BORROWED REASONING

BORROWED REASONING: A CONSIQUENCE OF AFRICANS MIS-EDUCATION by OLUSEGUN M. LAWAL

For sometime now, I have witnessed the trees of our educational device losing its balance in the name of rational basis of how it needs to be. African schooling system in the twenty first century is nothing to write home about. The society has lost that which maintain them from falling apart. Their overall belongingness on the fee of the Western ideology. Reality, from our point of view has flipped to the western paradigm where we do not understand the communalist idea which is the 'kpim' of our soul, however now see every man for himself and not for the society. instance of that is the xenophobia in South Africa where they see the black as enemy, and the Rwanda Genocide of 1994 between the Hutus and Tutsi where many lost their lives. I recently asked a lecturer in my school why do African read all the pythagoras, Euclid, or even speak about the western methods of life but have no insight about their very own continent. The way we see ourselves in this global world will decide the way other will address us. An African man does not see himself being more advance than every other race because they had being brainwashed by forcing the Africans to believed that we are inferior in all ramifications. They chauvinise our Saint and martyr, and called our religion fetish, savage, primitive, barbaric and so forth. Even 'Esu' in yorubaland which refers to as the god of Mercury has been translated to be satan of the bible. Instead for us to assume and see matters in a clean way; we throw the reality into the sea and select their fable as an alternative. Dont quote me wrong ; i'm not saying that the western ideology is awful, but we must not see their inventions as being superior to ours as no other continent had ever been able to invent 'kanako', in yorubaland that makes one to stroll 500 miles in 2 mins, having noticed that we had forgone our values and embraced theirs, even the arithmetic they name theirs was gotten from the 'Ifa' corpus. What is the way out of this mess? I've been to some homes that the children are forbidden from speaking their mother tongue. And any standard scondary schools where you can't speak any other language besides English. Is this what we Africans call Education? because to me, education ought to be the technique of presenting understanding about the society of that region. Even the little African Epistemology that were taught in some schools no longer go beyond the wall of the the university, let alone including it in the exam questions.
Many African lecturers are 'delude hybrid' and that is why after they retired; their histories go along with it. The paradigm shift betwen what's true and what's bad .
African history is going into extinction and nobody might be there to revive it. Is this the way we carve our Episteme? Invasion in 1897 by the British is still on the ruin and the artifacts stolen from Benin had not been recovered, and we reward Mungo park who to him discovered the River Naija. The river which the people of that community had been fishing before the father that fathered his father was born. How can they hold civilization when their goal is to steal the artifacts of the land? Or what are we to say of that blessed land of Timbuktu where their glories had been carted away?. Or the Cartheginian annihilation by the Romans in 419 BC?. Even some of the African sons and daughter do not think positive of their continent again because of a noble charge, and singers scurrying about in indecent dresses all in the name of fashion because of an Award?
Marcus garvey writes that " The Negro who lives on the patronage of philanthropist is the maximum dangerous member of our society, due to the fact he's willing to turn back the clock of progress when his benefactors ask him to do so". This and lots more can stop us from realising the dream of a better society. What are we to say of our misplaced records, our misplaced tradition and near loss of our language which makes a Yoruba boy no longer understand what "Iyewu" means again. Africans must change. We need to redefine Education, we need to see and accept things the way they are and not the other way round.
Some children can no longer prostrate to their parents and Elders once more because to them, that is obsolete.
Abduo Muomuoni affirmed that the Education system essentially degrees of physical, emotional and mental development of the child. (Moumouni 1968 p.15) the medium of guidance became the local language or " mother tongue" via which systematic guidance became delivered by means of manner of songs, tales, proverbs, legends, and dances to stimulate kid's emotional and quicking their perception as they explore and triumph over their environment.
where are the norms, customs, conventions, principles, and rules of the land? the whole values of Africans are going into extinction and we need to re adjust our educational system for us to be in line with the global race.
I will like to end with this that ; " while we allow the language of others to dominate our view of life, we will have ourselves to be blamed in the end.