pc26 postcolonialidad y educacion

7/24/2019 PC26 pOSTCOLONIALIDAD Y EDUCACION

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Pedagogy, Culture & Society

Vol. 14, No. 3, October 2006, pp. 279293

ISSN 1468-1366 (print)/ISSN 1747-5104 (online)/06/03027915

2006 Pedagogy, Culture & Society

DOI: 10.1080/14681360600891787

The practice of postcoloniality:

a pedagogy of hope

Jennifer Lavia*University of Sheffield, UKTaylorandFrancisLtdRPCS_A_189101.sgm10.1080/14681360600891787Pedagogy,Culture&Society1468-1366(p rint)/1747-5104 (online)OriginalArti cle2006Taylor&Francis143000000October [email protected]

This article is a collage of ideas and thoughts born out of a contrapuntal reading of the effects of

colonial imagination and postcolonial conditions on educational practice in the Caribbean. It is an

article which sustains a pedagogy of hope and which uses the epistemological space of academic

writing for conceptualizing postcoloniality as an aspirational project. In the article are presented

several narratives which are interwoven into conversations between historical and contemporary

cases of critical pedagogy. Three themes emerge. Firstly, diasporic considerations are considered in

relation to identity, where issues of translation and Creoleness are discussed. Secondly, educational

practice and the Caribbean problematic make the link with the third theme, in which a historical

case of professional practice is highlighted. The fourth theme proposes a practice of critical profes-

sionalism and juxtaposes that practice with the disposition of the subaltern professional. The article

concludes with a claim that critical educational practice is a postcolonial aspiration which must be

sustained on the hopefulness of the imagination of the Caribbean Diaspora.

Introduction

What hope of cultural confidence can there be for a society that slouched into Indepen-

dence after the death of Federation only to see its new beginnings, its youth and freedom,

captured by middle-class politicians trained to think, to eat, to drink, to drive, and to travel

first class as their colonisers did, and free to do so once they remain committed to financial

systems and categories they had no say in setting up and no voice in influencing? The time

has come for us to conclude that our independence is compromised and vulnerable and itis so because we go through series after series of external motions and development plans

without having discovered or seized the inner country whose fundamental reality the

creative imagination is never tired of intimating. What we need, in brief, is a complete

revamping of the system of education in the region in the light of our own answers to the

questions: What is education? And what is education for?. (Ramchand, 2000, p. 517)

Ken Ramchand has posed critical questions for rethinking educational policy and

practice in the Caribbean and for locating the creative imagination of the Caribbean

*School of Education, University of Sheffield, 388 Glossop Road, Sheffield S10 2JA, UK. Email:

[email protected]


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280 J. Lavia

as an essential element to reclaiming cultural confidence. At the same time, as

Ramchand continues, how does a society with a history of enslavement, indenture

and colonialism get to know itself? (p. 516). Like Ramchand, Lloyd Best (2004) calls

for putting something fresh on the table (p. 3) in the attempt to reclaim development

and reinterpret Caribbean civilization through the eyes of the Caribbean.Given these urgings, the aim of this paper is to provide, from the perspective of a

Caribbean educator and educational researcher, a response to Ramchand and Best

by providing a glimpse at what might constitute educational practice within the

Caribbean context. Four contextual points of clarification need to be made before

proceeding to discuss the substantive issues however.

Firstly, when I set out to write this paper, I was confronted, as I am always when

it comes to academic writing, with the tensions, doubts and insecurities that may

grip academics who have been schooled (and whose cultural base is) in a part of

world that is more valued for its exotic pleasures of sand, sea and sun. The Third

World academic faces the crisis of duality (or maybe even plurality when gender is

factored in), where the colonial experience of my Trinidadian roots struggles to be

articulated with the academic space from within the western academy, a space from

which I now write. I am assured however by bell hookss claim that dislocation is

the perfect context for free-flowing thought that lets us move beyond the restricted

confines of a familiar social order (2003, p. 21). Alas, Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999)

also provides a language of postcoloniality which resonates with the colonized and

allows the experience of being colonized to be privileged.

