Culturally selfless: An ethnographic study of men’s cultural duty towards the dead among Bakgatla Ba Kgafela at Mabalane village; Botswana.
Oabona Moses Sello
Our Lady of Carmel Mission School
contact: 73352030
Abstract
This ethnographic study explored men’s cultural duty towards
the dead among Bakgatla Ba Kgafela (BBK) in Mabalane village; Botswana.
Previous studies on death among BBK have paradoxically been premised in
Mochudi; Botswana whilst employing a generalized approach to an otherwise broad
phenomenon. However, this ethnographic study sought to be unique and offer
cultural insights about BBK from outside Mochudi with emphasis on men’s cultural duty. Its guiding
questions were; to what extent have men
maintained their selfless cultural duty towards the dead and what are the
noticeable changes that exist with regards to this duty. The study was
ethnographic and used a functionalist perspective to unpack this cultural duty.
Participants’ observations, key informant interviews, personal communications
and archived documents analysis were used to collect data. Data and field work
experiences were condensed into descriptive themes relative to men’s cultural
duty. Key findings indicated; consistency in adherence to men’s cultural role, adherence
to ethical codes, order in serving food as well as impromptu meetings. Despite
proudly maintaining this cultural duty, some inevitable cultural changes exist
such as financial contribution towards digging tools and cooking times. The
study concludes that, men at Mabalane village have generally maintained their
cultural duty towards the dead albeit with some inevitable cultural
adjustments. In fact, their cultural duty is still being envied by villagers
and neighbouring BBK villages along the Madikwe river in the Kgatleng district.
Keywords: Death, Grave digging, Burial, Functionalism,
Ethnography, Cultural duty, Bakgatla-Ba-Kgafela (BBK).
The Emergence and Teaching of the Social Studies Programme in Botswana
The emergence of
the Social Studies Programme in Botswana can be traced to the international
Social Studies conference attended by African, United States and British
representatives which took place in Oxford, Britain in 1967. This conference called
for the need to align curriculum development to the needs and priorities of
Africans (EDC/CREDO, 1968). Preceding this conference was the Massachusetts
Conference held in the United States of American 1961 where problems facing education
systems in emerging nation-states in Africa were discussed (Adeyemi, 2010).
Within this trajectory of events, the African Social Studies Programme (ASSP) was
born (Merryfeild, 1988). This was indeed a good initiative. Social Studies
scholars across the world working in conjunction with governments of the
seventeen countries embraced the ASSP. These countries included Botswana, Ethiopia,
Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leon, Tanzania, Uganda and
Zambia (Merryfield, 1988).
Later on the ASSP came to include
the Environmental Education component hence African Social Studies and
Environmental Program (ASSEP) (Adeyemi, 2008). The Environmental Education (EE)
component was added because of the global pressures on the environment due to
climatic changes and activities like deforestation. Thus EE was critical for
the conservation and preservation of fauna and flora in Africa (Cheruto &
Peter, 2013). In fact, as the United Nations Environmental Education Programme
(UNEP) (1994) states the “introduction critical thinking and problem solving
skills in EE especially at primary schools, is fundamental if students are to
become skillful in the identification and solution of environmental problems as
students…” (p. 4).
The ASSP inherited instructional
pedagogies that were for practical purposes didactic, passive and fused with
disregard for innovation and creativity in the learning of Social Studies
(Educational Development Center & Curriculum Renewal & Educational
Development Overseas, 1968; p. 6). For example, Social Studies teaching was
overly based on textbook assignments, oral review of assignments in class,
extensive teacher talk, recitation, and seatwork with some odd field tours and
use of audio-visual materials (Bolinger & Warren, 2007; p. 70). These are
practices that resonate with indoctrination of Social Studies learners and in
the process negating the pursuit for citizenship education (Ajiboye, 2009).
