Friday, September 28, 2001

Education requires asking and answering uncommon questions
Commentary by Ariel Horn

Rooms upon rooms show pictures of Vietnamese bodies piled one on top of another.

Alongside the pictures, there are other photographs of American soldiers smoking cigarettes and smiling contentedly at the camera. It is as if the curator of this museum has set the exhibit to intentionally tell the world the deaths of three million Vietnamese civilians only engendered happiness among American soldiers.

There is something strangely un-museum-like to me about the decidedly anti-American “War Remnants Museum” in Ho Chi Minh City (nee Saigon), Vietnam. I came expecting a history lesson, but I left wondering what the truth really is.

normal-looking pan with a painted red interior lies underneath plastic casing in one part of the exhibit. Its caption reads: “This is the pan American soldiers cooked Nguyen’s heart in after they had cut her head off.”

Another plastic case displays a neatly folded and relatively new-looking shirt. The caption reads: “This is the last shirt Guong wore before the Americans murdered him.”

The rest of the museum shows countless images of Vietnamese Napalm victims, with little explanation.

Even more exhibits document gruesome images of Vietnamese children without arms or legs, mothers with charcoal-blackened backs from Agent Orange and diseased fathers staring imploringly at the camera.

Before I leave, I read the museum guest book. I open to a random page to see what a another museum-goer thought: “The American bastards. They’re finally getting what they deserve. Thanks, Blake from Germany.”

When we leave the museum, my family is unnaturally quiet. Ngiam, our 28-year old guide greets us. In her thick Vietnamese accent (though near-fluent English), she asks, “So, you like museum?”

“I don’t know if ‘like’ is the word. It’s a hard museum for anyone, especially Americans, to enjoy,” my mother, an eighth-grade history teacher, responds quietly.

“Ha ha,” Ngiam laughs good-naturedly, “Well, I guess it is pretty one-sided. It used to be called The Museum of American War Crimes, but you know, tourists did not like that. Ha. Well, that is what happens when Americans try to take over other people’s territories.”

My mother purses her lips, taking a deep, controlled breath. “Ngiam, that’s not why we fought the war. We were the ‘freedom fighters.’ We came to liberate the Vietnamese from the spread of Communism, not take over their land. We came to promote democracy. We came to help you.”

Now, it is Ngiam’s turn to look stunned. She argues with my mother for a few minutes with the perseverance of an indignant student trying to prove to her professor she deserves a higher grade, telling my mother matter-of-factly that Communists came to the villages and told civilians the war needed to be fought because Americans were invading. This is what she has been taught. This is what they teach all the students in school today.

At the universities — in America — we believe our professors and what they say, arguably with the same trust that Ngiam had in her own teachers. Why would anyone, we wonder, teach something other than what we believe to be the truth?

The problem is this very trust in educators is what leads to the deterioration of education itself. What is sad about Ngiam’s situation is it shows many people being educated around the world are forgetting how or why they need to investigate what they learn. And in light of the recent attack on America, it’s more important than ever to ask questions and throw complacency out the window.

At college, it is relatively easy to be spoon-fed your course material, as Ngiam was hers. A professor lectures. You take notes. You study the notes. You do well on an exam. But have you learned anything in having bypassed the crucial step of asking questions, and researching ideas and history for yourself?

Education is not only about finding answers to common questions — it is about knowing how to ask and invent those questions yourself. Don’t be complacent. Don’t blindly accept what you’re taught. Ask questions. Find things out for yourself.

It’s the crucial difference between indoctrination and teaching, propaganda and enlightenment.

Ariel Horn is a columnist for the Daily Pennsylvanian at the University of Pennsylvania. This column was distributed by U-Wire.