Towards decolonising teaching strategies: How to 'domesticate' and 'infuse' Western science with indigenous knowledge

Abstract

Through recent violent protests, university students across South Africa have demanded a decolonised curriculum that includes incorporating indigenous knowledge into it. In response to that demand I pursue three aims in this article. First, I examine why it is important to infuse both indigenous knowledge and Western science into the school science curriculum. Second, I discuss Jegede's collateral learning theory and Piaget's theories relating to cognitive development in order to explain not only how African learners learn science but, more specifically, the cognitive challenges they might face when the focus is only on Western knowledge. Third, I recommend some teaching approaches on how to domesticate and infuse Western science with indigenous knowledge in the science classroom. Accordingly, I present practical examples of the ways in which teachers can teach both bodies of knowledge to make science more meaningful and appropriate to most African learners. I want to stimulate thinking about the importance of indigenous knowledge in school science today, as well as consider the implications for a shift in teacher pedagogy that a decolonial curriculum requires.

Linguistic Registers and Citizenship Education: Divergent Approaches to Content, Instruction, Kichwa Use, and State Relationships in Ecuador’s Intercultural Bilingual Education

“…The experiences of those further to the state’s margins help to illuminate the forms and identities that institutions are foregrounding (Agha, 2012, 98). Sometimes, school curriculum stands in stark contrast to student protest to dominant forms of knowledge (Koopman, 2018; Mayorga Camus, 2020; San Pedro, 2015). Bilingual instruction may use ways of speaking Kichwa that are quite different from those of parents, despite ostensibly consisting of instruction in the same language.…”

The impact of the neoliberal technological epoch and Covid-19 on the decolonization of the university curriculum

“…All the knowledge generated over the many centuries by scholars in the West is what constitutes Western knowledge. According to Koopman (2018), for knowledge to be classified as "Western", it must be: (i) empirically verifiable; (ii) conform to certain ontological principles, theories and laws; and (iii) be experimentally consistent. In other words, Western knowledge is a combination of knowledge in the world (rationalism) but also knowledge of the world (empirical research generated through science).…”

“…Scholars such as Etieyibo (2016) similarly argue for the return of the adoption and appropriation of experiences, beliefs, values and modes of being that reflects the African ways of life. Many scholars like Waghid (2014), Koopman (2018), Le Grange (2016) and Etieyibo (2016) point out that the decolonisation project should not follow a radical approach -the total exclusion of Western knowledge from the curriculum -but a more moderate approach -a curriculum that has enough space for both Western and indigenous knowledge which should be taught as complementary, instead of opposing bodies of knowledge.…”