Western Resistance

The student raised his deep crimson face without uttering a word or a cry and then went back to his seat. The entire class was mum.

An indiscretion could earn a disproportionate response from any teacher. Let me rephrase: Any perceived indiscretion could earn a disproportionate response from a teacher.

Many teachers checked our homework during class time. Our homework was basically copying material from the course book to our notebook. During the checking, we lined in front of the teacher and presented our notebook. The teacher would then put a few ticks and sign at the last page. Rarely did he ever read what we had written down. What mattered was the right volume of words and figures.

Once during this checking process, a student didn't gently put down his notebook in front of the teacher. As a result, the teacher clutched the notebook and hurled it across the room.

"What do you think I am? Some kind of a dog! Go to hell," the sage said. The kid had no choice but to meekly walk away.

Everyone knew about the insane cruelty: The teachers, the students and the parents. Once in a blue moon, the principal would get a phone complaint. The offending teacher would be told about it and then nothing would change.

One time, the headmaster had received numerous complaints about a specific teacher. The hideous man in question finally revealed this news to us in class and then asked, "Do you really think I swear in front of you?" Of course, our lips remained sealed since his gutter rhetoric was the least of our concerns.

Such was life at my Pakistani school in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. While at home in the desert Mordor, I once watched a documentary on television that confused me. You see, it showcased the life of a teacher who had passed away. He was deeply missed by all especially his students. I simply could not understand how that could be.

Teachers were vicious creatures. For us students then, the "favorite" teacher was the one who was the least violent. Yet, there on the TV screen were people who actually praised the departed soul.

I was dumbfounded.

The documentary also presented a few photos of that peculiar personality. I soon forgot his name but the face of that man was forever etched in my mind.

Some years later while attending a private school in America, I would see him again.

I lived in a dormitory in the US. There, in early 1999, I was chatting with a friend when the book he was holding caught my attention. I asked him to hand me the paperback. My eyes were fixed on the cover.

It was him.

"Who is this?" I asked.

"Richard Feynman," my friend replied.

I borrowed the book along with another one and dug in. I was hooked.

In one part of the first book Feynman described his teaching experience in Brazil. There, he could ask the students a question from the textbook and they would have the answer in full. Though, they didn't know what the answer meant.

"That's exactly like my school in Saudi Arabia!" I mentally screamed. The students there can vomit out encyclopedic amounts of information on biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics without knowing what any of it means or how it works.

Our principal in the Pakistani school was a math teacher. He would punish those who scored less than 50% on a quiz or a test; a heavy stick was brought down on open palms. There was zero explanation about the math problems on the test afterwards. Understanding the subject was immaterial--what mattered was that we could somehow fit the solution in our heads. And if we couldn't, then it would be, literally, beaten into us.

Imagine what that does to the younger generation. Learning is never associated with understanding the world. Instead, education becomes synonymous with pain and humiliation.

I was one of the lucky few. I came to America where I could see how infinitely better education could be.

Those Brazilians were lucky as well: Feynman observed and constructively criticized their broken system. Sadly, someone like Feynman wouldn't be welcome in Saudi Arabia. Why? Jews are not allowed in the Kingdom. One can't even bring books authored by Jews in Saud's Arabia--the custom officials confiscate them.

Yet, here was a single Yahoodi who towered above the Muslim thugs who masqueraded as teachers in my Pakistani school. Feynman, from the grave, taught me more about life than all of those barbarians combined.

Feynman had the freedom to ask, decipher, probe and question the world around him. In addition, the curious character passed on his brilliant insights to his pupils. After reading those two books, I could not only see but comprehend the intellectual and moral superiority of Western Civilization.
* * * *

In the documentary that I watched in Arabia, there was a scene in which a student of Feynman relayed a small talk.

Feynman had cancer. A few days before his surgery, this student was feeling distressed. Feynman asked, "What's the matter?"

"You're having this surgery...you could die."

Feynman replied, "Yeah, that bugs me too."

After a few moments, Feynman said, "I have taught a lot of people. There's a small part of me in them."

"So...I won't really go away."