[lg policy] Teacher, don't teach me nonsense

[Harold Schiffman]

 Teacher, don't teach me nonsense: How schools use language to exclude
children

07 Sep 2016 12:06Carolyn McKinney and Xolisa Guzula
<http://mgafrica.com/author/carolyn-mckinney-and-xolisa-guzula>
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Schools and universities in post-colonial contexts still operate within the
logic of coloniality. This is illustrated by their language policies.
<http://mgafrica.com/article/2016-09-07-teacher-dont-teach-me-nonsense-how-schools-use-language-to-exclude-children>

Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o once described
<https://archive.org/stream/DecolonisingTheMind/Decolonising_the_Mind#page/n0/mode/2up>
language as “the most important vehicle through which that [colonial] power
fascinated and held the soul prisoner”.

He illustrated this with a disturbing account of receiving corporal
punishment, being fined and wearing a “plate around the neck with
inscriptions such as I AM STUPID or I AM A DONKEY”. His “crime”? Speaking
Gikuyu at his English medium school.

Today, decisions about which language resources should count in schooling –
as the language of instruction, a subject, or a legitimate language for
learning – continue to be informed by the relationships between language
and power. Schools and universities in post-colonial contexts still operate
within the logic of coloniality.

These realities have been thrown into sharp relief by revelations that some
South African schools discipline their pupils
<http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/malaika-eyoh-pretoria-girls-racism-schools-undervalue-blackness-focus-containing-us-nourishing-us/>
for speaking any language but English (or Afrikaans) while on school
grounds. At Cape Town’s Sans Souci High School for Girls, pupils obtain
“losses” (or demerits) for a range of “offences” – like being caught
speaking isiXhosa. For many of Sans Souci’s pupils, this is their home
language.




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