Why some students shouldn’t learn about whales: Systemic quality imperatives and parent/teacher desires

Research was conducted in 47 schools, including 35 community schools and 12 medersas, in the district of Bamako. Parents expressed a desire for their children to study to the level of university and PhD, with some parents suggesting that girls can stop studying when they can read and write, while others believed that education is an opening that could lead girls to act like occidental girls. Parents also wished for their children to learn languages such as English, French, and Arabic, with students expressing a desire to learn English, French, and Chinese. The study found that parents and students like Islamic instruction and want to see it reinforced, with no teachers speaking about it, even in medersas. Children suggested a range of topics and themes, including snow, earthquakes, foreign food, and how to pilot a plane. The primary curricula focus on own culture and environment and on good citizenship, promoting skills such as managing the environment, being a good citizen, developing a patriotic mind, reconstituting the past, and respecting social values. However, the Grade 3/4 and 5/6 curricula are supposed to widen learning to the world, but it is only partially achieved, with social science courses dealing only with history and geology of the local region. The study highlights the differences in understanding of the content of a given subject between children and adults, with children preferring areas that adults judged important but quoting different content in each area. Children and teachers want to do more grammar or IRI when parents focus on reading and writing and French. The study also found that children do not cite disciplines to add, but suggest a range of topics and themes, and comparatively few answers received on what subjects/content should be added to curricula. Children often say that they do not know anything else to add, while parents do not trust in their ability to decide what their children should learn, and teachers do not want to make the program heavier or touch the "holy document".