Do we really practice the contents of our teaching in the way we teach? This is a toolbox of useful methods and classroom activities.
Do you have any useful materials, inspiring texts, participatory teaching methods you can share? Simply drop us a message at knowledges [at] convivialthinking [dot] org
Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures
A collective of colleagues in Musqueam land is doing some fascinating work on the conceptualization of education, convictions of knowledge, identity and understanding.
Go and have a look at their pedagogical experiments.
Where does “development” begin?
Why not start talking about beginnings of “development” with this powerful excerpt from Aime Cesaire’s “Discourse on Colonialism” rather with the Truman speech?
They talk to me about progress, about “achievements,” diseases cured, improved standards of living.
I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out.They throw facts at my head, statistics, mileages of roads, canals, and railroad tracks. I am talking about thousands of men sacrificed to the Congo-Ocean.I am talking about those who, as I write this, are digging the harbor of Abidjan by hand. I am talking about millions of men torn from their gods, their land, their habits, their life-from life, from the dance, from wisdom. I am talking about millions of men in whom fear has been cunningly instilled, who have been taught to have an inferiority complex, to tremble, kneel, despair, and behave like flunkeys.
They dazzle me with the tonnage of cotton or cocoa that has been exported, the acreage that has been planted with olive trees or grapevines.I am talking about natural economies that have been disrupted – harmonious and viable economies adapted to the indigenous population – about food crops destroyed, malnutrition permanently introduced, agricultural development oriented solely toward the benefit of the metropolitan countries, about the looting of products, the looting of raw materials.
Global Inequality Excercise
The excercise highlights the disparities of income, wealth, poverty and maldistribution. The added plus is tha[t when using chocolate bars to symbolise GDP, after the end of the activity usually a lovely dynamic of solidarity and redistribution happens when students share chocolates among each other.
A description of the excercise that can be easily adapted can be found here.