My African Story - Neil Turok | How my African Education led me to science & physics (Part 2)

Given that Africa was the continent upon which I was born and raised, my love for it was natural, organic, and inevitable. However, my love for Africa became deeper and more specific when, at age ten, my family and I moved from Tanzania to England. In their hearts, my parents did not really want to make this move, as for them Africa was a first love, and the place they were emotionally beholden to. Nonetheless, the move was made in the hope that a secondary school education in England would leave me, and my brothers better prepared to excel in university. To their surprise and my disappointment, in all the most important ways, the system of education in England was inferior to that of Tanzania. It sounds surprising but In Tanzania, our method of learning brimmed with life, and was connected to the world in a way that not only gave us a sense of reality, but also encouraged us to explore how creativity and imagination could bolster our intelligence and self-esteem.

When we arrived in England, I was entered into six months of primary school. Those initial six months were incredibly frustrating, as we students were forced to do very mundane things--like multiplication and long division--hundreds and hundreds of times; these exercises felt more like a chores or punishments than learning opportunities. I struggled to deal with this culture of schooling in England and I really missed learning outdoors and all the experiments I was used too in Tanzania.

 
Later, I moved on to secondary school where things only marginally got better. I had only a few good teachers, and while I was able to excel academically, the style of teaching didn’t stimulate my imagination or broaden my sense of what was possible for me as a lover of knowledge, as the best education should.

Beyond the classroom, those early years in England were rife with other struggles. As Africans, we received the brunt of a lot of prejudicial, stereotypical attitudes. As a child, I can remember being told to “go back where I came from”. I can remember the supposition--whether explicit or unspoken--that because I had come from Africa, I couldn’t possibly know what I was doing, or how to meet British cultural or academic standards. The truth, however, was the very opposite: it was because of my African education that I thrived beyond the level that my teachers in England could account for. It was my years of primary school in Tanzania, not my experiences in England, that imbued me with a true love of learning. In Tanzania I learned the fundamentals of math and science not as a mere consequence of ceaseless repetition, but as principles that were deeply connected to the realities of life.

My earliest schooling helped me understand that the tenets of math and science, if applied properly, could expand my sense of wonder, imagination, creativity, and self-understanding. It was in the dynamic classrooms of East Africa that I learned how to be a student not just of schools and institutions, but of life itself. These experiences showed me how to view the natural world with equal measures of reason, rigor, ingenuity and imagination. I am, and will forever be indebted to my early teachers, as well as the forms of sensitivity, humility and social intelligence that were woven into the societal fabric of life in Tanzania at that time.

Now, so many years later, as I regard the world through the lens of an experienced theoretical physicist, it is this same ingenuity, curiosity, and brilliance I see reflected in the upcoming generation of African youth. I believe that the strength of intellect and creativity embodied by the current generation of young Africans has the power to impact the world in profound ways. Likewise, I believe that society’s next great geniuses will be African born and African educated. I know this because I am devoted to giving young Africans the time, space, education, and resources to grow into their vast potential, in the same way that, so many years ago, the humble, brilliant educators in Tanzania created a space for me to thrive. To get to where I am today.