Secondly, I write from the perspective of being a Caribbean teacher. I write from

the perspective of concern, disappointment and frustration about globalized educa-tion reform agendas that are imposed in colonizing ways to tame the teacher (Ball,

2001, p.10). The plethora of education reforms that have characterized global educa-

tion agendas have also been imposed on education systems in the Caribbean in a way

that the limited spaces that may have existed for critically evaluating their relevance

to the local conditions are increasingly being subsumed by instrumental spaces that

are well packaged in global language. In this way, as Ball (1999) has argued:

The global trends of education policy which are currently in play have the effect not

simply of reforming teachers and reforming education but they are bringing about

profound shifts in the meaning of education, the role, purpose and values of the teacherand teachingthey are changing what it means to be a teacher and what it means to be

educated. (pp. 23)

Thirdly, I also write from a disposition of hopefulness. bell hooks, in embracing the

Freirean notion of hope which resides in authentic educational practice, contends

that educating is always a vocation rooted in hopefulness (2003, p. xiv). I am

inspired by the sagacity of the elders in the Caribbean who, by their commitment to

authenticity and integrity in their practice, have created a pedagogy of hope by the

ways in which they resisted forms of domination, aggression and ignorance.

The fourth point of clarification is about the contested notion of postcolonialism.

According to Shohat (1992, p. 100), there is need for flexibility in interpretations andanalysis. Given that the post-colonial did not emerge to fill an empty space in the


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The practice of postcoloniality 281

language of political-cultural analysis applications as Shohat argues, emphases on

postcoloniality as temporality, cultural expression or aspirational intent reside in the

social and historical contexts out of which the analysis emerges. Gayatri Spivak

(1993, 1999) is not lenient on the term postcolonialism! Spivak refocuses on colo-

nialism as a manifestation of imperial imagination and warns against any attempt todisregard the continued presence of colonialism and to locate it in the past.

For the purpose of this paper, postcolonialism is considered as an aspirational

project, intent on pursuing the hopefulness that can be found in the imagination of

the Caribbean Diaspora. Postcoloniality, in this sense, makes connections between the

past, present and the future as a necessary philosophical and methodological

endeavour of educational practice. In this light, Shohats (1992) construction is useful:

Flexible yet critical usage [of postcolonialism] which can address the politics of location is

important not only for reaffirming historical and geographical contradictions and differ-

ences but also for reaffirming historical and geographical links, structural analogies andopenings for agency and resistance. (p. 112)

The article begins with an exploration of the Caribbean as Diaspora in which the

complexity of defining the Caribbean is discussed. The article then considers educa-

tional practice in the context of the Caribbean problematic. The third section brings

to the fore a historical narrative in which the case of teachers in Trinidad and Tobago

is highlighted. The historical case highlights an example of how colonial imagination

was contested and resisted and in that process, how teachers constructed their images

of their practice. The article concludes with a proposition for considering a practice

of critical professionalism as an emancipatory project.

The Caribbean problematic: diasporic considerations

The term Caribbean emerged in the late 1940s as an economic, political and cultural

construct, symbolizing the totality of the region by including all territories in the

Caribbean Basin. In a seminal work, Report of the West Indian Commission(Ramphal,

1994), an attempt was made to facilitate interpretations about Caribbean civilization

which were based on our philosophical and methodological experiences from which

we would be the centre of the world (Best, 2004, p. 4). In summary, the Report states:

That fluent sculpture of time has already changed us; we the diverse people of scattered

islands and mainland countries plucked from far continents by cruel history, drawing

strength from our variety of race and culture and place of origin, but reaching beyond them

for other strengths from uniting elements. Historical forces and the Caribbean Sea have

divided us; yet unfolding history and that same sea, through long centuries of struggle

against uneven odds, have been steadily making us one. Now West Indians have emerged

with an identity clearly recognisable, not only to ourselves and our wider Caribbean, but

also in the world beyond the Caribbean Sea. (Ramphal, 1994, p. xxi)

Constructing, negotiating and indeed understanding identity in the Caribbean

context is problematic yet central to forging an emancipatory course for educationalpractice. Blake (2000) contends that defining the Caribbean is problematic and


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282 J. Lavia

proceeds to provide three separate yet connected perspectivesgeographic, cultural

and political. He states:

Upon reflection, there has been confusion even with a geographic definition ever since the

mistaken identity attributed to the area by the lost European mariner, Christopher Colum-

bus, as the West Indies or lands on a western route to the Indian subcontinent. (p. 46)

The problematic of defining the Caribbean is endorsed by Norman Girvan, who

identifies four broad notions of what constitutes the Caribbeanthe island chain;

the Caribbean basin; the ethno-historic zone; and a transnational community

(Girvan, 2000, pp. 3132).

