I initially wrote this post in 2019, before I had even thought about applying for a PhD. I still find it important today, perhaps more than then.
I arrived on the first day after cutting my hair the day before into an ugly short buzz cut, breaking the barber’s heart and my parents’ as about 7-8 inches of hair fell to the ground. The barber had initially refused to cut my hair. He thought it was a prank. My parents had asked me if I was certain that I wanted to cut my hair. I told them hair grows back. It was, after all, just hair. Or so I thought at that moment. Having inherited my grandmother’s hair texture, at a certain length, no-matter how much I combed my hair the soft bouncy incomplete curls would always show, a fact that caused some trouble for me during my time there. All the juniors had to cut their hair, because long hair would distract us from our studies. Every girl wore an oversized turquoise blue skirt with knife pleats, a white blouse, and a maroon cardigan. And To this day, I do not like turquoise blue. We all looked the same. Mimicking, and terribly so, the British middle-class education system, uniformity remains a foundational ideology of the Zimbabwean education system. Big headed almost bold girls, just becoming teenagers, carrying the hopes and aspirations of our families – we had to look the same. In the first year I shared a dormitory with about 40 other look-alikes. Long lines of rickety bunk beds lined the lengthwise walls while metal lockers with limited space and less character lined the width-wise walls. Beneath them were concrete floors that gathered dust easily and, in some cases, potholes developed from moving the beds. I hear, thankfully, that the floors have changed today.
In the mid 1980s, Zimbabwean Sungura musician Naison Chimbetu lamented in a song titled Arithmetic, ‘dai ndakadzidza, dai ndiri member’/ ‘if only I were educated, I would be a member’. Even though member translates better as “elite,” the word itself has a certain currency in Zimbabwe, both in officialise and slang (the head of a police station is sometimes referred to as the “member in charge”). It is not a lament without reason, it is a lament rooted in history. He pays verbal homage over the softly picked rhythm and melody of the guitar as he lists his family members, nuclear and extended, who are poor. His uncle is poor, his aunt is poor, his mother is poor, his father is poor. ‘Inyaya yehurombo handina kudzdiza/ because of poverty I am not educated’. Membership, or rather its absence, is passed down across generations. The song was later popularised by his brother Simon Chimbetu in the 2000s. It made sense then as it did in newly independent Zimbabwe. It still makes sense today. The simplicity of the rhythm, the repetition of the one-line chorus will pull on any heartstrings that understand it. He laments not being able to read and understand newspapers and thermometers. This is of course as metaphorical as it is literal. Education provides people with access to language, to jargon, to class – it really does feel like one is a member of something. A member of society, of the respectable, of the literate. A member.
I have spent years in search of this membership. I have come to the realisation that this membership is non-existent – it is a myth at best, a false hope at worst. It is not education that opens doors and opportunities, it is not education that gives one access to resources. It is, instead, structures and systems built into society and held by histories of selectively granting that access, that membership. Sometimes, education does open those doors, but it surely is not the only key, let alone the most important.
Do not get me wrong, sentences and ideas keep me awake at night. I am somewhat of a hopeless academic. I fall easily for classrooms and long academic articles. I cuddle books and have favourite theorists. I always ask for the counter argument. I make out with histories of school of thought. I bookmark long Twitter threads on complex pertinent issues and occasionally make some myself. I have my heart broken by the realisation that some academics are actually not as friendly or as fiery in real life as their work suggests. But I do it all again.
*
I am not certain I remember my first day of preschool, but I do remember my early days in general. I remember learning to read and write, learning to make friends, and asking unending questions. A lot has changed from that first institution to the hallways of academia I have walked down since. Similarly, a lot has stayed the same. There are the instructors and the instructed, the knowledge givers and the knowledge seekers, roles that are fairly set in stone and unquestionable – or so it seems. From the inside, which is where most of us exist, the role of education institutions is never questioned. They are a rite of passage, in fact access to these is a right. From the outside, the logic of education institutions does not really seem to go beyond, “this is something we have done since the beginning of time and that is how one becomes something or someone. But there is a lot to read behind the banal mask of education – all it takes is one situation that triggers the questioning for these ivory towers to come tumbling down.
