Nyansapo (The Wisdom Knot)

Toward an African Philosophy of Education

Kwadwo A. Okrah

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780415947336
• eBook ISBN: 9781135938017
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This study examines the issues of indigenous philosophies, which are embedded in different aspects of socialization process among the Akan of Ghana. The research explores the possibility of forging a new future that builds on the positive aspects of their past and present and on carefully chosen ideas, methods and technology from abroad.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

OVERVIEW

After Rattray had studied the different aspects of the culture of the Asante of Ghana and satisfied himself with the values and potency of the culture of the Asante people, he regretted that indigenous people like these should be made to discard their past. In his anxiety he postulated as follows:

Guard the national soul of your race and never be tempted to despise your past. Therein lies the sure hope that your sons and daughters will one day make their own original contributions to knowledge and progress. Thoughtful Englishmen can never wish that free peoples such as you, members of a diverse and widely scattered commonwealth, should try to become wholly Europeanized. In your separate individualities and diversities lies your ultimate value to the Empire and the world. (Rattray, 1927)

The above quotation from Rattray is relevant in an attempt towards designing a system of education in Ghana that warns against despising our past. An attempt towards a construction of indigenous philosophy of education should also endeavor to counteract the aspects of colonial system of education that performed the function of producing loyal British subjects. My reference to the colonial education system in Ghana finds expression in the fact that it provides the background for the current educational system. Among other characteristics, the education system in Ghana, like other African countries, fashion on the evidence that mastery of the Anglo-culture, particularly mastery of the English language, has become one of the most important criterion of upward social mobility through education (Miller, 1989). In effect therefore, the cultural scene of Ghana today evinces a gross and undue affectation by Western culture and there arises the necessity more than ever before for a stronger defense of our culture in this stupendous rush of change in our modern times (Bedu-Addo, 1981).

This book examines the issues of indigenous philosophies that are embedded in different aspects of the socialization process in African societies. It particularly investigates in detail the Akan of Ghana and their wise lore as they are passed on by past generation to maintain and restore social equilibrium. The discussion illustrates how Akan philosophies are expressed orally through the vehicle of proverbs, riddles, idioms, folk tales, myths, songs and games. The socialization processes and other practices that have equally been focused on include naming and names systems, family systems and marriage, puberty rites and child rearing practices. Consequently, the philosophies and cultural values behind these practices and rituals are “reclaimed,” interpreted and used as a “concentric (known to unknown) approach in learning.” Such an approach to education can arouse children’s interest in the classroom. Thus, an attempt is made to situate the various indigenous philosophies discussed in the heart of formal and informal educational discourse both in the modern school situation and in actual life situation.

The discussions in this book will both help us understand the common principles that underlie all educational undertakings and to understand the different means that human beings have devised to accomplish these principles. This awareness and understanding of how Africans educated their children, both in terms of the goals that guided their educational system and the means that they employed to achieve these goals may well help modern educators to develop a more critical and sensitive understanding of the educational goals and methods that need to be used in our modern societies depending upon available resources. It will also establish a discourse between traditional culture and modern classroom “school” education.

Another feature that emerges from the discourse is a correction of the erroneous assumption by many that “education” and “schooling” are synonymous constructs, an assumption that has led them to dramatically distort the reality of the African experience. In the analysis by Reagan (1996) he has posited that, “the study of traditional, indigenous educational practices has been reduced to the study of “socialization” and “acculturation” and has been left to anthropologists and others.” In furtherance to his claim, he maintains that, “because scholars have tended to equate “education” with “schooling” and because they have consistently focused on the role of literacy and literary tradition, many important and interesting—indeed fascinating—traditions (especially African traditions) have been seen as falling outside the parameters of “legitimate” study in the history and philosophy of education….” I also share Babs Fafunwa’s (1974) regret that “because indigenous education failed to conform to the ways of the Westernized system, some less well-informed writers have considered it primitive, even savage and barbaric. But such contentions should be seen as the product of ignorance and due to the total misunderstanding of the inherent value of informal education.

In sum, this book investigates the different aspects of Akan lifestyle—political, social and economic activities including aspects of their oral tradition. Philosophies behind these activities have been extracted and adapted in the modern educational system, thus, adding another dimension to the already existing literature on Akan culture and Education in Ghana. Consequently, the conclusions of this book intend to bring some ideas to bear on the Ghanaian curriculum for schools.

