Introduction
The book I am Malala is a captivating masterpiece that features a dedicated young girl, namely, Malala who accepts to be shot instead of letting her passion for the girl child education die under her watch. Malala’s father considered education incredibly important for the progressive development of all people in Pakistan and beyond. He viewed education as an important tool and an avenue for eliminating the prevailing oppressive regime in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He insisted on the necessity of educating girls as the pillar for enhancing the position of women in social, political, and economic development. Such positions are held in a nation that considers girl child education a luxury. This paper argues that although Malala and many of her fellow Pakistani students have a passion for education, the situation for the American counterparts seems different. To develop this theme, it suggests ways of instilling such passion for education in the American children.
The paper discusses ways in which individuals can develop this passion in themselves and others. It finally discusses why passion for education is imperative in the contemporary world.
Passion for Education among Pakistani Students compared to the Americans
Extremists such as Taliban groups assert that girl child education reinforces traditional stereotypes, which the society should not tolerate (Fazl-E-Haider 73). Malala informs that women’s and girls’ roles in Pakistan are constrained to domestic chores such as cooking. As a result, driven by her passion for education, she finally suffers a near-death experience at the hands of the Taliban group due to her emphasis on the need to educate girls, a campaign that she developed a passion for through her father’s efforts and open support against the stereotyped roles of girls in the society.
However, Malala emerges the victor in the book I am Malala as she is flown out of Pakistan in search of treatment for injuries sustained from bullets. In Birmingham, England, her passion for education, especially for girls remains succinct.
The brave Malala representing other Pakistani girls with a high passion for education became the epicenter for the 2012 UNESCO convention that sought to deliberate on girls’ education rights in Pakistani. This passion for education is outstanding to the extent that girls in Pakistan are ready to meet their death in search of education. Indeed, the conference was held to pay tribute to Malala due to her determination to defend the right for Pakistani girls’ education following the Taliban decision to outlaw girls’ schools in Swat Valley (Zahoor and Janjua 201).
Malala demonstrated her passion and that of other girls in Pakistan. She thinks through what she would do in case a terrorist stepped to shoot her for her commitment to the rights of girls’ education. Instead of removing her shoe to hit such a terrorist, Malala says she would plead with the terrorist to listen to her before she is finally shot. She would tell the terrorist, “shoot me but first listen to me. What you are doing is wrong. I am not against you personally; I just want every girl to go to school” (Yousafzai 9).
The above passion is incomparable to the passion for education among Americans. Americans are culturally diverse in many aspects. This diversity has influenced US students’ passion for education. For example, Piña-Watson et al. regard cognitive aspects such as educational skepticism, the perception of hope, and grit as important predictors of passion for education among Mexican-Americans (109). Cultural variables, for instance, bicultural stress, ethnic identity, and generational status lowered the passion for education among the studied sample of 181 Mexican-Americans.
Rojas-LeBouef and Slate argue that Latinos have an important educational achievement gap that has an immense implication on practitioners and educators (113). Indeed, from the 1990s, Latinos have reported a high rate of dropping out of school in the US compared to other population segments such as Whites, Asians, and African-Americans. This finding suggests that diversity differences, including cultural disparities, influence American students’ passion for education compared to Malala and many of her fellow Pakistani apprentices.
Instilling Passion for Education in Children
The passion for education showcased by Malala raises the question of how Americans can instill similar enthusiasm in their children. Through all chapters of I am Malala, the young girl’s father drives her passion for education. For example, her father saw a chance for girls in Pakistan to alter the country’s status quo. He believed that education could ensure that Pakistan was split from patriarchal factions (Yousafzai 128). Such a move would unite the nation.
Driven by this motivation, Malala took advantage of her father’s attitude to further her dream of securing education for all girls in Pakistan. This experience suggests that parents can instill the passion for education in their children by laying out clear foundations and setting anticipated goals that they (children) can achieve through education. Communicating these goals to the children and/or ensuring that children appreciate the fact that they have a noble role to shape and resolve the current problem in America through education can guarantee an undying passion for education.
Developing Passion for Education among Ourselves and Others
Malala clearly sets out the strategy that people can deploy in developing a passion for education in themselves and others. Firstly, they must identify what they would want to achieve through education. This step should be followed by reading and criticizing those materials that would enable them and others to achieve the set goals. Even in the face of death, Malala had a clear decision to fulfilling the desires of education among the Pakistani girls, including ensuring that they went to school (Yousafzai 9).
She knew too well that without education, the girls would not change their status in society. Girls were accustomed to domestic chores and if anything else. In Chapter 4, she writes, “The women spent their days looking after the children and preparing food to serve to the men in their hujra upstairs” (Yousafzai 35). Through education, Malala and many of her friends were sure they would break this traditional trend.
To develop goals and objectives that people wish to achieve through education, they should become accustomed to reading. Malala incredibly loved to read. Books were within her vicinity. At an early age of 11 years, she had already read “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking….., The Alchemist” by Brazilian author Paul Coelho, and “Anna Karenina” by Russian author Leo Tolstoy” (Yousafzai 79). The Wizard of OZ, a literary work by Austen was also important favorite reading for Malala (Yousafzai 146). Hence, the development of the passion for education is a function of one’s internal drive to become pre-occupied with reading widely, especially literature that educates and complies with his or her educational goals.
Why Passion for Education is Important
Passion for education is important since it changes the learners’ approach to learning and perception of academic assessment. Some students with a low passion for education may regard assessments as threats (Broadfoot 91). However, through her passion for education, Malala demonstrates that learning assessments have a positive impact on pupils’ educational achievement, especially when various principles of learning assessment are deployed. For example, she states that she loved exams since they helped her to understand her level of learning. They also assisted her to identify areas that she needed to emphasize (Yousafzai 8).
From the case of Malala, passion for education is important since it enables pupils to develop an incredible perception of being a learner. Such passion enabled Malala to appreciate the fact that assessments could help her to develop a deeper understanding of the learning process, especially when opportunities for the pupils to discuss various learning methodologies with their peers and teachers were deployed. Hence, passionate pupils can succeed in education when they are fully cognizant of the direction their learning is headed. Indeed, passion for education made Malala read widely. She could share her criticism with teachers (Malala 71). Therefore, passion for education is important since it enables learners to contribute positively to the learning process.
Conclusion
Malala, a Pakistani girl, demonstrates her undying passion for education, especially for girls. She proved the Taliban group wrong when it created an atmosphere that did not favor the girl child education in Pakistan. However, the situation is different in America where students are not passionate about education, and hence the emphasized need to develop mechanisms for instilling interest in education among the US learners.
Works Cited
Broadfoot, Peterson. An Introduction to Assessment. Routledge, 2007.
Fazl-E-Haider, Syed. “Malala versus Extremism.” Harvard International Review, vol. 34, no. 4, 2013, pp. 73-76.
Piña-Watson, Brandy, et al. “Cultural and Cognitive Predictors of Academic Motivation among Mexican American Adolescents: Caution against Discounting the Impact of Cultural Processes.” Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, vol. 43, no. 2, 2015, pp. 109-121.
Rojas-LeBouef, Arthur, and Richard Slate. “The Achievement Gap between White and Non-White Students.” International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation, vol. 7, no. 2, 2012, pp. 1-54.
Yousafzai, Malala. I am Malala: The Girl who Stood up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2013.
Zahoor, Mehwish, and Fauzia Janjua. “Character Construction in Tributive Songs: Transitivity Analysis of the Song I Am Malala”. TRAMES: A Journal of the Humanities & Social Sciences, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 201-213.