The easy route of providing a geographical definition is that of Girvans version of

the Caribbean as the island chain lying in the Caribbean Sea. However, as these and

other writers agree, to limit the Caribbean to mere typological descriptors is to display

our geographic ignorance and cultural myopia (Girvan, 2000, p. 31) that has become

so prevalent. Girvans second notion, that of the Caribbean Basin, begs for deeperinquiry. This concept of the Caribbean is linked to Blakes political definition.

Conceptualizing the region as a basin has its roots in American machinations in the

regions which started from the 1940s and were subsequently given life by the American

government. Girvan expands on this notion by making reference to analysis about the

Caribbean proffered by Puerto Rican historian Antonio Gaztambide-Geigel:

The Caribbean defined as basin was the product of US expansionism. It was around this

time that the word Caribbean came into general use to refer to the region. If this name

was taken from one of the indigenous people of the region its superimposition on a zone

that was in reality extremely diverse and heterogeneous reflected an imperial conceptionand design. (Girvan, 2000, p. 32)

As an ethno-historic zone, a cultural definition could be useful. This approach seeks

to provide the historical location of the Caribbean and, in so doing, further distinc-

tions and points of demarcation arise. Within the Caribbean basin are French, Span-

ish, Dutch and English speaking islands along with remnants of a range of indigenous

peoples whose societies were disrupted by colonialism. In addition, the need for

cheap labour saw the forced migration of peoples from Africa, who were enslaved,

and indentured labourers. However, the cultural-historic perspective provides the

challenge to debunk the illusion of Anglophone Caribbean supremacy when in factthe region is far more diverse with the largest population being Spanish speaking.

Girvan (2000, p. 33) emphasizes that the formation of a common Caribbean psycho-

cultural identity that transcends barriers of language and ethnicity is a slow and

uneven process that has yet to realize its potential.

The fourth notion that Girvan advances supersedes the definitions of Blake and

involves the emergence of a broader socioeconomic conception of the Caribbean as

embracing the Caribbean diaspora abroad (Girvan, 2000, p. 33). Girvan argues for

attention to be paid to the growing source of intellectual, financial, political and

creative resources that are distinctively Caribbean operating outside of the region.

Any attempt therefore to define the Caribbean must incorporate issues of diversityand the socio-historical development of the region. To suggest that the name West


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Indies is a colonial imposition is a historical fact, albeit stumbled upon by the lost

sailor. Of equal significance is the name Caribbean, which from all indications is an

American postcolonial imposition. Yet it can be argued, like the case for postcoloni-

ality itself as aspiration, the term Caribbean has been used by intellectuals and think-

ers within the Caribbean Diaspora as a point of assembly for critical dialogic discourseabout redressing historical amnesia (Walcott, 1974), for negotiating meaning and for

invention.

According to Hall (2001, p. 28) the Caribbean is the first, the original and the

purest diaspora. It is a transplanted civilization in which everybody comes from

somewhere else. Thus, Hall (2001) says:

The histories of the migration, forced or free, of peoples who now compose the popula-

tions of these societies, whose cultural traces are everywhere intermingled with one

another, there is always the stamp of historical violence and rupture. (p. 28)

Consequently, translation, which Young (2003, p. 138) explains is a central activityand political dynamic of postcolonialism, forestalls any consideration of simply

constructing a different identity or constructing a different identity simply. Therefore,

constructing meanings about educational practice in the context of the Caribbean is

apposite if it sees culture as a source of identity that is not fixed, but is open to cross-

cultural borrowings, adaptations and reconstructions. As a critical practitioner and a

Caribbean soul, I would argue that the uniqueness and complexity of the Caribbean

condition is in its Creolization as process and product. I make no distinction here

between Creolization and hybridization.

In their work In praise of creoleness, Jean Benabe et al. (1990, p. 7) provide ariveting analysis of how translation, as a specific form of postcoloniality, has

provided an aspirational space for understanding Caribbean civilization. They write

thus:

Some of our traditions disappeared without being questioned by any inquiring mind. And

even though we were nationalists, progressivists, independentists, we tried to beg for the

universal in the most colorless and scentless way i.e. refusing the foundation of our very

being, a foundation which, today, we declare, solemnly as the major aesthetic vector of our

knowledge of ourselves and the world: Creoleness.

We cannot reach Caribbeaness without internal vision. And interior vision is nothing with-

out the unconditional acceptance of our Creoleness. We declare ourselves Creoles. Wedeclare that Creoleness is the cement of our culture and that it ought to rule the foundation

of our Caribbeaness.