Modern society has been built in a way that excludes those that have not received strict formal education. Perhaps Naison recognised this. Perhaps he knew that he was excluded from a member’s club. Education as we know it and see it today in Zimbabwe is a direct result of the colonial history and the present system of coloniality that spreads across the globe. Chengetai J.M. Zvobgo, formerly Associate Professor of History at the University of Zimbabwe, argued in 1981 that two features that underlined the colonial education system in Zimbabwe are that it was racially segregated and that education for the African majority was largely for exploitation. In 1899, the Education Ordinance of then ‘Rhodesia’ split the education system into two very separate and very distinct systems: one for the white settler community and one for the colonised majority Black indigenous population. The Ordinance handed over the education of the Black population to missionaries who received government subsidies and had to focus on industrial training for the Black population so that they would provide cheap labour for the white settler community. Beyond providing cheap labour, the education system imposed by colonisation hinged on ripping the African away from their culture, their language, and their ways of viewing and conceptualising the world. There was only one god, whose son was Jesus, whom although we had no connection to, he somehow died for our sins. We could communicate with him, but not our ancestors because that was the devil worship. There was only one language worthy of learning and communicating in, and that was English. The better English you spoke, the more civilised you were, a member of the higher ranks. Forget Zezuru, Kalanga, Tonga, chiNdau, chiKaranga, or Ndebele. Tayeb Salih , summing up the role of colonial education in Sudan, wrote in his novel Season of Migration to the North, “The schools were started so as to teach us to say ‘yes’ in their language…”
Seven kilometres off the highway leading to the Eastern Highlands, past a rickety bridge and at the end of a dust road, is Monte Cassino Girls’ High School. It was set up in 1902 by missionaries to educate and tame the Black African. The campus is built between two striking mountain ranges that lead cold frosty winds into the valley during the winter months. Its entrance comes in from the west side after crossing the Macheke River. The drive from the main road is uneventful. Occasionally there are people, adults and children, walking to their homesteads in the surrounding village. Outside the school faculty, many of the staff on the mission come from this area – from the ladies that work in the kitchen, to the men who work the mission farm. But there is a disconnect between the campus and the nearby village. Outside Sunday masses, the students and the people they share the space with do not interact. Set up as an industrial training centre as part of the Catholic Monte Cassino mission, the school has changed a lot from its inception. This is where I spent my first four years of high school. This is why I had to cut my hair.
Every morning was an early 5am start with a race to the showers for hot water, in the years that it was available, or simply for a shower space in the years when there was no more hot water. Then it was time for duties for those that had non breakfast related duties. From sweeping the dusty dormitory floors, to sweeping classroom floors with potholes in them, to cleaning the ablutions. I was a plate-washer in my first term, my bullies made a song about it, and so I remember that. My duty was post breakfast, which I could never eat anyway. Weekdays were dedicated to our education. Teachers would pour out knowledge in the form of dictated notes for us to memorise. Participation and discussion were very rare. In fact, outside of literature and religious (read Christianity) classes I do not remember having any discussion or critical thinking at all. Late afternoons were for the few extracurricular activities we had. For most of the first term, structured sports practice was reserved for those who were on the first team, those who had the honour to take the bus ride for sports games and see the outside world. The rest would sometimes join, or study, or read for fun. Unless it was club season. During the third term, public speaking, chess, Christian Life Community among other student societies would meet weekly. Almost everyone was in one club or another trying to secure a seat on the bus. Night study for the first two to three years had a timetable, Mondays was for Geography for an hour with a 15-minute break then we would switch to English. The millionaires who have praised the power of routine have surely never had it shoved down their throat in the name of education.
This was almost twelve years ago. I hear some things have changed. The floors are tiled. Some things have not changed. For example, the short hair remains. The short hair was reminiscent of the colonial mode of taming the Black child. Perhaps this explains my parents’ misgivings about my decision to attend this school over any other. Short hair was never dictated in schools that were historically for the white coloniser’s children, a difference my parents lived through. Even today historically settler European schools do not dictate short hair for their students who now include, if not as a majority, Black students. The early mornings and duties were to further socialise us into the roles that women play. The lessons, void of discussion and debate, were rooted in the tradition and culture that the elder is always right. And so here I pose again, what is the purpose of education?
*
Thousands of kilometres away from Monte Cassino, in a place that first awakened me to larger questions of educational politics, there is a history that a nation cannot forget, should never forget. White settler imperialists in Canada had a mission to not simply force Indigenous people to assimilate to a western culture, but “to kill the Indian in the child”. In 1884, an amendment to the Indian Act made it compulsory for First Nations children to attend day schools, industrial school or residential schools. Schools were constructed far away from the reserves that First Nations people had been forcibly moved to. This made residential schools the only viable option for most communities. After the Indian Act placed First Nations under the jurisdiction of the federal government and not of provincial governments, residential schools were funded by the government of Canada but administered by Christian churches.
Beginning June 2019 I spent an entire year on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada. I first found myself there when I further pursued my membership status that Naison sang about. I received a scholarship to attend one of a group of colleges with quite an idealistic mission, the United World Colleges. I was there now as an adult, no longer the idealistic teenager, I choose to face a less idealistic story of education rooted, also, in imperialism and oppression. In the Southern Gulf Islands, somewhere between Vancouver Island and Pacific mainland coast of British Columbia is Penelakut Island. From 1890 to 1978, the Catholic Church operated a residential school there. The school’s main mission was to teach Indigenous children domestic and manual skills, much like the colonial education provided by the church in Zimbabwe.
