correct the grammar. Nothing to do with freedom!”
Later, Joyce phones me at home to ask what I think of our lunchtime chat. I say I agree that the students' negative attitude would take time and a major belief shift to change.
“And what about the other teachers' remarks? They seemed awfully blazé about freedom.”
“Yes,” I agree, “It seemed they were shrugging off freedoms we have in Canada as unimportant here. They are a different generation with the luxury of entitlement over gains we fought for.”
I tell Joyce the situation reminds me of the state of women's rights and freedoms in the 1970s. For example, how many of us accepted without question that we should marry and change our surname to that of our husband.
No examination whatsoever about why we did it, or what it meant to our own identity. No critical thinking took place until we talked in consciousness-raising groups. The freeflow of ideas prompted us to analyze our place in society.
I tell Joyce about fighting in my own small way to ensure that equality rights got into the Charter. Feminism was on fire! “It appears the idea of fighting for ideals has become diluted,” I sum up our analysis of how times have changed.
“I hope,” she says, “the allegiance to freedoms of these young people is never challanged, or they run the risk of losing them.”
I heard the heave of a long sigh.
“Don't dispair, Joyce, Canada is in good hands. After all, we managed to stay clear of the war in Iraq.”
“I think I will focus my efforts for now, on the students with my letter,” Joyce says. “Canada is still ‘strong and free.'“
We left Oman without that Letter to the Editor ever being published.
I wonder now how my colleagues view the lock downs, the restrictions imposed upon Canadians' daily life for Sars Covid-2, so different from that year we were in Oman, following the 2002/3 Sars.
The Sultan of Oman as a young man had studied in England which, I daresay gave him a grasp of the international status of English as the lingua franca. He wanted young Omanis to become involved in the business and tech sectors to help their country participate at a global level.