4000302260centerIP 3B3300095000IP 3B420003175000175001870710Lizahn Momberg216038944 Education 3450000Lizahn Momberg216038944 Education 331718253629024Philosophy and Didactics Assignment 1 Dr Babane450000Philosophy and Didactics Assignment 1 Dr BabaneUnderstanding of the concept ‘Africanisation of the curriculum:South African students and a small number of progressive academics began a campaign in 2015 to decolonise the curriculum at universities ‘by ending the domination of Western epistemological traditions, histories and figures’ (Molefe 2016:32). In particular the students have called for the end of domination of ‘white male, Western, capitalist, heterosexual, European worldviews in higher education and incorporation of the South African, African and global perspectives, experiences and epistemology as the central tents of the curriculum, teaching and learning in the country (Shay 2016). From these two quotes Africanisation of the curriculum concept from my perspective means that within the curriculum whether it may be for primary, secondary or tertiary school that ‘Africaness’ should be promoted with high regard. It should expose that African people helped shaped the history of Africa, being purposely change agents in Africa rather than just hearing of how the white man were the only change agents. It also means to me that the curriculum needs to be re-Africanised meaning that through the curriculum we can retrace to how African culture has contributed to the education system as well as to the building of Africa as a whole.
The curriculum should reflect African identity which includes indigenous knowledge, cultures, values and histories, bestowing to the students through the curriculum content. Also showing who those African people are such as Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Adiche and how these well-known African philosophers paved the way for the Africa to move forward. Therefore the curriculum should be decolonised ending the “white domination” of Westernised epistemology and implementing it with African domination and epistemology so that when students leave any sort of schooling career they will be left with being a proud African, filled with African identity and education thus meaning that they will have knowledge on how African people also have contributed to the present and still continues in contributing to the future of Africa as a continent.
African traditional persons:In the article presented by Menkiti there are two main differences between an African traditional person and a Western traditional person. Before reading the article I did not really think that there would be any differences because no matter how Westernised one can become, one always stays stationed to your traditions especially an African person. But the Menkiti presented two amazing differences of the two types of African ‘persons’. For the African traditional ‘person’ to be seen as a ‘person’ one is defined by your community and not because of your physical and psychological characteristic’s. African traditional persons are set to put their community primary and yourself secondary and believe that you are one with everyone else, they want equality/collectivism and not individualism. Therefore if you are not based as part of a community, the person won’t be recognised as an entity of a ‘man’. Also if you not respected by your community, understanding your roles and duties they will not regard you as a person especially when you have died because when you have lived you were not regarded as a ‘person’.
But if your rights were given to you by your community, those that are still part of the living will call on you for support in times of need because you were defined by your community as a man, your community acquired you with your rights and this is more effective than rights being given to because you are born. Thus if you were born and died young you are not regarded as person/man hood because you did not grow into a person therefore your funeral is not elaborate but if you grew into through aging of personhood then you funeral is elaborate and you part of the ancestors. The African traditional ‘person’s that are rooted from the community results that you are regarded as a ‘man’ therefore if you are not grown from the roots from your community whether it may be IsiXhosa, IsiZulu you are not regarded as person and more specifically a man. Because when rooted from a community, growing with the community and self you attain to become a man and this is only achieved once you grown older.
Therefore with age a person becomes a person as well as with the proper processes of the community. This is way a African traditional person is defined as a man and it is happening today for example in the IsiXhosa community when you reach a certain age and you are sent to the bush to be circumcised and followed by undergoing the proper rituals and learning lessons of being man, only makes one regarded as a man but if you had not been to the bush no matter how old you get, even if you have passed away your community would not respect you enough to be called a ‘man’ because you are uncircumcised or you may be circumcised in the hospital therefore you are referred to as ‘it’ which means you are not respected and you are not a deceased ‘man/person’. Also the second difference that the Menkiti presents that if you have not been incorporated in the processes such as the social and ritual transformations regarding in your community to acquire the important qualities you are not regarded as a person/man. For example this connects of the isiXhosa community also that if you were not circumcised in the bush you are not regarded as a man/person within your community/culture because when going to the bush you are exposed and taught certain lessons and do certain rituals that are not to be spoken outside the ritual area therefore these can be regarded as the social and ritual transformations that a person/man to go through to be seen as a ‘man/person and if you didn’t you are not a ‘man’. Also Menkiti also states that one can also fail within the African communities or be incompetent therefore going to the bush and being circumcised, learning those lessons and rituals doesn’t always make one a man only through time and aging it is seen.Western traditional person:Menkiti makes two contradicting differences between the African traditional person and a Westerner’s traditional person. He speaks about the Westerner’s traditional ‘person’ as a man that is only a man because of his physical and psychological characteristics. My understanding of what that means is that a man is defined because of his body features and traits.
He gets the title of a man by the way he looks, the type of clothes you wear and if you may have wealth that allows one to provide for a family or to begin a family. With Westerner’s traditional persons they believe in individualism of people. Westerner’s traditional ‘persons’ looks towards having certain possessions in order to be regarded as man/person. Westerner’s also has a minimal definition of a man presented by Menkiti which means that just because one as a soul and a nationality one is seen as a man and therefore individual life histories takes precedence over a communal world. With this Westerner’s takes into consideration that the individual’s rights that one is born with is more effective and that makes him a ‘man/person’.
