Recently, I came across a new word called ‘profiling’. When we observe a stranger walking around, we judge his or her attire, word choices, manners, and, in the process, we give the person a profile. This act of profiling always depends on our best assumptions and speculations influencing the way we approach the person in later days. It occurs in the subconscious and involves everyone around.
And, I feel, the scenario complicates, when a university student starts profiling his or her classmates in the first class. The student observes the class, defines each classmate, deducts a major part of students, and chooses friends who seem to belong to his or her own social status. In this article, I intend to state the fact that the act of profiling, in university students of Bangladesh, turns into a practice of maintaining status, which devalues as well as distorts the purposes of education.
The first year or the first semester is the time when students are supposed to break the status quo and mingle with every classmate. However, in Bangladesh the scenario is quite the opposite. Most students lack the maturity that they are expected to have at this stage. There are some who do want to mingle with everyone but for this ongoing act of profiling they remain isolated like others. I started my career as a teacher in private universities, and I was fortunate to work in two renowned private universities of this country for two years and a half. While teaching, I noticed the students define their friends by the brands of Nokia or Nike. Later on, they define their friends by their academic grades. The friendship continues until they start the race of acquiring better brands or better grades. As a result, most of them fall into a vulnerable emotional state which affects their studies. Also, in private universities, a student does not remain with the same classmates for all four or five years. So, there are fewer possibilities of creating a strong bond of friendship for them. Moreover, teachers have less time to discuss students’ personal matters because a major part of their counselling hours are taken up by the academic and course-oriented topics. Therefore, the students of private universities may get a proper degree but they are isolated from a proper friend.
Fortunately, in public universities, this scenario is less complicated. Students in public universities remain with the same classmates during their educational period. They get the chance to know each other for a long period. They do practise the act of profiling at the beginning but later on most of them are able to break the status quo. However, the process of isolation starts in a different way. Students tend to create their own group of friends. All students in a group may not have the same economic background but they do have the same ideological standpoint. So, in the same class, one group has the “bookish” students, yet another group has the “funky” students. As a result, each of these groups tends to follow its own intellectual status and isolate itself. And, after one or two years (or less), the same race (as among the students of private universities) of acquiring better grades or better popularity affects the students and their studies. Their ego takes over their friendship. Thus the group dissolves, and each of the group members becomes isolated. One way or the other, the practice of maintaining status (both economic and intellectual) is responsible for the loneliness of university students in our country. As a teacher of a public university (also as a former student), I have witnessed students’ misery resulting from this alienating process.
We can consider different options to lessen this misery. For example, both parents and teachers should influence the students into being less egotistical, so they can create a friendlier environment around them. Ego builds barriers of isolation around individuals, and students must be aware of this fact. In addition, they should also deny the practice of maintaining status quo in the class. They should not define each other with the adjectives like “bookish” and “funky”. They are considered adults; therefore, they should act like adults. It is their responsibility to enhance their moral education by exploring the experiences of all classmates. As a result, they may not face the depression of isolation at all.
Our modern time has given us various postmodern thoughts and devices, which are alienating us from each other. Therefore, the modern concept of “status” is sometimes devastating for students. It manipulates them to say, “I just know him but he is my classmate”. The act of profiling (to maintain status quo) creates such “just know” syndrome, which eventually dismantles the unity of a class and of a nation. It is the responsibility of the young generation to ensure that the concept of status quo does not overshadow the qualities that make us human beings.
[This article was also published in Daily Sun on Academia page (November 22, 2010). The link: http://www.daily-sun.com/?view=details&archiev=yes&arch_date=22-11-2010&type=daily_sun_news&pub_no=45&cat_id=3&menu_id=18&news_type_id=1&index=0]