WHY AKAN FOR THE CASE STUDY?

The Akan of Ghana was the targeted population in this study. The choice of the Akan for the study rests on a number of reasons including the following:

1. Akan is the largest ethnic group in Ghana.

2. The Akan culture and traditions are similar in scope and practice to other Ghanaian cultures and in fact, the West African sub-region, especially the Mende of Sierra Leone, the Ibo and Yoruba of Nigeria and others.

3. As a native of Akan, not only does my cultural background give me an added advantage to research into the socialization and educational process of the people, I also studied the culture to the college level and served as the Presidential state linguist of the country in 1992.

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

The philosophical foundation and theoretical approach that guide this book is Dewey’s “social construction of knowledge.” John Dewey, in article II of his “Pedagogic Creed” (1897) opines:

Education is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.

That, the school must represent present life—life as real and vital to the child as that which carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground.

That, education that does not occur through forms of life, forms that are worth living for their own sake, is always a poor substitute for the genuine reality, and tends to cramp and to deaden (p. 115).

According to Dewey, social construction of knowledge should be prime in all educational enterprise and that learning must be tied to a concrete social situation (Spring, 1994). Also, individual subjects must be integrated into the teaching of all other subjects so that all the knowledge learned in these disciplines would be tied to a particular social situation.

Another guiding principle of this work is that research should benefit the people who are providing information. Too often, researchers have exploited the good will and generosity of their informants, giving little or nothing in return. Therefore, ethical research, hierarchical education, and shifts initiative, should benefit and entrust power onto local people (Chambers, 1983).

On the methodological level, the theoretical grounding of “interpretive approach” could be a heuristic contribution to an objective investigation into the culture and philosophies of Akan of Ghana. In applying the interpretive approach, Carr and Kemmis (1990) have observed that the crucial character of social reality is that it possesses an intrinsic meaning structure that is constituted and sustained through the routine interpretive activities of its individual members. The objective character of society, then, is not some independent reality to which individuals are somehow subjects. Rather, society comes to possess a degree of objectivity because social actors, in the process of interpreting their social world, externalize and objectify it. Society is only “real” and “objective” in so far as its members define it as such and orient themselves towards the reality so defined (Carr and Kemmis, 1990).

In the argument of the interpretive school, the behavior of human beings consists, in the main, of their actions, and a distinctive feature of actions is that they are meaningful to those who perform them and become intelligible to others only by reference to the meaning that the individual actor attaches to them (Carr and Kemmis, 1990). Thus, observing a person’s actions does not simply involve taking note of the actor’s overt physical movements. It also requires an interpretation by the observer of the meaning, which the actor gives to his behavior. Ayer’s (1946) demonstration for this point supports the argument that one type of observable behavior may constitute a whole range of actions. To him, raising and drinking a glass of wine could be interpreted as

1. An act of self-indulgence,

2. An expression of politeness,

3. A manifestation of loyalty,

4. A gesture of despair,

5. An attempt at suicide,

6. A religious communication.

In view of this, actions cannot be observed in the same way as natural objects. They can only be interpreted by reference to the actor’s motives, intentions or purposes in performing the action (Carr and Kemmis, 1990).

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

This study explores the presence of an African philosophy of education in Akan culture. The topic “African philosophy of education” needs not be misleading in investigating Akan culture. This is because the central features of the type to which African cultures belong is that, there is a certain common world-view to which can be related, all other central concepts in most, if not all, African societies including those of religion and theology, morality and social organization (Abraham, 1995). Also, a volume of Ghanaian philosophy is a volume of African philosophy. Although there are differences of detail and, possibly in some cases, of principles between Ghanaian conceptions and those entertained in other parts of Africa, there are deep affinities of both thought and feelings across the entirety of ethnic Africa (Wiredu & Gyekye, 1992). But in order to illustrate the way in which all other central aspects of the traditional African flow from a certain world-view, I shall choose the Akan of Ghana as my paradigm.

As Danquah (1944), Sarpong (1977), Safro (1995) and others have observed, the Akans belong to the Tano language family to the east and west of the Tano river in the coastal and forest regions of the West African countries of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. In Ghana, the Akans are found mostly to the east of the Tano River in the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central, Western and Eastern regions of the country. They speak dialects such as Akuapim, Asante, Fante, Kwahu and Akyem, collectively called the Akan language, part of which is more popularly known as Twi.

