Feature Article of Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Columnist: Kwarteng, Francis

When men are intellectually greater than others, we learn from their utterances; when they are morally better than others, we learn from their lives (See Sylvan M. Jacobs James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey: An African Intellectual in the United States, published in the 1996 edition of The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 81, No. 1-4, p. 47-61).

That sets the tone for todays deliberation. That having been said, although Paulo Freires radical methodological approach to education is essentially Marxist, an ideological strain antithetical to Afrocentric theory, yet, like other progressive ideas with immense transformative social and political value, there exist important theoretical overlaps with Afrocentric pedagogy. That is, Freires critique of the so-called banking model of education, a foundational philosophy of Eurocentric pedagogy, frees studentship from the hegemonic endometrium of cranial emptiness as well as from the intimidating guillotine of teacherhood, an idea, which, in theory, is considered superior to studentship. This poses a serious problem for us because a teacher, like the student, learns along as he or she impacts knowledge. This also implies functional simultaneity between teacher and student. Therefore, technically, Freire believed, very strongly, that interpreting learner as a mere symbol of empty vessel, a theoretical borehole demanding that the teacher, supposedly the more knowledgeable of the two, fills it up, made the learner a necessary object in a relationship of unequal dichotomy with the teacher.

Admittedly, this ideological confluence accommodates Afrocentric pedagogy and Freirean critical pedagogy. As well, lets stress here that no unlettered individual walks around bearing the zero-weight of cranial emptiness, because, sensory perception involving taste, smell, sight, touch, hearing, and umami, alone, could potentially fill parts of the human brain to the brim with useful information without instructional benefit of teacher-learner relationship. Still, the tabula rasa of Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, and Sigmund Freud has come under serious scientific revision (See Fiona Macraes article Babies Remember Music They Heard in the Wound up To Four Months after They Are Born, published on MailOnline, Jan 30, 2014). In addition, this Eurocentric theory on empty vessel, is, essentially, antithetical to Afrocentricity, this, in another creative context, which is that it also potentially distorts the ideological fulcrum of Allan Blooms controversially influential work, The Closing Of The American Mind, a book, which, among other things, sees relativism, or multiculturalism, as a concept detrimental to intellectual openness, community, and psychological development. Pointedly, we have belabored these points before but still needed an informational reprise to explore additional didactic questions.

That is, Bloom makes no room for critical thinking! This is exactly what our newly-proposed educational system in Africa should strive to avoid, as stifling critical thinking spells disaster for developmental retrogression, among others. Nonetheless, not everyone agrees with him. Caruthers Intellectual Warfare; Williams Destruction of Black Civilization; Asantes The Painful Demise Of Eurocentrism; Sefa Deis Teaching Africa: Towards A Transgressive Pedagogy, Indigenous Knowledges In Global Contexts, and Schooling And Education In Africa; Bikos I Write What I like; Thiongos Moving The Center and Decolonizing The Mind; Woodsons The Mis-education Of The Negro; Lomoteys essay Independent Black Institutions: African-Centered Education Models and book Alternative Educational Institutions; Shujaas Too Much Schooling: Too Little Education; Shockleys The Mis-education Of Black Children, all, one way or the other, make a strong moral and political case for African intellectual and cultural independence, national development, scientific and technological advancement. In fact, Shujaas analytic dichotomy between education and schooling is equally provocative yet ideologically apt!

Further, another essay, Culture, Power, And Education: The Philosophies And Pedagogy Of African-Centered Educators, Vol 3 (3), 2011, p. 54-75, authored by Darrell Cleveland and Kmt Shockley and published in the International Journal Of Critical Pedagogy, mounts one of the strongest and most comprehensive arguments yet in favor of Afrocentric pedagogy. But then again, going back to Allan Bloom, we may want to add contrary to Blooms negative assertions about relativism, that, however one looks at it, the idea, undoubtedly, is tied inseparably to political and moral questions of multiculturalism. Then, it is also the case that relativism does not inhere in such religions as Christianity and Islam, arguably two foreign forces challenging the moral authority of African culture. Ironically, both religious systems obtain in the body politic. In fact, both claim to be vessels replete with cultural universalism as far as morality and truth go, yet are militantly, hypocritically intolerant to a fault. That notwithstanding, the brutal history of slavery and racism, of political Islam and Christian fundamentalism, in particular, and their accompanying religious terrorism belittle any hallowed claims to tolerance.

Arguably, to a certain extent, religiosity, particularly of Islam and Christianity, may be said to constitute the bane of many a society. Ethnocentrism, corruption, racism, political elitism, and classism are the other epidemiological ills of todays society, of modernity. In addition, religious dogma and apeirophobia, a kind of phobia including fear of the afterlife, and asceticism, among other godly sanctioned dogmata, have replaced critical thinking, in any case, assuming the dwarfed stature of unquestioning mediocrity and mental repose. In other words, the spasmodic, sibilating voice of the shadowy pastor, prophet, or evangelist has now usurped the authoritative tenor of critical thinking. After all, as far as physiological and anatomic functionality goes, what exactly did the Christian God or Islam Allah intend for the brain when he encased it in cranial confinement? Was the brain to think, luxuriate, or idle about in the cerebrospinal fluid? Critical thinking, therefore, requires intellectual balance between theory and praxis, between healthy superstition and religiosity, between spirituality and materialism, between gnosis and empiricism.

What do we have to say about critical thinking beyond its narrow Eurocentric definition? Well, critical thinking means adding value to our raw natural wealth (mineral and flora); critical thinking means patronizing African-made goods and services; critical thinking means loving ourselves as a people, first and foremost, and then loving the rest of humanity; critical thinking means GDP does not tell us everything (See Fioramontis Gross Domestic Problem: The Politics Behind the Worlds Most Powerful Number and The Numbers Rule the World: The Use and Abuse of Statistics in Global Politics; see also Boyles The Tyranny of Numbers and Kumi Naidoo and others on Youtube (I Cant GDP) courtesy of Starchild, one of our persistent and loyal readers). Critical thinking means using our natural resources to benefit the people of Africa; critical thinking means using our God-given talents and psychological resources to prevent others from manipulating us to their sole benefit; and critical thinking means we avoid uncritical imitation of foreign unhealthy cultural habits, etc.

Also, critical thinking means celebrating ethnic, cultural, linguistic, political, religious, regional, ra
cial, and ideological differences, for differences, we firmly believe, constitute the creative hallmarks of nature. Thus, we should learn to institute diversity in the body politic as iradal cultural stamp of harmony, of unity. Namely, its a paradoxical statement of fact that differences ought to be seen as a unifier of contradictions. After all, was it not Kwegyir Aggrey, the Father of African Education, who said: You can play a tune of sorts on the white keys, and you can play a tune of sorts on the black keys, but for real harmony you must use both the black and the white? We emphasize that the white keys and the black keys should be analytically construed beyond the narrow definitional strictures of biological racialism. Therefore, as the parable goes Aggrey did not see harmony as an acoustic temperamental response to notational separatism.

Originally posted here:
The Power of Critical Thinking (lV)