How stupid are the people?

Before you dear reader start to pull down to the comment section, let me explain why I used this provocative headline. Our night guards son recently went to the doctor because he didn't feel well. at Mahosot hospital they did a lot of checks, including blood checks. After he got handed over the test result prints and a bill. Nobody told him what to do now, what his disease is, what to do next. Even if they asked for. It is a very common thing in Laos that people are treated as they are dumb. Yes, they may not understand medical terms on first hand, but they are also listing to a explanation. Same problem is with any administrative office: People arent' treated very respectfully. Officer like to use their power to scare the people. This habit is something those working in the developing sector know quite well. While the more educated in the city may insist of a proper answer, people on the country side usually shut up. One reason is they are scared, since they experienced many times who the power has. Another reason is indeed lack of education: they just don't understand when some company explains how they want to change their village, environment, landscape etc. Help comes from an initiative that is already working in 300 villages. They basically build 3D models of a village and it's surroundings and explain - inculding landmarks know to the villagers - what the impact of a project might be.

“In former styles of land-use planning meetings, local people would usually just sit at the back of the meeting room waiting for it to end,” said Castella, one of the authors of Toward a land zoning negotiation support platform: Tips and tricks for participatory land use planning in Laos, which appeared recently in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning. As result, villagers often ended up implementing plans that they did not understand and that were doomed to fail. Things changed with the introduction of the 3D maps, which are put together with the help of the residents."

, wrote ZOE CORMIER in a blog post on the CIFOR website. Most people are not stupid. They are just not educated. And sometimes, they are brainwashed and trained to refuse education. This is the real threat. Initiatives like the 3D modelling might change this.

The lack of curiosity in developing countries

I am constantly wondering why things are like they are in Laos and Cambodia. Since globalization, internet and satellite TV there is equal access to information. Why are developing countries still struggling to improve?
We all now that on the one hand the old elite's don't want change. But as we see in China right now, this is shortsighted. People want change, and the leaders have to find a way to deal with it.


Beside from imminent measures like improvement of infrastructure, for the long term the education sector is the only place to establish sustainable development in society.But that's where the program starts. The traditional way of teaching and learning failed, especially in Asian countries. Why? Because school and university doesn't support or even push curiosity. Unfortunately this is the driving force in self-education, and the reason why some students are more successful. In western countries this problem is compensated by parental education and society. Curiosity is a value, it is positive (at least until now). We explore things, we discover our environment.
In Asia, at least in my experience so far, no one wants to explore anything. People sometimes (actually quite often) don't even know their neighborhood well, not to speak about their own town. In school, you are not allowed to ask "why". At home, you are not allowed to question your parents orders and advice. But "Why" is the basis of curiosity, the start. But when you watch kids, they are different. They do explore. Sadly, education steps in quite fast and stops it.

So how to solve the problem?
First, encourage self-education. I tell people every day to stop studies and learn from life and others. it is actually not so much about what they learn, its about how. In school, the teacher is lecturing. Wow. No reason to pay since this stuff is usually available on youtube or iTunesU already. So better invite some friends, watch a real teacher on the internet and discuss what he said.
Also, instead of study English over and over again, get some people to start an English club and self assign tasks for presentations. That is gonna be way more fun. You like engineering? Then start engineering. Just do the minimum at school, then go home and dismantle the toaster, buy some chips and cables and create an solar powered oven out of it. THAT's engineering.

I don't even start about accounting. This can be purely studied by books. You want practice? Then take over family financial planning and monitor daily expenses. Schoolbooks give ypu problems to solve you don't like. Real life gives you real problems to solve. "Mum, we had a loss of 500 Dollar this month" will take you faster into combat mode than any assignment in school.
We need a radical change in education. In developing countries, that means get the foreign advisers and consultants out, but even more urgent the NGOs and GOs from foreign countries, As we can see, they failed. There is no need to educate a village. There is a need to educate champions. Easy done. They will teach the others. Get out quickly.


Find this video about how curiosity encourage learning

Teacher in Asia

When young people traveling to an through Asia, its sometimes happens that they fall in love with the region and don't want to go home. But how to make a living here? The answer is simple: as a teacher. Since local teachers are just bad and English speaking foreigners are good per definition, it's kind of easy to find a job. No qualifications required, at least not for the schools on the lower end of the scale.
These people work some hours a week teaching, and since life is cheap in Asia, they make enough money to pay a guesthouse.

These people are notoriously ignoring the culture and laws of the country. Foreign people I knew who got killed where teachers - driving drunken and/or without helmet. They don't care about one way streets, parking fees, dress codes. Most of these teachers try to be still backpackers. In Laos I am now in trouble because I bought a car from a guy who never updated the number plates and never got the mandatory inspection. When I asked him, he said: "You know, it's Laos, they don't care." This guy also left his job in a public university without giving notice and got hired by an international school. The university is still not amused.

First of all, THEY do care. Not get caught by the police doesn't mean you do right. Then most rules have a meaning, the usually make sense. More important is the fact, that if we foreigners give a shit on local laws, how can we encourage people here to follow. Lack of governance and law enforcement is one of the biggest problems in Asia, that's why projects and developments are delayed or fail and corruption is so successful.

So if teachers, the ones who should be a hero for their students, don't care, what might be the impact for the students?