Education, Languages, etc

 "A stubborn fly will follow a corpse to the grave and be buried with it." "You are not judged by the height you have reached, but from the depth you have climbed. ." African Ubuntu Proverbs".                                                                                                                   Tunisians are said to be very talented when it comes to learning foreign languages. I noticed that those working with tourists more or less speak various languages, not unlike other countries that attract tourists. French is the 2. language (typical for ex-colonies, in Algeria many demand to change this) just as well as it means not everything is written in Arabic, makes life easier for non - Arabic folks here and also for international trading. A recent study brought to light that 70% of Tunisian pupils' French is of a poor standard, they would prefer to learn English, the language mainly used for computers and generally in the world of science (the common language of the later was German until Hitler made great men and women, scientists and others, flee the country). Anyhow, translation of English to  Arabic and via-verse, including by the computer translation program, appears to be an extremely difficult task. Often it is not at all easy to make sense of it. Some examples that I repeatedly found:  " I eat cats and dogs every day. I drink it. The cat is dead. I shake it to the vet."    You what? Sounds horrible! It should have read:  "I feed cats and dogs every day. I give them water/ something to drink. The cat is tired/exhausted. I take it to the vet." Some written words exist in 2 languages but with a different meaning. While Fluss is an Arabic word for money, in German it means river. Since money flows out of the pocket like water, not so far fetched. In Germany some French words changed their meaning, Fisage is used for an ugly face, Rendez-vous in German means a dating with a boyfriend/ girlfriend, the English word Gift stands in German for poison, Rat for advice, Gymnasium for grammar school, a student studies at the university, a Professor often lectures at the university, the academic title higher is than that of a teacher. The different use in various countries of can lead to misunderstandings. - If a high percentage of my pupils get bad marks, I would suspect that they are either exceptionally stupid, lazy, are neglected by their parents, or my teaching methods are boring, e. g. teacher talking most of the time, pupils are restricted to listening and repeating instead of actively participating. Some teachers believe in discriminating pupils of poor families and/ or those with darker skin. Such rasism in Africa? Since when does the colour of skin reflect the value of a person and isn't it a protection against skin cancer? Teachers with an attitude like that proof that they themselves lack education and should look for another job. Tunisia can be proud to have abolished slavery on 23.01.1846 two years earlier than France, 16 years before US and many European countries, the sale of slaves was already forbidden wef. 09.06.1841. In my opinion there are too many school holidays here and the standard of general knowledge could be improved. In particular neglected kids from brocken and/ or poor families could do with that. I just found out that 3 members of my big feral family are are a special breed of short haired black American cats crossed with Burmese in order to achieve that black panther like appearance. Indians named them Bombay cats. Superstitions here believe black cats bring you bad luck, such a believe dates back to the middle ages. One should think we advanced since then. Education of the ignorants, starting with the kids, a rewarding task for teachers, so much needs to be done.