Diasporic considerations, including claims about Creoleness, therefore, present

discursive spaces for considering the emancipatory role of educational practice.

Educational practice and the Caribbean problematic

According to Kemmis (1995):

Educational practice is a form of powera dynamic force both for social continuity and

for social change which, though shared with and constrained by others, rests largely in the


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284 J. Lavia

hands of teachers. Through the power of educational practice, teachers play a vital role in

changing the worlds we live in. (p. 1)

Educational practice in the Caribbean has been shaped by the relationship between

the region and the metropolitan centre and the way in which this relationship has

been resisted and mediated. An imposed curriculum as a manifestation of imperialistideology sought to ensure that the education of young colonials involved mastery of

colonial values and ways of being, limiting, excising and ignoring any semblance of

anything that might perhaps be considered as emerging from the historical and social

truth of the colonized. According to Freire (1985), in such educational practice, the

social structures are never discussed as a problem that needs to be revealed (p. 102).

Similarly, London (2002a, p. 56) argues that the aim of education under colonial-

ism was to provide the infrastructure for power and control in which the legitimacy

of the state would be established and the process of capital accumulation and appro-

priation would represent the status quo. Such an imperative was reflected in the typeand content of the education which was provided for the colonized (p. 56). Not only

is colonialism a form of direct control of external structures and resources, it is also,

and more importantly, a range of complex structures designed to generate concep-

tions of personhood and identity (London, 2002b, p. 95). Curriculum was designed

to perpetuate the ideal of cultural enlightenment which resided in the metropolitan

centre. In the case of the Anglo-Caribbean, Britain was the centre. The systems of

education and schooling in the Caribbean therefore exemplify a case of colonial imag-

ination (London, 2002a, b) where, according to Reddock (1994):

Colonial education was not meant to liberate the colonized, but rather was the meanswhereby the values and interests of the colonizers and masters would be internalized by

the colonized and perceived as their own. (p. 48)

The embeddedness of imperial schooling and the longitudinal struggle to exorcize a

pathology of Otherness is exemplified in four narratives which I shall use to highlight

the dilemmas faced by Caribbean intellectuals. I shall draw upon the writings of George

Lamming (1960), C. L. R. James (1969), Stuart Hall (2001) and Lloyd Best (2004).

Lamming (1960, in Ashcroft et al., 2006) states:

When the exile is a man [sic] of colonial orientation, and his chosen residence is the coun-

try which colonized his own history, then there are certain complications. For each exilehas not only got to prove his worth to the other, he has to win the approval of Headquar-

ters. In England he does not feel the need to try to understand an Englishman, since all

relationships begin with an assumption of previous knowledge, a knowledge acquired in

the absence of the people known. This relationship with the English is only another aspect

of the West Indians relation to the idea of England. (p. 14)

James (1969):

It was only long years after that I understood the limitation on spirit, vision and self-respect

which imposed on us by the fact that our masters, our curriculum, our code of morals,

everything began from the basis that Britain was the source of all light and leading and our

business was to admire, wonder, imitate, learn; our criterion for success was to havesucceeded in approaching that distant ideal. (p. 30)


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Hall (2001):

It is impossible to approach Caribbean culture without understanding the way it was

continually inscribed by questions of power. Of course, that inscription of culture in power

relations did not remain polarized in Caribbean society, but I now understand that one of

the things I was myself running away from when I came to England to study in 1951 wasa society that was profoundly culturally graded, which is what the old postcolonial society

I grew up in was like. (p. 28)

Best (2004):

I know I have to put something fresh on the table which I have arrived at after 40 years of

very hard speculation and revisiting all the blandishments of established theory. I would

say as an introductory statement that I think that the origin of the Caribbean disaster under

conditions of independence is the failure of self-knowledge. Though for good reason,

in that the interpretation we have of ourselves is always made from the third person.

Through the eyes of the Other. (pp. 34)

These four narratives provide some insight into the dilemmas and vicissitudes of

identity through which Caribbean people have passed and continue to pass (Hall,

2001, p. 25). It takes a long time for us as Caribbean people to come to realizations

about ourselves! Yet, the unity between the historical narrative and these four narra-

tives is that of the location of the subaltern (more specially, the subaltern professional)

in relation to the political responsibility of the postcolonial intellectual. I shall return

to the issue of subalternity.

