Decolonization is the removal of colonial influences (ie Western or European) from a society. Often decolonization is a focus of education and involves the removal of Western influences from schools and curriculum. In this post, we will look at several different strategies used to decolonize the curriculum and they include:

• Talking Circles
• Curriculum Focused Strategies

The inspiration for this post is taken from two articles. “Pedagogical Talking Circles: Decolonizing Education through Relational Indigenous Frameworks” by Patricia Barkaskas and Derek Gladwin. The second article is “Emphasizing Multicultural and Anti-Racist Pedagogies as One Aspect of Decolonizing Education” by Rawia Azzahrawi.

Talking Circles

Talking circles are a tool used to get people to hear one another and provide an opportunity to share feelings about various topics. One of the goals of talking circles is to destabilize the European dominant narrative of schools. As with other aspects of critical theory, the goal is always to destabilize whatever is considered the norm.

Talking circles are also employed to shift biases about power, knowledge, and sociocultural beliefs. For example, talking circles may be used to discuss alternative views on family and sexuality. Alternative views on such topics are discussed in opposition to traditional views on these matters with an emphasis on showing how traditional norms oppress people who do not conform to these norms.

Several key components need to be a part of talking circles and they include situated relatedness, respectful listening, and reflected witnessing. Situated relatedness involves getting participants to place themselves within the context of others. In other words, stepping out of their worldview and seeing the world from the perspective of the person talking.

Respectful listening involves listening without judging and focusing on the other person’s lived experience. In other words, questioning or opposing the other person’s ideas and views is not acceptable when employing talking circles. Talking circles are a place for mutual consideration of people’s views.

Reflective witnessing encourages the listener to allow other perspectives while considering the feelings and thoughts they may generate. Awareness of others is a key component of talking circles and is a major focus of this approach in decolonizing.

Curriculum Focused

There are several curriculum-focused approaches to decolonization. By curriculum, it is meant the body of information that is taught within a classroom. The approaches are

• Contribution
• Transformation
• Social action

The contribution approach involves focusing on heroes, events, and holidays from other cultures. An example would be Black History Month in the US. During this month, there is an emphasis on the contribution to the US of African Americans, and major events in US history involving African Americans. Teachers can include contributions of African Americans into their curriculum, which serves as a way of reducing the European focus of the curriculum.

The contribution approach has been criticized for being a form of tokenism as it is an add-on rather than a major change in the curriculum. For many, it is not enough to include the contribution of minorities. Rather, the entire curriculum should be developed from an alternative perspective to that of the West.

The transformation approach encourages changes to the curriculum so that it is more inclusive and balanced. In other words, Black history should not only be covered in February but throughout the year with contributions of African Americans shared in most if not all subjects.

Transforming the curriculum involves a great deal of work. In addition, every teacher may not have the expertise or resources to include the contributions of minorities. Another question to consider is when is the transformation sufficient. One can always find another group of oppressed people who should be included. The danger with this is that representation becomes more important than learning pertinent skills to survive. If children lose basic skills to become inclusive they will not have a skill set to compete upon graduation.

The social action approach addresses inequality through encouraging collaboration among various groups. Often there are antagonistic views between races. The social action approach encourages people to set aside differences for the greater good. An example of this would be environmentalism or even feminism. Remember that this is being done to destabilize the oppressive way things are done now.

Criticism of social action is that it ignores social structures and power distribution. Those in power often do not collaborate with those without power unless there is a benefit. Furthermore, the focus on collaboration often leads to people thinking that working together can solve all problems

Conclusion

The examples shared here are just some of the ways that decolonization is taking place in schools. Whether this is good or bad is a personal decision. However, it is important to be able to identify this when it is happening so that there is an awareness of the tools used in this belief system.