My choice of the Akan for the study therefore is based on a conglomeration of factors. First, in order to make generalizations supposedly to benefit the entire country in curriculum enrichment, it would be appropriate and more convenient to use the ethnic group with the largest population and also to consider how familiar and conversant other non-members of the group are with the group under study. Also, my concern for traditional education and systems of thought implicitly calls for an ethnic group that has maintained most aspects of their indigenous culture. And as Antwi (1992) has asserted, “it is important to note that the indigenous people of Ghana, particularly those in the forest zone (the Akan), are Sudanese Africans who, ethnically speaking, have remained comparatively pure over several centuries.”

In his “Readings In African Philosophies: An Akan Collection,” Safro (1995) has stated that, “in terms of population, they (the Akan) constitute about fifty percent of the fourteen million or so citizens of Ghana and the biggest ethnic group in the country. According to Abraham (1995), The Akan of Ghana represent two-thirds of the fourteen million people of Ghana. They are to be found in Ashanti and to the south, and in Axim and to just west of Accra. They speak a cluster of languages, which have a family resemblance but are not related as language to dialect. In Agyarkwa’s (1976) study of “Akan Epistemology and Western Thought” he has stated that the Akan represent the Akan ethnic group (which forms about forty-five percent of the entire population). To Sarpong, (1971), “the Akan-speaking peoples of West Africa are hardly in need of an introduction to anthropologists. They occupy the Western, Central, Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo regions of Ghana, and parts of Eastern and Volta regions of Ghana and the southeastern corner of the Cote d’Ivoire. In Ghana, the northern limit of this area is the upper course of the Volta River, the southern being the seacoast. This territory can be estimated as fully one-half of the ninety-two thousand square miles of the surface area of the country.” In fact, the history of Ghana is the history of the Twi-speaking peoples who now call themselves the Akan (Meyerowitz, 1974).

In terms of culture, as Agyarkwa (1976) has posited, apart from the fact of Akan forming the largest ethnic group in Ghana, the culture is similar to other Ghanaian cultures and in fact, that of the West African sub-region. Again, considerably more has been published about the Akans than the other ethnic groups in Ghana; thus, more material would be available for the study. This is important in as much as adequate material would be available for the acquisition of the relevant data to test the theory or to find the answer to the questions under consideration (Best and Kahn, 1993).

Also, my being a native of the Akan ethnic group with the disadvantage of being “subjective” notwithstanding, gives me an added advantage over the complete “outsider.” I would have the ability to overcome the problems that might be encountered by outsiders. For example, I, as a native, would have access to some “sacred” places and also would not encounter any problem of linguistic barriers and distortions in meanings, which become prevalent when interpreters are used in the case of “outsider” researchers. As Deng (1986) has cautioned, an “insider” researcher stands the disadvantage and danger of distortion should they become too defensive of their society and overstate facts. Another disadvantage observed by Uchendu (1965) is that being a “cultural bearer”, the researcher may be selective and ignore what appears to him or her as a commonplace, which may be relevant to understanding the culture. To counteract this, however, an insider also stands the advantage of not being too cautious about any form of involvement and hence can eschew the danger of understatement. Spindler (1965), writing the foreword to Uchendu’s (1965) “The Igbo of Southern Nigeria” commends the latter by stating that “descriptions of the thinking and feeling of a people are not frequent in anthropological literature, for it is difficult for the observer from outside to penetrate beyond manifest behavior to the inner patterns of a way of life.”

METAPHOR OF NYANSAPO (THE WISDOM KNOT)

Akans use symbols and proverbs abundantly in their daily expressions. Ability to use proverbs, figures of speech and metaphors wins for the speaker recognition of intelligence and wisdom. Nyansapo means “wisdom knot” and suggests that, when the wise ties a knot it takes an intelligent mind to untie it. The saying implies that there are underlying meanings behind all symbols and figures of speech and activities of the Akan people. It takes a person with insight and profound intelligence to u...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter One. Introduction
• Chapter Two. African Philosophy of Education
• Chapter Three. Research Methodology
• Chapter Four. Data Presentation
• Chapter Five. Discussion and Interpretation of Findings
• Chapter Six. Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations
• Bibliography
• Appendices
• Index