A CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CULTURE OF YOUR COUNTRY AND EDUCATION?

After visiting one public school and one private school in Bangalore, India, it is clear that discipline, obedience, and rote memorization are valued. You can see this in my video of the students participating in their morning exercises. It is also evident in the precise and exact writing in all of the student journals we looked at (see a picture of Hindi writing by a student). Even the game they played in PE class called Kabbadi was very controlled (I played one round!). However, in Indian schools, where the teacher is feared and respected, the students also encourage each other to stay on task and often take a leadership role when the teacher needs to leave the classroom. In contrast, many American schools value student voice and opinion, critical thinking, and individualism. For India, their method of education produces very productive engineers, mathematicians, and doctors, but not necessary innovators. In the U.S., we have many inventors and creators of new companies, but we are often behind our Asian peers in science and math.

Question: How does the culture of your country or community affect your school? Can you give specific examples in your answer?

A student's notebook written in Hindi

An English teacher

Students in a 9th grade Social Studies' class

A 9th grade Social Studies' class with the teacher in front

They gave us coconut water to drink as we watched students play a game called Kabbadi.