Eastern Thoughts and Western Worries

Recently I visited Vietnam and Cambodia. International travel for me has always been an opportunity to see my everyday world through different eyes. Sometimes the only way to get perspective is to get perspective from a distance, to view the world through a distant mirror. So, as I have visited schools in other countries, I have found that I learn a little about them and a lot about us. I also reflect on our country and our life.

The most powerful observation I made on this trip was that I have seen the future and it’s not pretty. That is not to say that both countries are not beautiful and the people charming. But I was able to see down the path we are on and it is scary. In our own country we are having discussions about the need to reduce regulation and how much citizens should be on their own. After visiting Vietnam and Cambodia, where there is little regulation and lots of individual initiative required for everyday living, I am now firmly on the side of regulation and having a government that looks after the big picture for everyone. When the air can be tasted and seen and where no one will drink the water, I have to suggest that some regulation is a good thing. I would suggest for those who want to do away with the EPA, FAA, FDA, and other regulatory agencies, that they take a short trip to a place that doesn’t have this kind of oversight. The great irony here is that the governments of both countries are centralized and very top down in their approach. Vietnam is one of the last communist regimes in the world. Yet, it is a country that is more out of control than you would think which leaves folks to fend for themselves. The protections that we take for granted are nowhere to be seen.

When it comes to education, of course I saw the hard working students being put through their paces by teachers with very high expectations. What I didn’t see was much innovation or creative thought. In fact, in Vietnam, which is still run by the Communist party, individualism is frowned upon.  I am sure their kids would do well on the tests we give our kids, but I am not convinced that they could invent something or think outside the box. Again, if we are not careful this is our future as well as we focus on the details at the expense of the big picture.

Further, the best schools there are private and reserved for the children of government and business leaders. The children of the public are left to the public schools which are underfunded, overcrowded and bereft of any advantage. I wondered if the private schools were highly competitive in admissions and I was assured they were. I then asked if a high government official wanted their children in the school and they didn’t meet the admission standards would they still be admitted. The answer was, “But of course.” So again I was watching a society which is, in theory, based on communist principles of “from each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs,” operating like the capitalist system of those that have, get. The last few months we have seen the rise of the “Occupy” movement and whether you agree with it or not, it is founded on the fear that we are becoming a nation built on unfairness. Having just seen such a place, I worry about our future.

Two of the most powerful experiences I had came during the Cambodian portion of the trip. The Cambodian people are sweet, lovely people with a strong sense of their Buddhist tradition. They are generous, forgiving people who, at least on the surface, never seem to get angry or upset. I was fortunate to visit the incredible temples of Angkor Wat. They have stood for over a thousand years, a testament to the spiritual beliefs of the people that built them and have withstood the perils of nature and politics and are used to this day as places of worship and contemplation. They are works of art and they remind us of man’s need to create things that are bigger and longer lasting than what one does in a single lifetime. This need to create and to create meaning are at the heart of why we become educated. Education isn’t simply about getting a better job or gaining a diploma—it is about connecting ourselves to something greater than ourselves that will outlast us. That is why our current mania of substituting tests for meaning is so destructive.

The other major lesson I learned in Cambodia was about destruction taken to its highest level. We visited one of the “Killing Fields” that dot Cambodia. These were places the Khmer Rouge took people during their reign in the 1970s to be killed. It is estimated that nearly two million people were murdered by that regime and the remains are scattered in nearly three hundred burial grounds around the country. The memorials there have the bones of those who were sacrificed to the nightmarish dreams of the Pol Pot and his colleagues who led the Khmer Rouge and who thought that by relocating the entire population of Cambodia to the country to grow rice they could rival the glory of the Khmer rulers of old who had built Angkor Wat. All they succeeded in doing was placing themselves on the list of mass murderers of history. As you walk along the paths of the killing fields you will see scraps of clothing or pieces of bone or teeth that have surfaced from the last rains. While Pol Pot tried to bury his crimes, they still rise to this day as mute and stark reminders that mankind is capable of great things and horrendous acts. And they teach us that we cannot hide from our most destructive impulses—we must overcome them. The role of educators is to spark our students toward doing great things and eschewing the bad ones. That will ensure that the future is not something we should fear.