The following historical narrative is deliberately inserted; it is intended to interrupt

what has been perceived as an absence of accounts of resistance to colonial imagina-

tion. I highlight this case as an example of the ways in which a specific group of subal-

tern professionals constructed their notion of their practice by creating new spaces

and reassembling new images that [reflected their] new political understandings of

the relations in which [they were embedded] (McCarthy, 1998, p. 46).

A historical narrative from Trinidad and Tobago: The progress of the

teacher, the uplift of the people1

Disenchantment among teachers in Trinidad and Tobago about the role and function

of the teachers union and the attempts by colonial education policy to undermine

their professional practice were not new to the teachers of the 1930s, 1940s and

1950s. What was new, however, was the extent to which they showed their discontent

by creating new forms of expression. These new forms of expression would have the

effect of laying the foundation for future political, economic and cultural traditions,

not only among teachers but also among the wider society. It is in this light, that a

study of the role and significance of the Teachers Economic and Cultural Associa-

tion (TECA) to national development and the creation of alternative images of teach-

ers professionalism become important. TECA also represents a level of teacher

activism through which a new culture for teachers was forged. According to W. J.Alexander (1982, in Oxaal, 1982), the organizations First Deputy Director General:


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286 J. Lavia

We were the victims, par excellence, of colonialism. We wanted to organize the teachers

effectively, to improve their lot economically while at the same time making a cultural

contribution to the community. (p. 103)

These sentiments are echoed by TECAs Director General, D. W. Rogers, and its

statistician, Donald Pierre, who formulated the following impressions about the

organization:

At the time of its foundation a number of younger teachers, who considered themselves to

be more socially conscious than the average, came to the conclusion that the official teach-

ers union was moribund. A common complaint was that it had little support from the

teachers and failed to give voice in a militant way to their grievances against the dual

system of education. The system of dual control of church and state had produced some

felt, flagrant examples of the victimization of teachers who failed to toe the mark according

to the wishes of the authorities and, of course, there was always the question of attempting

to raise the salaries and improve working conditions. In addition, there were frequent

conflicts between teachers and the denominational boards arising from diverging religious

outlooks among teachers and administrators. White expatriate instructors and administra-

tors, particularly in the Roman Catholic Schools, were often alleged to discriminate

against teachers and students on the basis of colour. (Oxaal, 1982, p. 103)

In an unsigned article in The Teachers Herald, which was first published as an

independent newspaper by Alexander Brown in 1933, the constraints upon teach-

ers were highlighted and cited as the reason for the emergence of new forms of

expression among teachers. According to the editorial, teachers were constrained

not to write to the press and not to take part in things political: they were being

regulated and circumscribed in every way as though they were unruly children(TECA, 1937, p. 29). Their journal (The Teachers Journal) had been suppressed

and the officers of the teachers union had become merely the minions of the

Director of Education so that teachers interests were sacrificed without protests

(TECA, 1937, p. 30).

It was not surprising, therefore, that TECA adopted as its motto The Progress of

the Teacher, the Uplift of the People. Evidently, TECA, which was registered as a

limited liability company on 3 November 1942, had been spearheaded by a progres-

sive cohort of teachers who had become disgruntled with the pedantic operations of

the teachers union and who found the reactive approach limiting to the profession-

alism of teachers. It is this limitation that prodded these teachers to form TECA as a

broad-based organization of teachers that emphasized the centrality of teachers in

light of the political, nationalist movement.

The significance of TECA is three-fold. In the first instance, TECA represented

defiance by teachers to be openly critical of colonial education. Secondly, it provided

and promoted economic self-reliance for teachers as a pillar of teachers emancipation

through the purchase of shares. Thirdly, TECA laid the foundation for new forms of

political organization and action; in particular, it emphasized the need for action

based on research and evidence.

Its aims and objects were based on six tenets. Firstly, TECA sought to bring closerties between teachers and the community in such a way that democratic structures


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would be forged in the coordination and synthesizing of economic and cultural

advance of teachers. In this effort, TECA aimed to stimulate the social progress of the

citizenry and thus, locate teacher professionalism within the context of relations with

the wider community.

Secondly, TECA was committed to promoting cultural advancement of its member-ship. It offered scholarships through which its members were able to pursue advanced

studies in the cultural arts. This is not at all surprising. Two of the main leaders, Rogers

and Donaldson, were cultural activists. In the case of the former, he was a prolific writer

of academic articles and papers, as well as fictional stories. In the case of the latter, he

was an accomplished musician. The heavy emphasis on the cultural arts led TECA

to adopt a third aim, that of establishing an institute of cultural studies which would

incorporate literacy, artistic and dramatic development of its members.