Westerner’s does not believe in collectivism but rather in individualism therefore African and Western traditional persons are contradicting. Westerner’s does not believe that a communal world should take precedence over the life of the individual’s histories. Westerner’s speaks of that a man is a single individual and because of the singleness that he possesses it makes him a man. Therefore Westerner’s traditions persons does not take into consideration that being rooted in a community is important the only importance they take into consideration is that when you are born and has a memory, soul and will you are man. For example in the Coloured community, the Coloureds believe in individualism because they would rather prefer segregation than desegregation they feed on the idea of only caring about themselves because in the case of a scarcity of houses within the Coloured community there is no unity in fighting for houses but instead only a minority in percentages would go or sole persons would and fight peacefully for houses to be built. Also Western communities are viewed from individual to the society therefore individualism is more important that communalism.
Creative model ; also table of the Africanism curriculum: IDEOLOGY: AFRICANISMPHILOSPHOCAL ASSUMPTIONSCURRICULUM FOUNDATIONSCURRICULUM FOUNDATIONSEPISTOMOLGY SOCIETY/CULTURE THE INDIVIDUAL LEARNER LEARNING THEORY-What is knowledge?Knowledge is maturity. -Where does knowledge come from?Knowledge is acquired through experience. -Communalism chooses personhood.-Communities is primary to the individual.-Society are allowed to define ‘manhood’. -Dedicated to serve the community.-Community dominates over self-individualism.
-Rights of an individual is not primary. -Social constructivism.-Learning only takes place through co-operative learning. (Lev Vygotsky’s social cognitive theory)CURRICULUM COMPONENTS AIMS CONTENT ACTIVITIES ASSESSMENTS-Collectivism is the individual’s life belongs to not him but the group or society of which he is merely a part, that he has no rights and that he must sacrifice his values and goals for the group’s “greater good”. Frederick Douglas-The aim of civilized society is to do the greatest good to the greatest number, and because the largest number may derive benefit form the largest good the individual must subordinate his own desires or inclinations for the benefit of all. Mr Low -Ability/skill to collaborate with others.-Ability to transfer knowledge, analyse knowledge and then to do problem solving.-Ethnical reasoning and action.
-Various activities that promotes collaboration.-Including group/collaboration work in lessons e.g.
debates, discussions. -Assessments that stems on co-operative/collective learning.Link between Foundations and Components of Africanism curriculum:The interconnectedness between epistemology and aims, the Africanism curriculum stems its epistemology on collectivism.
Therefore the curriculum will be based on the beliefs of a community. The knowledge and content that will be given to the learners will be about communism that will be integrated with indigenous knowledge. Thus this indigenous knowledge is gained over a period of time, through aging (maturity), through experiencing because it is based upon an indigenous knowledge.
Also this curriculum is about the knowledge, beliefs and values of an African group which is only passed on through generations. Therefore because of this type of epistemology that the Africanism curriculum suggests it wants students to part of a communal group, and aims to bring about maturity and collectiveness in students rather than bringing about individualism within their personhood and to understand that there personhood needs to be subordinate to the “greater good”.The link between society/culture and content is that this curriculum suggest that one’s community is what defines your personhood. Africanised curriculum wants everyone to be equal therefore with this the community is allowed to define you and for that to happen you need to be one with your community, one needs to put the needs of the community primary to its individual’s needs. Therefore for this to happen you are forced to collaborate with your community, making sure all your communal duties is completed by your other communal members/residents within your society. Gaining the ability to work with others Ubuntu is the essence of being human. Tutu (2011:21) says that, in isiXhosa, people say, ‘Umntu ngumtu ngabantu’.
This expression is very difficult to render in English, but I could translate it by saying that ‘a person is a person through other persons’. Tutu (2011) I shall draw on Masolo’s (2010, 2004, 2003) articulation of the notion of personhood to argue that educating for ubuntu/botho should entail equipping young people with the kinds of attributes and dispositions that enable them to live lives that are anchored in communal under- standings of personhood and humaneness. It is my contention that educating the young people for ubuntu/botho is sine qua non to addressing the social and cultural challenges of contemporary South Africa, which continues to be marked by the absence of a shared moral discourse (Morrow, 2007). With this being said one can clearly detect that collectivism and communalism is what this Africanism curriculum is stemmed allowing to show that the students need to be taught through collectivism to bring about Ubuntu.
Then through collectivism learners should be taught the importance of collaboration, working with peers and exposing them to the skill of analysing knowledge, transferring knowledge to others through collective learning and problem solving. Making sure they acquire the skills of ethnical reasoning and action during when dealing with peers during co-operative learning or community members. Therefore communalism is important and it takes precedence over individualism “Ubuntu’: A Person is a Person through other Persons”The individual learner and activities are interconnected that with this curriculum the learner is obliged to serve the community and therefore has no dominance over self but rather community has dominance of one sell and also the rights of the individual learner is of secondary and rights of the community is of primarily. With regard to this the learner is of forced to do group work/interactions such as discussions, debates within the classroom contexts whether he/she may feel for individualism one can’t because of this curriculum it is of collaboration/communalism and this is based mostly on the Marxism ideology. Learners are made aware that working together as a team is of more importance. Therefore the within the community contexts it primarily focuses on activities that promotes equality.
The political party Economic Freedom Fighters follows this ideology of Marxism that fighting towards the government to make everything free for everyone (community) rather than individualism to prosper alone. Giving first priority to the community meaning first priority for communal prosperousness.The learning theory and assessments of this Africanism curriculum is that ……Implications of the African Curriculum in the South African context:References:Akku? B, Postmes T, Stroebe K, Douglas F. (2017) Community Collectivism: A social dynamic approach to conceptualizing culture. PLoS ONE 12(9): e0185725.
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