The Village Boy's Rude Awakening

My Academic Curerre

Abstract

Utilizing Pinar's method of curerre—regressive, progressive, analytical, and synthetic, this article uses the experiences of the author as a student in colonial Zimbabwe to reconceptualize and to have a complicated conversation about the curriculum. It is a narrative of the author's encounter with colonial education and western epistemology and ontology. The article presents the curriculum as lived experiences, and not simply a course of study. The colonial curriculum not only determined the success and failure of the author, but uprooted him from his culture, and imposed a feeling of psychological inferiority. The article explores and examines a number of curriculum issues— the medium of instruction, pedagogy, and content of the curriculum. The autobiographical reflections of the author's educational experiences expose the harmful effects of the colonial curriculum and leverage these reflections as the impetus for curriculum transformation. The colonial curriculum alienated the author from his culture and created an identity crisis. Consequently, the past and the present shape the author's understanding of the curriculum, and his resolve to fundamentally change the curriculum to reflect the context of the learners. Therefore, the article is a critique of western epistemology and ontology and cast doubt on the benefit of training African scholars and educationists in universities in the West.