By extending the intellectual capabilities of the teachers to the community,

TECA undertook to provide extension classes which were community based as a

means of social progress of the people (Rogers, n.d., p. 2). A requirement for

membership into TECA was a commitment to giving back to the community and

using pedagogical skills to provide community-based education.

In addition to these aims, TECA produced a range of publications. Through its offi-

cial organ The Teachers Herald, TECA not only highlighted its cultural achievements,

but also displayed matters of concern to teachers, particularly cases of injustice. Its

editorials, for example, included pronouncements entitled The teachers struggle for

freedom (TECA, 1947, p. 6).

The ultimate aim of TECA was to bring to the fore awareness of the colonial

condition and to mobilize a sufficiently conscious, critical mass on the basis ofnationalism and West Indianess. TECA sought to revive and create a West Indian

tradition as a contradiction to the dominance of British Imperial culture. Both Rogers

and Donaldson were committed to creating a new basis for teacher professionalism,

which included the uplift of the economic status of teachers. As such, they believed

that the innovation of offering shares in an economic enterprise that was serving the

interest of the teachers would have been desirable to teachers and well supported.

This was not to be. The sale of shares failed to attract teacher investors.

In its prospectus on culture, TECA identified its intent to establish and promote

the advance of its members and to establish a cultural institute. To TECA, cultureincorporated a broad-based consideration of the performing arts, the literary arts,

sports and community-based education programmes. Through this holistic approach

to culture TECA displayed a commitment to creating teachers who, as part of their

professional practice, maintained unshakable ties with the community and whose

intellectual creativity was honed through political action.

In order to fulfil its cultural commitment, TECA established an Institute of Peda-

gogues (which was called the Council of Cultural Studies) that was subdivided into

four sectionsDramatic, Musical, Literary, Arts and Craftsand Sports sections.

Each of these sections laid the basis for what would subsequently become cultural

traditions that transcended the hierarchical structure of the school system. In addition,each sections programme was nothing short of a mandate to draw upon the rich local


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288 J. Lavia

culture that had been suppressed in favour of the dominant European cultural expres-

sions. The Council, therefore, provided for local plays to be written and performed

by locals so that they could be understandable to our local audience (Rogers, n.d.,

p. 3). It also promoted musical performances and resuscitated folk culture. Conse-

quently, a new movement was created among teachers to foster and collect WestIndian folk songs (Rogers, n.d., p. 3) and compositions that were indigenous to the

Caribbean region. TECA was the first organization to hold a national musical festival.

This event grew into a highly recognized, prestigious event that has maintained its

prominence among schools and community groups to this day.

The discovery of the artistic validity and prestige of local folk culture was not only

a product of a major transformation in social consciousness by the middle class as

suggested by Oxaal (1982, p. 105) but also it represented the emergence of decolo-

nizing strategies and a strengthening of the nationalist movement. TECA was not just

part of the Creole cultural movement as suggested by Oxaal (1982, p. 104); the

organization provided the intellectual leadership.

It is in the area of literary arts that TECA was able to publish a monthly magazine,

The Teachers Herald, that was aimed at directing and reflecting the opinion of teachers

(Rogers, n.d.); the literary platform was innovative and incisive. Not only was it an

arena for literary appreciation, it was also a medium for mobilization, consciousness

raising and political action. According to Rogers (n.d.) The teachers Heraldbecame

our organ, a journal of Peace, Truth and Purity (p. 5). From its inception, The Teach-

ers Heraldundertook challenging topics which were the subject of intense debate

within the discussion and reading circles that were formed as part of the literary plat-

form. Together with guest articles from Caribbean labour leaders and progressiveeducators as well as local playwrights, artistes and folklorists, TECA undertook a

comprehensive re-examination of the education system and colonial society. For

example, Norman Manley, the then Jamaican labour leader, wrote an article for the

magazine on The need for unity between intellectuals and workers. Extracts from

the African writer Nnamdi Azikiwes writings, Whither British Africathe progress

of the teacher, were also reproduced for the purpose of discussion.

