In the Lingenfelters’ book Teaching Cross-Culturally they address, among many other things, a common problem faced by western-trained educators when teaching in the two-thirds world - the problem of cheating. It is common for western-trained teachers, in response, to try to find ways of eliminating or minimising the problem of cheating. But, as the Lingenfelters point out, the more basic question “What is cheating?” is often not posed.
It was actually this very issue which ended up being a turning point in my own understanding of cultural dynamics. I had been teaching Pakistanis in a small residential Bible school, some of them already village pastors, others intending to be so. My colleague and I became aware that when we set tests most of our students “cheated”. We conferred with leaders of other Bible colleges in Pakistan and concluded that over 90% of all students “cheated”.
My colleague and I sat down with our students and sought to explain biblical concepts of truth, honesty and integrity. I do not believe we expressed any anger but genuinely sought, in as gracious a manner as possible, to explain why “cheating” was wrong. But I sensed we were not communicating because I could almost see the smiles on the faces of our students. There was clearly no sense that they had committed some dreadful sin.
We realised that there may well be cultural issues of which we were not aware. We asked the students to explain how they saw the problem from their perspective. However, one of the basic problems with cross-cultural communication is that most people are unable to identify and/or articulate the underlying values and beliefs that inform their practices. None of our students was able to give us a clear explanation as to how this problem was viewed in Pakistani culture.
Later I was reading Ministering Cross-Culturally by Sherwood Lingenfelter and Marvin Mayers. It was while Sherwood was relating his experience of watching a race on the Micronesian island of Yap that the penny dropped. Sherwood expressed his initial frustration at the way the best athlete slowed his pace and enabled other runners to almost catch him before only just winning the race. As Sherwood reflected on this he realised that the athlete would not only have shamed the other athletes had he beaten them by a large margin, but he himself would also have been shamed for acting in such a manner.
My mind flashed back to our classroom experiences. Pieces of the jigsaw began to come together. I recognised that when “cheating” occurred it was not so much a case of less able students trying to peek over the shoulders of more able students, but of the more able students passing their papers to less able students. I happened to mention this observation to an Algerian friend of mine. He related how he was once sitting an exam at Sydney University. The exam was going well for him. But at one point he stopped and rested his head on his arm. It so happened that a Muslim was sitting next to him and he had assumed from my friend’s features that he too was a Muslim. He also assumed from my friend’s posture that he was stumped by some question. The next thing my friend knew was this Muslim sliding his paper across to him and asking, “Can I help you, brother?”
I am not so naive as to think that all of these considerations fully explain the phenomenon of “cheating”. However, I did come to appreciate that for my students in Pakistan the practice of so-called cheating was actually informed by positive cultural values. To begin with they were operating not according to individualistic values but in accordance with a collective group. It was not a case of one individual competing against other individuals but of the whole group helping each other to get through the course of training together. It was also a case of the group being concerned to see that no individual be shamed in the process.
All of this got me thinking about testing procedures, another issue considered by the Lingenfelters in Teaching Cross-Culturally. I am afraid that my own improved understanding of the situation came a bit too late to implement changes at the time. But I now realise that this is indeed an issue to be addressed.
When students from the two-thirds world are studying in a western education institution informed by western cultural values and western practices it is helpful for them to be made aware of differences in underlying cultural values and to understand why things must operate differently in this new context.
Posted April 16, 2008
Upon clicking 'Buy now' you will be redirected to paypal.com where you can securely and quickly complete your purchase with a few clicks.
Immediately after payment at PayPal you will be redirected to a download page which
provides you instant access to your purchase.
