Content does not colonise

Angie Motshekga must change the way schools are run, not what is in the curriculum

“DECOLONISATION” is the buzzword these days and Angie Motshekga loves the buzz.

She has decided that Shakespeare will be removed from English literature lists, undertaken to make indigenous languages compulsory and has set about making history texts more “Afrocentric”. At the recent Basic Education lekgotla in Boksburg she argued that diversification of the curriculum to create more exit points for gifted pupils was also key to decolonisation.

The problem is not many understand what decolonisation means.

There doesn’t seem to be any understanding in the department of the fact that colonisation versus decolonisation is primarily about systems of power and control – not content. Colonial values find expression in content, sure, but unless power relationships are transformed, decolonisation does not take place.

The way schools function makes our education colonial, no matter the content. There’s a reason grass-roots education groups in the days of Apartheid focused on autonomy, community, participation and egalitarianism.

Back in the days of the Struggle we met in circles of respect and equality, where every voice could be heard – rather than having experts lecture passive recipients on revolutionary topics.

School, as South Africa still enforces it (with threats of jail for parents who disagree), was a primary tool used by European colonisers all over the world. While the army quelled physical opposition to invasion, school was used to obliterate indigenous culture and brainwash populations into obedience and subservience.

It is important to realise that the content of the curriculum was a smaller factor in the colonising process, than the structure and nature of school in and of itself. Quite aside from forcing children to focus on abstract academia at the cost of real life skills, school in this form: removes children from family and community life, preventing cultural transmission; age-segregates children so that peer-to-peer education can’t function; severely limits play, through which children develop confidence and creativity, and critical thinking, as well as leadership and collaborative teamwork skills; prevents communication and social skills development through forbidding children’s free communication and interaction, keeping them mostly silent and under adult supervision; enforces competition, preventing collaboration; undermines children’s developing sense of autonomy and empowerment, instilling a deep sense of fear and shame through micro-control practices – preventing children from following their own physical wisdom around when to eat, drink, move around and relieve themselves, making all of these most personal functions subject to permission from external authority.

All of these features typify the “divide and rule” mechanism of colonial control.

Last, but far from least, through the use of curriculums, grades and tests, a worldview of “one truth” is asserted, instilling the belief that only one dominant paradigm can be valid.

Every statement, practice, thought and belief becomes either “right” or “wrong”. “Truths” associated with the dominant culture become “right” and any competing paradigm becomes “wrong”. We can euphemistically call this education, or we can call it indoctrination or, even more bluntly, brainwashing.

It was (and is) necessary to use force to make children attend school, since so many indigenous people (and modern families) understand that this kind of “education” is not in their or their children’s best interests. Historically, children were even forcibly completely removed from their families and communities in order to achieve this.

These days our thinking is already colonised to the point that most people mistakenly assume that school is the only way to get educated and that the education school gives is an effective path to liberation – so we obediently send our children, even when they suffer. It is important to realise that when “decolonisers” do nothing more than paste in indigenous languages, games, stories, songs and factoids to create a “decolonised” curriculum, this is essentially just a re-decoration to disguise the re-deployment of the school-tool in the hands of a new oppressor. To use the colonising system of school in the same format, simply changing the content, is a sneaky way to enculturate and indoctrinate children according to a new dominant paradigm. This is not actual decolonisation. As the saying goes, you cannot decolonise colonial systems. If we still read George Orwell’s

Animal Farm at school, our children might realise that the “decolonisers” are the new colonisers.

True decolonisation of education must change not only content, but also all processes and procedures that are inherently oppressive. Decolonised education must use different systems – systems that are not only respectful, rights-based and humane, but also consent-based.

If any degree of manipulation or force “must” be used against children or parents, to get children into school, we must ask why that is necessary if what is offered genuinely meets their needs and is truly for their benefit.