By: Shaaban Fundi

The book White Teeth by Zadie Smith is about a mixed-race couple and an immigrant family life in London. Many of the controversy in the book deal with issues of identity and social class in a post racial society. Smith shows many provocative themes related to science, technology, history and religion. The book starts with Archibald Jones fighting alongside a Bengali Muslim, Samad Iqbal in the English army during WWII, and the two developing an unlikely bond. The bond intensified when Samad relocated to Archie’s native London. Smith tries to recapture their friendship through marriage, parenthood and the shared disappointments of poverty and dreams deferred.

Later in the novel Archie weds a Jamaican bride Clara. In the midst of their marriage, along came their “very interesting” daughter Irie. Achie’s friend Samad also get married, around the same time—to a wife named Alsana. Alsana and Samad were blessed with twin sons, Millat and Magid. After struggling to raise the two sons together, the parents decided to send Magid back to their homeland Bangladesh simply because living in a new country has pressures: 1) new country ways, and 2) the old religious traditions of his homeland was in disagreement with the new country ways. But, they kept Millat in England. However, Millat fell into delinquency and then adopted the ways of the new country which caused severe conflicts in the household.

Since the move, Magid becomes interested in genetic engineering, a science that Samad and Alsana rejected. Within the novel, Smith contrasts Samad’s faith in providence with Magid’s desire to seize control of the future. She involves all of her characters in a debate concerning past, present, determinism, and accidental life. The tooth, half root, half protrusion makes a perfect climax in this novel. She makes a remarkable examination of the immigrant’s experience in a postcolonial world. Dealing with the woes of adaption of a new land, and the principles of what was instilled within them in their home countries and culture.

The first theme I encountered was the marriage of Archie Jones to a black immigrant from Jamaica. This is significant because I considered her to be an immigrant just like Samad, Millat and their kids within the story. This opened up a fascinating tale. Dealing with something very new, verses something that has been instilled within them. The same holds true for their kids–Ire, Magid and Millat were all born in England. However, they are all not acknowledged in their own country because of their skin tone.

Another significant theme I saw in the book was how Magid lost his sense of “Heritage.” He was sent back to Bangladesh to grow up with the culture of his parents’ native land. He wound up more English than the English themselves. His twin brother Millat who stayed in England, was caught up in an ultra-Moslem activist group (with the acronym “KEVIN”). This showed how “brain-washed” he had gotten, even though his parents were just trying to create the best life for their son.

The last significant theme that I thought made the book wonderful was the parallels between the cross-pollination of plants and the random mixing of human genes and cultures. Despite the evident prejudice within London depicted in the book regarding heritage, culture, and ethnic background– the diversity leads to a healthy and strong society in the end. Take home–we all have white teeth despite the color tones on our skins.

Shaaban Fundi,

University education is at the top of the root education (pre-K, K-7 and secondary education) in Tanzania. Whenever there is a missing link (a gap) at the bottom, the gap gets magnified as you move up the education ladder. This is analogous to the bioaccumulation concept in environmental science. The most toxic fish happens to be those at the top of the food chain. Following this logic, the degreed graduate who never had the proper training at the lower level ends up being the most unskilled. This is because majority of students in Tanzania lack skills to be autonomous learners and thinkers at the lower levels of education. Once they reach the University level it becomes really difficult for them to gain those skills. In other words it is too late for them.

The gaps in science, math and reading literacy (Uwezo East Africa Report 2012) at the root- schools can’t be fixed within the 3-4 years. Most people graduate from colleges in Tanzania with worthless degrees (No offence). They end up not gaining essential and/or transferable skills during their university careers and consequently missing the boat. There is also the gap between degree programs at the Universities and necessary market skills needed at the work place. This gap actually leads to people getting hired and working in capacities where they have no job related skills resulting to poor productivity in the entire work force.

The current trend of changing just the degree program names at the university level to match the degrees needed by the market will not fix this problem. Teaching in these degree programs need to focus more into skills building, “creating an environment in which learner become increasing adept at learning from each other and at helping each other learn in problem solving groups” (Mezirow, 1997) rather than rote memorization of theories, facts and principles. Degree programs need to develop skill sets that are needed to be successful in their gratuates working environment. These key competencies for work place includes “ acquiring and using information, identifying and organizing resources, working with others, interpreting information, and understanding complex interrelationships”(Gonzi et al, 1995). The most important factor for me is teaching learners to become autonomous, this is not the norm in most if not all colleges in Tanzania.

To sum this all up, real fixes need to start from the bottom of the education chain. That is from pre-schools, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools–all the way up to universities and graduate schools. We always seem to look at a college degree holder and dismantle him/her for lack of skills at the work place. Questions such as “where did he/her go to college?” become the norm in our conversation. We often forget this is the same person that came from schools that did not prepare her/him well in becoming an autonomous learner in science, math and writing. If we have to fix this image, the fixing process need to happen throughout the entire education system. Just putting a Band-Aid in convenient places will add up to the problem and will not in any way help to solve it.