Part I: The Mirage of Western Pedagogy
Education, in its dominant form, has become a passport to power—an instrument of conquest cloaked in polished grammar and institutional prestige. The PhD holder, fluent in the Queen’s English, traverses continents not to heal but to dominate, often serving as a cog in imperial machinery that wages war for oil, minerals, and influence.
In contrast, the so-called “primitive man” in the forest communes with creation. He bows to rivers, whispers to trees, and learns from the silent choreography of snakes. His knowledge is not certified by parchment but by reverence, observation, and ancestral transmission.
Who, then, is truly educated?
Part II: The “Been-To” and the Forgotten Tongue
In Ghana, we call them “been-tos”—Africans who have studied abroad and returned adorned in European mannerisms, fluent in French, English, Portuguese, or Dutch, yet estranged from their native tongues. They mimic the colonial master’s lifestyle, often with pride, yet remain disconnected from the spiritual and linguistic roots of their own people.
This is not education. It is mimicry. It is the internalization of conquest.
Part III: The Village as Classroom
As a child in Aburi, I watched my grandmother, a revered fetish priestess, rise before dawn to offer silent prayers to the mountains. In Yawkrom, where my father cultivated cocoa, I saw how death was treated as a sacred transition. Elders beat drums to awaken the spirit of the deceased. If the spirit did not rise, the village fasted. Favorite meals were placed on the tomb for weeks, honoring the soul’s journey.
Our teachers led us into forests and rivers, teaching us the medicinal value of trees. Before harvesting, we prayed to the spirits. We cooked oto—a sacred dish of yam and eggs—and offered it to the river before fishing, ensuring balance and gratitude.
This was our curriculum. Oral, spiritual, ecological. It was not written in books, but etched in ritual and memory.
Part IV: Forest Medicine and Snake Wisdom
In the forest, a man hides for days, watching snakes fight. When one faints, the other retrieves leaves, chews them, and spits them into the fainted snake’s mouth and eyes until it revives. This is how the man learns the antidote to venom—not from a lab, but from nature’s own pharmacy.
This is empirical knowledge. This is science. This is education.
Part V: Reclaiming the Sacred Curriculum
Education is not the memorization of foreign facts. It is the cultivation of wisdom, the honoring of ancestors, the stewardship of land, and the reverence for life. The Western model, while technologically advanced, often lacks soul. It teaches domination, not communion.
Let us reclaim education—not as a tool of empire, but as a sacred covenant between people, planet, and posterity.
The post Who Is Educated? first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Sammy Attoh.