Why You Should Care About Education

It goes without saying that education almost determines our lives. How, when, where and by whom we were educated shapes the person we become and the life we choose for ourselves. In the Cypriot context, we can see how much our education influences the way we see our island and how we approach the Cyprus problem. Based on the different experiences I’ve had studying in the northern part of the island, I can see the importance of the things we are taught and the way we are taught them.

Peace is a tricky concept; it takes a lot of communication, time and mediation. Trying to create a peaceful environment in Cyprus where the Greek speaking and Turkish speaking Cypriots do not see each other as enemies has certainly proven to be a challenge that will take multiple lifetimes to solve. But, in my humble opinion, it is not impossible. An important part of creating a society that is embracing is the problem (re)presentation (Green, 2010). During my time in high school, the history classes were tense and confusing. On the one hand, we had an obviously biassed and resentful curriculum and on the other we had teachers that didn’t necessarily agree. My teachers would thus rephrase some sentences in the book or skip parts that would cause a stir in the class.

James Scott calls the subtle resistances that I saw my teachers do “weapons of the weak”. He uses this concept when talking about the working class and how they resist the dominant capitalist forces that exploit them (Ginzberg, 2014). By refusing to teach us the certain pages where the Greek speaking Cypriots were portrayed as the enemy, or not giving the sentimental forcefulness of some of the un-peaceful ‘facts’, my teachers were trying to avoid a vicious cycle of continuous enmity. The students, or specifically myself, saw the history curriculum as something to mostly ignore and very modifiable. Of course, other factors, such as my personal beliefs and perception of the Greek speaking community influenced how I interpreted these subtle resistances, but it made me realise the importance of teaching a curriculum and how much it affects the students.

The current political climate in the northern part of Cyprus, with less hope of a peace treaty and Turkish government’s increased intervention in the island, education has become a more prominent factor as an ideological tool. A clear example of this is the Hala Sultan Divinity School, where the dominant curriculum is religion-based accompanied by a mosque that can hold three thousand worshippers (Latif, 2020). If the Turkish intention is to impose more Turkish policies on the island, then this school will definitely serve its purpose. Manipulation of the public in authoritarian nation-states is through ideological apparatuses, one of the main ones being education. The information put into the curriculum is taught to very young people, who will form their opinions based on the said curriculum. This means that they are influenced from a very early age to think the way ideological authorities want them to think.

Being aware of the effect education has on us has a potential to adapt the curriculum as needed. Society is in continuous flux of people, ideas, trends etc. which makes it all the more important to have an education system that can adapt to such dynamics. In the current global climate, the rise of activism for reproductive rights, peacemaking, LGBTQI+ rights, the flexibility of gender etc. means that we have to catch up with these issues and where we stand. If we are not taught about the problems we face in the world and don’t acknowledge the power we have to change things, then we can’t expect the problems we complain about to magically disappear. The education we receive is thus the starting point of creating awareness in living in a world that is complex, ever-changing and dynamic.

What we can draw from this discussion is that considering the importance and value of education in cultural and ideological reproduction, we should be more aware of the effect our education can have on us and how this in turn affects the society we are a part of. Even the most simple examples show that if we are not taught to be peaceful, we will not be peaceful. It is therefore important to realise and be critical about the information we receive in order to make real change and adapt to the dynamic global patterns of change and social issues.

BIB:

Bill Green (2010) Rethinking the representation problem in curriculum inquiry, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 42:4, 451-469, DOI: 10.1080/00220270903494998.

Dilek Latif (2021) Beyond secular? AKP’s religious policies and societal polarization in North Cyprus, Turkish Studies, 22:5, 801-823, DOI: 10.1080/14683849.2020.1858813.

David Seddon (1988) Reviewed Work: Weapons of the Weak: everyday forms of peasant resistance by James C. Scott, Sociology 22:4, 666-668, https://www.jstor.org/stable/42854573.