Organizational Hypocrisy: roots and remedy

Are we growing innovation through the current education systems? Are our children more innovative than our grandparents? Are new educational systems and curriculum helping students boost their innovation skills? Why aren’t we seeing more Einsteins? Graham Bells? Is it because of research budgets? Is innovation changing faces? or is it our own approach towards innovating?

Reading through history,  Arab countries played an extremely important role in shaping the modern technology through amazing innovations.. here are some of them:

1. Science

Did you know that the first ever degree-granting university was founded in 859 by princess Fatima al-Firhi in Fez, Morocco? Her sister Miriam founded an adjacent mosque and together the complex became the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque and University. Furthermore, Europe only got to know the mathematical system in the twelfth century, when British Arabist Robert of Chester translated the writings of Persian scholar Al-Khwarizmi (for whom algorithms is now referred), who is scientifically recognized as the developer of modern algebra.

2. Medicine

Did you know that the first ever modern hospital with nurses and a training centre was in Cairo? The Ahmed Ibn Tulun hospital, which was established in the year 872. Furthermore, the Andalusian-born doctor Abulcasis (Abu al-Kasim) was among the first who invented methods for surgically treating diseases of the urethra, the ear and the esophagus, and was the first person to describe an ectopic pregnancy. Another example was the scholar Alhazen (Abu al-Hasan) from Basra, who was the first person to describe how the eye works, and created the “Reading stones” which were the core reason for how eye glasses were further developed.

3. Arts and Music

The guitar has its origins in the Arabic oud which was brought to Spain by a music teacher to Umayyad ruler Abdel Rahman II in the ninth century. It was then referred to as “qitara” in the Arabic of Andalusia. Furthermore, the arab musician, Al-Kindi, used musical notation and named the notes of a musical scale with syllables that make up the basic scale in music today and we are all familiar with:  “doh, ray, me, far, so, la, tee”. Did you notice that those syllables are actually Arabic alphabets? Dal, Ra, Mim, Fa, Sad, Lam, Sin

4. Photography

Did you know that the first camera in the world was created by the Arab optic researcher Ibn al-Haitham? By using a dark room with a pinhole on one side and a white sheet on the other, he was able to project an inverted image of objects through enabling light to pass through the hole on the sheet opposite. He called this the “qamara” in Arabic and that was the basis of having the name of “Camera”.

5. Food & Beverages

Almost every single person on earth has his / her share of coffee everyday, but did you ever know that the first brewed coffee ever was in Yemen? Coffee was first brewed in Yemen around the 9th century and it was mentioned that an Arab named Khalid, discovered coffee and introduced it to the world when his goats were feeding on the Ethiopian slopes, he noticed they had become lively and excited after eating a particular berry, which then he extracted and named “Qahwa” and then the world adopted this all across. It was not until the 16th century did coffee started being served in Europe, brought to Italy by a Venetian trader, while 7 centuries earlier the Arabs enjoyed the same.

And tens of other examples … so what’s the conclusion?

ARABS ARE GREAT! BE PROUD!

So when we look at the past, and our great ancestors, where did those great people study? British Curriculum? American? Australian? French? … Which was the best system then? and what is the best system today?

Why have we stopped innovations? and where did our innovators go? Is there something that we can do to return back and lead the world in innovations?

Here’s one humble thought about redesigning our education systems aiming to create the world’s best innovators once again ..

The credit learning system

I always wondered why students at several grades have to study subjects that they are not interested in .. The answer always came from teachers and administration staff that they “need to know about it for their future” .. Says who? What we are doing is boxing all students under one roof and storing information temporarily for a very short time (until the exam date and then it immediately vanishes)!

Instead, what I am suggesting is shrinking the “compulsory” knowledge to 5 years only with a great focus on discovering talents by teachers, who shall then direct students to two main lines of studies: General and specialized. The general line will continue to follow the normal stream while specialized line will follow a “Fast track” that is supported by scholars, government and industry, as shown below:

The model above allows for the following:

1. Students engaging in subjects they love.
2. Better time management for talented students. It doesn’t make sense for a student who is super in chemistry but weak in maths to keep spending time on getting his maths better in order to succeed on overall GPA, while he can use this time to excel and deepen his/her knowledge and fast track in chemistry.
3. Long-term benefit for the government. Having researchers at younger ages mean that they will materialize their research and benefit the community faster and for longer duration.

As much as the system above looks revolutionary in terms of having researchers probably with masters / PhD’s possibly at ages of 20 years, it is something that I see very possible to achieve. The system greatly relies on having the right teachers and right administration behind it … NO “Teaching as a job” is accepted .. it should be teaching for passion .. No “School Manager” as a job is accepted .. it should be managing future generations ..

It’s time we seriously think about the educational systems and how fruitful they are for us .. what works for others might not be what works for us .. We have been the sunshine of innovations long way before all the western curriculum were introduced to us .. Time to redesign, take what works for us best and shape it with passion, science and experience for the good of our nation and our future generations..

Written by:

Engagement Expert, International Speaker & Pragmatic researcher