Uncharted Waters: Hashtag De-colonising the Curriculum

It’s a phrase we hear a lot, but when we talk about de-colonising the curriculum, what do we really mean?

I want to spend a few minutes un-picking that question and ask has this, like so many other buzzwords, just become a hashtag in current educational thinking? A thing we make reference to without really knowing what, well, we’re making reference to?

Arguably, ideologies and pedagogical trends run the risk of dipping their well-meaning toe in the shallows, when we should be diving in the deep, un-charted waters, making implicit alterations to its chemical composition in order to enrich its very infrastructure. How does it help - if at all - to use this completely obscure metaphor? Let me try to elaborate.

To begin, I am very definitely not any authority on the subject, but I am a teacher, parent and academic. I have experience of teaching the curriculum, bearing witness to the curriculum my own children’s education, and inevitably have my own humble opinions on the matter. Without question, I believe there is an imperative to de-colonise our Euro-centric, predominantly white curriculum. Fully diversify the content of our English curriculum to include writers from all ethnic backgrounds whose narrative contributes to our human landscape and cultural consciousness. The writing and perspectives that collectively weave a tapestry of the English literary heritage come from a countless plethora of origins, but only some make it through the years and layers of history and political moderation into our education system. Am I in absolute favour of taking my toe out of the shallows and deep-diving for implicit alterations to the chemical composition of our curriculum? Oh yes! But as with most things in life, it really isn’t that straightforward.

First and foremost, I do not think that de-colonisation in any taught context can happen until we de-colonise our thinking; our approach as educators and as people. We must be ready to change ourselves and in the words of Professor Paul Washington Miller, (Head of the School of Education and Professor of Educational Leadership & Social Justice, President of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration & Management (CCEAM), and a member of Council of the Institute for Educational Administration & Management) “to deconstruct the dominant discourse.” In my words, stop paddling in the shallows of ideology and get your scuba gear on. It is not as simple as adding a writer of colour to ‘balance the books.’ When we engage alternative voices, we change the whole landscape of our understanding. We engage with a narrative of inequity, empire and disenfranchised communities. It is not adequate to add a British-African or Indian playwright for example, without teaching the full context in which their contribution is made. And this may be unsettling. Deep waters offer the most exciting diving experience, but are the coldest and most intimidating too.

When I taught a series of poems written by poets from BAME backgrounds to low ability teenagers in 2020, the results were both incredible and moving. Young people who had never engaged with poetry in their lives were inspired to write their own, bringing it to me in their free time. One young woman wrote a poem in English, a language she had only spoken for three months, about immigration. Inspired by another poet who had done the same, she used light and shade as a linguistic device to communicate loneliness and fortitude. She later won a poetry writing and (perhaps even more incredibly) recital competition with the same poem. They engaged with a narrative they had not before encountered and it changed them; personally, creatively and academically.

De-colonisation for me, is not simply about making additions or indeed, withdrawals. It is about broadening, embedding, demystifying and raising awareness. To use a painfully predictable and uninventive but ideal metaphor, a tapestry would surely be the most dull, uninspiring artwork if woven all in one colour. It would embody the characteristics required to tell a one-dimensional story, with no intrigue or variety. Yet to hang some golden thread over the frame would not only be a pointless and un-artistic embellishment, it would undermine the objective: to weave an intricate and meaningful narrative and tell a different story.

The process of de-colonisation within our curriculum and the way in which we approach education, cannot and must not be symbolic, but purposeful and determined. A deep-dive into un-charted waters where we might find humanity’s most authentic and diverse literary tapestry.