Bongani Shabangu
Late last year, the History Ministerial Task Team (HMTT) established in 2015 to investigate the feasibility of making the South African school history curriculum compulsory from grades: 4 to 12 recently published a progress report outlining the possibilities and tensions of making it compulsory using an Afrocentric lens.
The progress report on the implementation of history as a compulsory subject followed the suggestion made in 2018 by the HMTT that history should be compulsory and should be revised using an African-centered sparked a fiery public debate. The African-centered approach meant that the curriculum framing should also rely on Indigenous ideas of history which have been ignored in mainstream education for far too long.
However, the call to integrate Indigenous ideas of history has been mistaken for political symbolism – a move towards capturing the history curriculum to perpetuate political ideologies, as was the case during the apartheid epoch, when the government then used the curriculum to justify its Afrikaner nationalism and Eurocentric ideas of the past. This view carries some merit, but it also comes short by failing to provide an account of a history curriculum that can be insulated from the sheer magnitude of political manipulation.
There is an exigent need to make history compulsory for promoting Indigenous ideas of the past, which have been silenced for too long. Their silencing comes from the fact that Europe has universalized its ideas of history, where engaging and studying the past has to be understood from a singular framework rooted in Eurocentric ideas of history. Historical thinking skills are an example of historical ideas that are presented as a universal entity in the school history curriculum.
There are national variations in the adoption and use of these historical thinking skills, and in the South African context, the concepts contained in the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) for history (grade 10 -12) are identified as follows: historical sources as evidence, multiperspectivity, cause and effect, change and continuity, and time and chronology. It cannot be disputed that these historical thinking skills play an important role in history education, but the problem is that they have been made to be normative and universal which in turn negates the use of alternative ideas of the past rooted in indigenous ontologies and epistemologies.
The importance and shortfalls of historical thinking skills are well captured by Dr. Heather McGregor who is one of the global indigenous knowledge leading scholars in history education. In her article entitled: One Classroom, Two Teachers? Historical Thinking and Indigenous Education in Canada, she argues that “the historical thinking approach to history education [is important in that it] resists teaching [history as] a set of fixed narratives for student consumption. It is predicated on the idea that the stories we tell about the past—histories—are not facsimiles of the past, but rather constructions arrived at through imperfect human processes of interpretation”. Concurrently, she critiques the historical thinking skills for falling short of epistemic tools to interpret and analyse the histories of Indigenous people.
For instance, some elements of Indigenous history such as indigenous historical knowledge based on intuition and spirituality cannot withstand the idea of understanding and representing history in a chronological manner where the focus is mainly on change and continuity. This is because, for some Indigenous people, history is not just a series of events that should be studied chronologically, as the past directly influences the present or vice versa. This is epitomized by the renowned indigenous knowledge scholar Prof. George Jerry Sefa Dei who argues that “there is a continuity of cultural values from past experiences that helps shape the present. Similarly, the present also influences the narration of the past”.
Nonetheless, the recent report demonstrates and affirms that there is no single way of coming to terms with the past. For instance, it suggests that the curriculum should be informed by Indigenous archives such as Izithakazelo (clan praises) and oral folklores or ‘traditions’. These archives are important in creating and sustaining consciousness around indigeneity. Archives such as Izithakazelo have the potential to teach us about where we come from and offer us moral lessons.
An example of that would be in the case of the Shabangu people who are descendants of Ngwane and through their clan names, we can learn that they share a place of origin with the Mbhele people. The lesson that can be learned here is that the two groups cannot be in a relationship as it would be incest which is culturally and morally wrong. Thus, in history education, Izithakazelo archives can teach Indigenous moral lessons as highlighted above, and encourage Indigenous children to be self-conscious about their existence.
Ncheketo which can be loosely understood as folklore can be another indigenous way employed to teach history. These are historical narratives that tell us about the past and life in general implicitly and explicitly. Some of these historical narratives are narrated using animals as characters and humans. Due to their complex nature and hidden meanings which need thorough thinking, they can cultivate critical thinking in the history classroom. In other words, Ncheketo will open up the possibilities of thinking about history teaching where stories can be used to get learners to think critically, think deeply, and make links and inferences with the past, present, or future, and vice versa.
Having such ideas of history informing the history curriculum, which is offered to most Indigenous children, will make studying the past more relevant and relatable. It will challenge the history curriculum’s rootedness in colonial and dominant Eurocentric ideas of history. In other words, it will promote a more inclusive and representative history education that takes into account the indigenous ideas of history.
Therefore, the HMTT is moving towards the right path of practically decolonizing the history curriculum. This insinuates that decolonizing the history curriculum is not political rhetoric or a fallacy but rather a move toward a pluralistic curriculum. I am however not denying the possible unintended political consequences of such a move. What I have demonstrated is that it is indeed possible to integrate indigenous ideas of the past within the school history education.
* Bongani Shabangu is a Doctor of Philosophy candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand and a Lecturer at North-West University. His research and scholarship focuses on Indigenous ideas of the past and Inclusive Education.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.