"Give back to me my beautiful words"

There are many things about UCBC that are amazing, audacious, bold, and necessary. Aside from being bilingual, the university is committed to a manner of teaching that is radically different from the traditional Congolese system. The university is promoting learning that is collaborative, that promotes thinking, problem-solving, and discourse. What UCBC is doing is what my American friends would say is just plain good teaching and learning--engaging students with their learning, helping them to think, problem-solve, take ownership for their learning so they recognize their self-efficacy. This methodology, this philosophy of education is in stark contrast to the Congolese education system. It is a radically new approach for the students at UCBC and for many of their teachers, who themselves have come up through the traditional system.

My teachers here at UCBC (faculty, staff, students at UCBC) repeatedly remind me that the Congolese system of education is based on a Belgium system that was instituted during colonial times. It is a system that maintains a power structure where teacher is the ultimate authority and the learner is merely a recipient of knowledge. The teacher is the expert, the all-knowing. The teacher's responsibility is to give out information. The student's responsibility is to take down, memorize, and give back on an exam. The method is lecture and repeat back. Not even lecture, digest, think about, then respond.

In order to pass exams, students must memorize, and in some cases, repeat the actual words in their exams. Honore (apologies: there is an aigu/accent mark over the e in Honore's name. Can't figure out how to do that in this blog), the Academic Dean at UCBC tells a story that captures it all. He remembers a geography professor who, at the time of the exam, instructed the students, "Now give back to me my beautiful words."

Honore's experience is not an isolated, extreme event.

There are many ramifications--a topic for another entry. But here is just one: University graduates face significant challenges in their quest to continue their education as masters or doctoral students. It may take as much as 10 years or more for someone to attain a doctorate. This is not because their is a extensive preparation period, but because professors of that rank are reluctant to allow others to join them. They stall the process, delay reading theses, and generally thwart anyone working to attain that degree.

But back to UCBC and undergraduates. Students come to UCBC from a primary and secondary background that supports the receive/return approach to learning. They have been taught to memorize and repeat. They have not learned how to dialogue, how to have their own opinions and support them. They have not learned how to analyze, synthesize, explore. By their own acknowledgement, they do not know how to problem-solve. Many have told me that they have grown up and been taught in such a way as to believe that they canNOT do anything to make changes in their community.

UCBC is committed to teaching in a way that completely transforms students--how they think about themselves, their country, and their responsibility. The university is committed to developing and nurturing strong, ethical leaders who are transformed, so that they can, in turn, "transform their communities and the nation of the Democratic Republic of Congo." UCBC is committed to teaching in such a way to develop students' thinking skills, analytical skills, problem-solving skills. Students understand not only that this is different, but that this is necessary. Adelphine, a G1 (Year 1) student, recently said, "Congolese people do not know how to solve their national problems. We must learn how to solve our own problems. This is why I am at UCBC."

This nation has huge challenges. But this nation is exceedingly rich in resources of all types: human, cultural, mineral, water, timber, wildlife. It has deep and wide wealth and great opportunity.

Students also recognize that their country groans under the burden of corruption and that leadership in Congo, historically, is about power and personal gain. But what UCBC students proclaim consistently in every conversation (no exaggeration) is a desire to make changes. They desire to change, no transform, systems, ways of doing business, ways of living, ways of doing politics. Even more significant is their deep commitment to do so for the good of their country and their people. Their focus is on others, on the common good of Congo. In all my conversations to date, I have not heard students talk about "making money," "owning a house," "having a big car." They consistently talk about transforming their communities and their country. They recognize the need and are recognizing, through their education here, that they can do something.

Audacious? Bold? Visionary? Yes. But changes only occur when people are willing to be bold and live into a vision of something better.

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