Education = Knowledge + Exposures

As my mind linger on education, my mind was brought back to the scene in Koh-Hlau.

There was another tiny island that I visited in that trip. Because the whole island was totally wiped off by Tsunami, it appeared to be clean while compare with Koh-Hlau. A washed away freshness, the village was newly built. The attap houses were fairly new. No rubbish on the sand, or under the house. Not many men left in that village. Most died in Tsunami, some died in the sea. The remaining few went out for fishing in the deep sea, and will not return for a month or two.

The children were inactive, with their bounced out stomach which I afraid that would be mostly the work of parasites, their eyes were curious. When you make a funny face, they will giggle, and turn away.

There was a child, wandering in her naked body. Sometimes she screamed, sometimes she was violent, sometimes she was just a doll. She spit. She looked so tiny, I thought she was only seven.

The villagers told us about her story. They believed that she was demon possessed. Both her parents died. That was one night, she disappeared. When the villagers found her, she was on the mountain, and she was crying. Her mom tried to kill her too, she dug a hole, and buried her alive. Because of the limited of languages, (they speak Moken, and our interpreter was Thai worked with Mokens) we could not get the sequence right.

Hmm... supernatural agencies. There was a lot of hatred in her eyes. She was thirteen. She was insane. What had driven her to this madness? What had happened to her? Demonic or consequences of wrong human doing?

People's explanations for their health and illness are complex. We are able to think about health using the language of scientific medicine because that is part of our cultural heritage. Our common sense could be very different with what other societies and cultures believe.

Treatments would be so different under different perceptions. Ways of thinking about health and disease reflect the basic preoccupations of society, and dominant views of society and the world.

I believe, in this situation, education is a measure that will bring light and hope to these people. Education will work! Plus a clinic to provide basic care for the people. Proper wound treatment will prevent loss of lives in these people.

I felt strange, things that are most common to us, things which we didn't even care, became the most precious things in other societies and cultures. Simple medications like Iodine, was not even available in that place. I was like a stranger, evaluating, learning as I observed.

Knowledge of the existence of "other" society had never caused such impact in me. But the exposure to it did create a strong impact in all of us who participated.

The knowledge did not change our behavior or attitude, but exposure did change us. I think it was same with the Sea-gypsies and the Thai people that we worked with. The knowledge about some strangers coming in to the village would not make a change. But the exposure of being loved and cared did make a change in their lives.

Education, is Knowledge + Exposure.

Debate

I think the main debate for the Public Health Promotion is whether or not Education brings changes to Behavior, in promoting Health.

Harry: I think Education is indeed the foundation of promoting health in relative poor regions! Because it takes effect at the root cause in that region. That is the bottom-up effect!

Roseline: Yeah, I think so.

Harry: Legislation is the fastest way to see a cause-relation effect in promotion of public health, but the basic needs of the people should be met. They should have the fundamental education, free of worries of daily needs in life. Legislation is an up-down approach. Neither one should be set aside.

Roseline: Do you mean that both approaches should be implemented simultaneously?

Harry: That's right! But it seems to me that the government only concentrate in one type of approach.

Roseline: Maybe so, maybe not. It depends on how they look at the problems, and how much budget that they are ready to set aside to promote health, or make a change. But why do you have that impression that the government can only focus on one, do you mean "education without legislation" and "legislation without education"?

Harry: I think it is relative. Relative "focused" or relative "ignored".

Roseline: ???

Harry: It's hard to explain though...... I think no government would say that they will completely focus on one, and ignore another. So, I term it "relative". You know? There are some health education courses in school, primary or secondary, but always there would be such phenomena, where the teachers prefer to fill the time with preparing the students towards exam rather than utilize the time to install public health knowledge to the students, presuming that these are not important, for health is viewed to be 2nd, or 4th or 5th important. I know it is weird in saying so, but it seems to me that is the problem.

Roseline: Hmm... I remember that in secondary school, the Education Ministry did implemented a public health time slot into our weekly schedule. Only 45minutes a week. But we had always use that as a revision slot, or play at the field. Honestly, I had never viewed that as important. I didn't even know what it exist? To me, it was perhaps for leisure. It was a useless class to me. I didn't remember anything that I learned from it.

So, education if it was not properly introduced, and not properly being implemented, it's a waste of effort.

Harry: So, what's the problem here? Why the teachers do that?

Roseline: Well, I think they themselves do not know why the system needs to be implemented! Perhaps they just don't know what does it mean public health! And perhaps when it comes to weighting science subjects, mathematics classes with public health classes, they think public health is a much easy subject, and the students should grab by themselves.

Harry: Easy? Do they think that public health is an easy subject? I think it is just that they have not see the what tragics can be brought by disease! And the major problem is, many people think that they have health when they have not! Many people think that disease will not "catch" them.

So, how can we change this opinion? Should we have another SARS? How? How can we change?

Roseline: So, it is about the naive of people. I remembered the tragic of SARS in the hospital was caused by poor hygiene awareness among the hospital staffs. I am aware that the more knowledge that we have about hygiene, the more ignorance we become.

Harry: Well, many hospitals have the legislation or rules for certain procedures. However not many people follow procedures in terms of hygiene or health care methods. That is because of convenience and laziness.

Roseline: So, knowledge does not really bring changes to behavior, isn't it?


Notes: Harry worked for the Center for Disease Prevention and Control ( CDC).

A Tale:
While I was doing my undergraduate course, my secondary school friends invited me out for supper. We used to sit at the mamak store (Indian stores at the road side, with tables and stools on the road, normally with poor hygiene manner). As I sat down and ordered my meal, I found them looking at me suspiciously. Of course then I was uneasy, what happened to you guys? I asked. One smiled, seemed embarrassed," I thought you will never sit and eat with us in the mamak again. You are studying microbiology, aren't you?"

"Promotion" of another kind...... ?

When I was doing more search on tokokyohi (refusing school), I found this. It could be funny, it could be fantasy, it could be ways to thrust one's anger.

In the view of public health, we might want to access why the person had put up this? What kind of health state that this person was?

Int he view of sociology, people might wish to access what kind of impact that this icon had caused in the realm of internet and among those who hated school.



We can do many things, but not all are good.

In view of the massacres in schools, and NEETs, though both are really different things. I think there is a need to beware, what kind of ideology that we instill in our children?

Poisonous act started with poisonous thoughts!