Not content with the progressive displays of each section, TECA in establishing the

Council of Cultural Studies became involved in research through which education

policy was critiqued. Rogers (n.d.) reflects:This should be the Institute where all the heads meet periodically, not to harp over salaries

but to give their opinions, to exchange and to assess the value of the organisation, to check

upon the movement forward, to smooth our difficulties and to organise for the futureIt

shall seek to be in communication with THE PARENTS UNION [sic], to listen to its

complaints, etc., about the shortcomings of our Education System from the PARENTS

[sic] point of view, and to try, as far as possible, to point out these grievances to the Educa-

tion Board, and to direct our submission by our experience and ability to the Government.

It shall also seek to have a say in the choice of textbooks, type of curriculum, and other

such matters as affect the policy of our Education System. (p. 5)

It was difficult to separate the leaders of TECA and the members of the Council ofCultural Studies. It was evident, however, that the TECA leadership each also took


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on the leadership of one or more sections of the Cultural Council. What may seem to

be a case of too few hands having to do all the work may in fact represent a desire, on

the part of the TECA leadership, to experiment with different forms of organization

that would eventually bring about what their main focus wasnationalism and inde-

pendence for Trinidad and Tobago led by teachers.According to Rogers (n.d.) meetings [of the Council of Cultural Studies] were held

at the two chief proprietary secondary schools where our members gathered every

Saturday to be lectured to in Philosophy, Economic and Political Science (p. 7).

TECAs impact on society and the involvement and leadership of teachers in its work

created a virtual cultural renaissance. TECA was able to attract a wide cross-section

of urban society and did so through educational, cultural and political agendas.

Adopting a practice of critical professionalism

The choice of narratives used in this article is not incidental nor accidental, but serves

to interrupt the negation of the unrecognized accounts of the postcolonial subject.

Given the unfinished project of decolonization, the subaltern professional (Walker,

1997, p. 417) in the Caribbean cannot afford the luxury of ignoring the colonizing

effects of globalization and imperialism.

Challenging as it may be, I believe that in order for the appeals for self-knowledge

made by Hall, James, Benabe et al., Best, Ramchand (and other Caribbean elders) to

be satisfied, a curriculum for educational practice that is steeped in reflexivity and

critical inquiry is required. In this sense, professional development cannot be

divorced from issues of social justices, and as Walker (1997) proffers, modes of

professional development must incorporate a form of professional development

which involves continuous shifting between trying to alter a social situation in ways

which bring us closer to living out our democratic values and revisiting what ought to

be done, while simultaneously interrogating what we mean by social justice (p. 411).

Ronald Barnett (1997), in articulating a critical perspective of professionalism

based on thinking, being and doing, writes thus:

The term critical professionalism is tautologous or it ought to be so. The idea of profes-

sionals contains the sense of persons able and willing critically to evaluate the professional

practices with which they are identified. The practices will include those of others in theprofessions; but in the first place, it includes those of themselves. We look to professionals

critically to evaluate their own activities. (p. 132)

Critical professionalism in this context means developing a commitment to exposing

forms of understanding, meanings and expression about the complexities inherent in

the impact of colonial imagination on teacher professionalism. Critical professional-

ism accepts teaching as a political act, elaborates the centrality of the teacher in rela-

tion to society and embodies the notion of a critical pedagogy. It proceeds on the basis

that teaching is a paradoxical profession and places emphasis on the potential of

human agency to generate an emancipatory disposition that would transcend thepersonal and professional. Thus, critical professionalism is an exercise in critical


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290 J. Lavia

praxis, human agency and the construction of political identity and action. Therefore,

the postcolonial project in which educational practice must be engaged requires a

radical framework for radical practice since legacies of colonialism are not easily

thrown off. Freire argues that one of the legacies of colonial education is a curriculum

of passivity, conformity and regurgitation, not only for students but also for theteacher. The student who has been imperially schooled is expected to become the

teacher who replicates the process. Consequently, one of the legacies of colonialism

is acriticality, a condition of a culture of silence. Freire (1985) explains that this

mode of culture is a superstructural expression that conditions a special form of

consciousness. Thus, acriticality is a cultural form that gives rise to different forms

of being, of thinking, of expression (p. 72).

In recognition of the problematic of acriticality, Spivak (1993) in her work

addresses this notion of silence in the context of the need to develop appropriate

language and forms of expression to appropriately locate the postcolonial subject. She

offers us the notion of the subaltern to encompass a range of different subject posi-

tions which are not predefined by dominant political discourses (Morton, 2003,

p. 45). In the text Can the subaltern speak? Spivak (1993) challenges Gramscis

notion of the subaltern on the grounds that it instrumentalizes subaltern groups and

constructs social and political practices of the subaltern as unsystematic and incoher-

ent. Indeed, rooted in Spivaks argument is the centrality of agency in which the

notion of re-presentation emerges as forms of resistance and identity emerge as

processes and products of that resistance.