There are stories of residential schools that history has tried to erase without success. Children who attended this residential school, and many others in the country, were separated from their families and forced to speak in English. Their hair was cut under the guise of preventing lice, but really this was to rip out their Indigenous roots. Long hair, sometimes braided, often had a spiritual significance. Many children were sexually and physically abused over the course of their education. There is story told of a child who was severely whipped and placed in solitary confinement for taking apples at the residential school on Penelekut island. Numerous children died trying to escape by swimming in the cold Pacific waters to Vancouver Island. Approximately a third of students died from tuberculosis which was exacerbated by poor, unsanitary, and crowded living conditions. The history of education in this ‘developed’ nation is littered with the bones and stories of tormented children. Some never made it to adulthood, and those that did never became members of the club that Naison Chimbetu lamented in his song. Indigenous people are still second-class citizens in Canada.
There are long lasting threads of intergenerational trauma stemming from this ‘education’. According to UNESCO, about 75% of Indigenous languages in Canada are endangered. Indigenous spiritual and traditional practices were banned in these spaces and stigmatised in general society. This led to having generations of communities forcibly disconnected from their culture and from their language. This leads to contemporary First Nations communities still working to rebuild and reconnect years after the rapture caused by the education system. Although the last residential school closed its doors in 1996 (which in all honesty is very recent), many Indigenous children are still having to travel kilometres away to access education facilities. They are still not seen as members. Naison’s lament rings true even, in Canada; that membership access gained by education is passed down generations. So are the experiences of those that have suffered on the journey to this promised membership.
Who we are, our knowledge systems and identities, do not reside in a fixed state or site and they cannot be removed by consistent practice or by years in a classroom. We do not learn in uniform ways, and therefore education must not be administered uniformly. Strict forms of enculturation and rote learning do not open the mind, they do not free imaginations, and they do not allow for self-expression. I remember when at that all girl’s mission school we were told that we could only speak Shona during Shona language class and Shona music class (during which we were not allowed to speak anyway). English was the superior language and the constant logic was that job interviews were not carried out in Shona (perhaps in some cases they should be). Furthermore, that Shona and Ndebele are the mostly emphasised indigenous language groups negates that there are over ten other languages in the country (that those other languages were then not commonly offered in high school is also remnant of a colonial system of education and erasure). Rules and education systems cannot pull us away from who we are and how we learn no matter how much they try. They should not aim to. We spoke Shona whenever we thought we would not be heard by the faculty. There were prefects who were supposed to take down the names of those heard speaking in Shona. I was a prefect; I spoke in Shona to my peers. Institutions cannot erase who we are, they should not aim to. But if they do not allow for free minds., what then is purpose of an education?
There are stories of many who have impacted communities and societies while having gained knowledge outside academic institutions as we know them. For some it was out of having resources to explore beyond the classroom, and for others it was because they were shut out from accessing the classroom. One such famous story is that of William Kamkwamba, the Malawian innovator. After his family could not afford his tuition to send him to school, he used his village library to learn how to build a windmill from recycled material, and he powered some electrical devices in his family home. Perhaps this is what education should look like, providing spaces for individuals to learn what truly interests them and give them an opportunity to put it into use. Perhaps education should be about simply providing the resources, books and computers, and the foundation such as reading, to allow each of us to be explorers. Education should not be about belonging to a membership club. It should be an experience. Principle seven of the Declaration of the Rights of the child states that a child,
“shall be given an education which will promote his general culture and enable him, on a basis of equal opportunity, to develop his abilities, his individual judgement, and his sense of moral and social responsibility, and to become a useful member of society”.
If education, as we have it today, were truly a key, a membership card of some sort, we would have more employed graduates. In 2019 I was in Canada today visiting a family that took me in when I was that beady eyed idealist student in high school, because I was unemployed. 37 years under Mugabe, a self-declared pedagogue, the Zimbabwean economy deteriorated, and it continues to do so even after he is gone. The membership promised by education did not materialise for many, including myself.
I have an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree, by any standards, not just Naison’s, I am a member or should be. Yet in all the years I spent learning, the greatest lessons that truly count came from outside the classroom. In high school I learned of resistance to systems when I spoke Shona with my peers, or when I proposed a service project to bridge the gap between the campus and the surrounding village. In my undergraduate experience, I learned of erasure when the school website posted a white U.S. American man and declared him the Africa Expert (a title I do not think even an African can hold). In my master’s program, I learned that mental health is more important than finishing an assignment. If education as we have it today, were the only indicator of success, we would have more erased cultures, more forgotten languages, and a homogenous society. But Indigenous populations are still here, no thank you to residential schools and ‘education’.
Today I am making the case against education as we have it today, as it has been historically used. I am making the case for unschooling. I know I have just returned to the classroom to pursue higher education, but I can only hope that most of it is on my terms. I am still a hopeless academic, with the hope that education and academia changes.
Beyond the Digital 