يا ولدي ركز في دراستك

If you live anywhere in Saudi, and have gone to Saudi schools as a kid, I’m sure you’ve heard this said to you. But wait! It gets better!

After you finished middle school, the words got harder, and the logic got more complex. Now instead of direct orders, they let you deduct the reasoning yourself:

صاحب صنعتين كذاب!

Not only were you expected to have experience in studying, but experience in life, and perhaps some experience in “Hijazi” proverbs! Were you confused? I was. I didn’t get how we heard stories of western entrepreneurs succeeding in what they dreamed of, while we sat there solving “Seen 3 9ad 44”

But I was too immature, too hot headed and to ignorant. It was easier to listen to Baba, Mama and Ustaz “Fulan”.

Then we got into medical school. The language got even more strict, and now they started using verses from the Quraan:

و ما جعل الله لرجل من قلبين في جوفه!

By now, you have guessed what I’m getting at. Now it’s 2011. The most successful ideas in the world came from people who did not listen to any of the above. It’s 2011, and we are just now grasping the fact that you can be smart in school, AND have great ideas, causes, dreams on the side. It’s 2011, and we are just now seeing forums, camps and seminars about leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship. In 2004, when I spoke of such things at the ministry of education, they said exactly what the title of this article says. In 2006, they refused the idea of medical students having activities that might distract them from missing classes that the docs themselves didn’t show up at. It’s 2011, schools haven’t changed, parents haven’t changed.

We still haven’t grasped the possibility of working both sides of our brain. We still run a left brained system that teaches the same exact info, at the same exact pace to kids and students who have unique finger prints. This gets worse in the case of the medical student. We’re asked to think out side a box to reach a diagnosis for example, but forced to stay very well inside one during our education. We envy foreign Nobel prize winners, but fail to realize that we follow a very different path. Sir, Mam, I don’t think Nobel prize winners got there by sticking to the curriculum. I don’t think they are who they are by concentrating on their school work.

Or perhaps it’s more simple than that; Perhaps we don’t have to write any longer;

Perhaps when they actually found a passion that was not written or mentioned in our “holy” curriculum, perhaps they didn’t find anyone calling them a liar.

I have passion. And so do you. Perhaps you should remember that you would have never reached that passion if you weren’t “mrakkiz”!

Maybe the next time a parent or faculty member pretends they know it all and chooses to play the role of an academic advisor, we should all stand say, in one breath:

العب غيرها. صاحب صنعتين كذاب!

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