Freire provides a process! Conscientization (critical consciousness) emerges out of

a commitment to change. It resides in the practice of cultural action for freedom; itemerges from a perspective informed by postcolonial awareness of the need to create

justice in education (hooks, 2003, p. 7); it arises out of a commitment to critical

dialogue, action and research for education. Freire (1985) reinforces the point that

critical consciousness is brought about, not through an intellectual effort alone, but

through praxisthrough the authentic union of action and reflection (p. 87). Thus,

it is not sufficient for us in and of the Caribbean to merely identify the problem of

imposed, externally funded educational development, but also to act in ways that

allow us to develop the courage to transgress when faced with social injustices

(Walker, 1997, p. 417).Educational practice in this light requires a practice of critical professionalism

consonant with educational values that inform teachers work. Carr and Kemmis

(1986) claim that fully developing a strategic view of the profession as socially, histor-

ically and politically placed is required. The profession cannot seal itself off from the

concerns and interests of its client groups and, if it is to exercise its critical function

it must engage all stakeholders in the decision making process; a task that is decidedly

complex and intrinsically political (Carr & Kemmis, 1986, p. 222). Consequently, I

believe that the radical framework required for educational practice to genuinely

constitute a postcolonial (emancipatory) project is one in which the freedom of the

profession exists within a community framework, with political consciousness emerg-ing out of that process of critical professional praxis(Carr & Kemmis, 1986, p. 222).


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Conclusion

In this paper I have argued for putting something new on the table with regard to

educational practice in the context of the Caribbean Diaspora. In so doing, I have

proposed that such a project can be constituted in light of lessons learned from the

experience of being transplanted, translated and transformed by colonial imagination.

I privilege the notion of Creoleness as a specific and unique re-presentation of the

present history of social and political practices of Caribbean peoples. In terms of

methodology, I have proposed that a practice of critical professionalism connects the

theoretical (and historical) understanding of educational practice with practical

action and can and will create unique spaces for new solutions to emerge to solve the

problems of Caribbean peoples. Caribbean education therefore requires a new type

of teacher; a teacher whose practice exudes courage, historical acuity, love of the

Creole self and community, belief in the spirit of the peoples of the Caribbean to

survive, resist and create, and hopefulness in the face of globalized agendas that payscant courtesy to indigenous knowledge and practices.

In concluding this article, I am reminded of Alasdair MacIntyres remark that the

tasks of teachers have become even more difficult (MacIntyre & Dunne, 2002,

p. 1). MacIntyre is critical of the trend to separate the role of teachers, in which

social compartmentalisation delimits personal and professional roles (p. 1). The

phenomenon of social compartmentalization is alien to a disposition of teaching for

community in which the unity of the personal and professional converges as political

practice.

The various narratives that I have illustrated present apposite cases where self-

reflective praxis (critical consciousness) is evident in their philosophical and method-

ological intent. I believe that educational practice in the context of the Caribbean

requires educators to have more conscious engagement with their own practice. It

requires reclaiming our professional authority and confidence and seizing unsus-

pected opportunities for political theorizing and action (McCarthy, 1998, p. 46).

My commitment therefore resides in the centrality of the teacher and the relation-

ship between teacher and community. Critical professional practice means making

practical sense of self and society and adopting an individual and collective stance of

hopefulness and the courage to speak out. According to Barnett (1997):

Not to speak out would be to deprive society of a voice that has authority. A silence of that

kind would lessen the extent to which society might be informed on important matters; it

would reduce the possibility of the achievement of a learning society. To the extent that

professionals remain silent to that extent the civil realm is underdeveloped. Professionals

have the cognitive and intellectual capital with which to advance citizenship through the

understanding that they can impart to the wider society. Their authority being sanctioned

by society, they have a responsibility to advance the well being of society wherever they can

within the limits of that authority. (p. 134)

Developing a critical educational practice therefore is a postcolonial aspiration; it

requires a curriculum from an emancipatory interest, and it requires a pedagogy of

hope which draws upon evidence provided from within the contested and mediatedbowels of the imagination of the Caribbean Diaspora.


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292 J. Lavia

Note

1. This historical narrative is an excerpt from Lavia (2004).

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