The ASSP advocated and recommended
the use of inquiry to teach Social Studies. The intention was to afford students
the opportunity to ask questions and solve problems independently (Merryfield,
1988). These child-centered pedagogies were later inscribed into the Botswana school
curriculum to improve the quality of education (RNPE, 1994). Unfortunately for
Botswana and other African countries, this pedagogical shift was and is still
hard to achieve due to a number factors such as the culture of teaching and
availability of resources (Mhlauli & Muchado, 2013).
The inclusion of social issues was
necessitated by calls for interdisciplinary studies and global education within
Social Studies in tandem with high level thinking as well as inquiry based
learning approaches (Bolinger & Warren, 2007; p. 69).
Put
simply Social Studies was to be taught through the use of child-centered
pedagogies. However, as Benette and Hinde (2004) rightly observed, this was not
easy and required a lot of planning and sound pedagogical knowledge. The need
for effective instructional strategies was summed up by Adeyemi (2010) when he
observed that:
the resolution of the Mombasa Conference to employ
the learner-centered approach in teaching and learning Social Studies was to
make students active rather than passive in the learning process, a situation
that would enhance democratic practices at classroom level (p.13-14).
lesson plan challenges faced by Botswana primary school teachers
Hello everyone🙋💗 hope this latest installment finds you in good health. I felt i should for this blog post share with you an interesting issue on challenges of lesson planning faced by teachers and in particular elementary teachers in Botswana schools which might needlessly be relative to other contexts. It is something i previously did for my post graduate work pursuing my MEd. in Social Studies education. Feel free to read through and engage below.🙆🙆
The first problem that
concerns lesson planning is that supervisors seem to have different
understandings of what to include and omit in preparation books. The problem
emanates from the fact that members of the school management team as
supervisors are traditionally from various schools, clusters, inspectorates and
regions promoted on transfer as such they bring with them varied expectations
on lesson planning. It is an unfortunate scenario because one would expect them
to be oriented on school culture and practices congruent to policy
requirements. As an example, some supervisors would append their signatures on
lesson plans that may show activities in listed form like “group work” whereas
another supervisor within the same institution would not do such dismissing the
plan as vague and skeletal demanding an extension to say “group work on finding
the causes of…” Needless to say teachers tend to like the former in the sense
that it is short and hate the latter because it creates more writing.
Unlike the old method
of daily planning and evaluation, the status quo is such that teachers plan for
the entire week and get to evaluate their teaching at the end of the week, a
time where most of what transpired during the lessons may have been forgotten
rendering such evaluation as guess work
and less meaningful in offering insight. This arrangement defeats the purpose
of lesson evaluation more so that teachers have to rely on memory when trying
to make connections between lessons. If this evaluation was done daily and
recorded it would be easier for teachers and learners to make connections between
the previous lesson and the current one.
Changes in attitudes and feelings are valuable and legitimate educational aims
yet these are very difficult to state and measure in behavioral terms pointing
the challenge that teachers face when planning for lessons with objectives that
require change in attitudes and behavior. This challenge is witnessed in
subjects which advocate for concepts like civic education and multiculturalism
which in the case of primary education are social studies, cultural studies,
religious and moral education and Setswana. The challenge does not end here, it
even extends to testing whether such objectives have been met because criterion
referenced testing adopted for assessment by the education system is not
suitable to measure these intended learning outcomes. For example, learners may
be expected to show appreciation of their culture by a specific objective and
it will be near impossible to check if they indeed appreciate their culture
using multiple choice questions which are the alpha and omega of testing at
elementary levels of education in Botswana.
It is unfortunate to
state here that among the challenges that engulf lesson planning in schools,
lower primary teachers happen to be the root cause of the problem even though
there are other elements to the challenge. It is the view of this paper that
lower primary school learners graduate into upper classes with a rather shaky
foundation in terms of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. The expectation
is that they should leave lower primary classes with a mastery of these skills,
however the situation on the ground is the exact opposite. Upper primary class
teachers therefore find it difficult to plan challenging activities for their
learners and instead revert to teacher dominated teaching with little input
from learners. Lesson plans are consequently a prerogative of the teacher
meaning that learners do not take responsibility for their learning. Teachers
thus have a challenge of using higher cognitive methods of teaching and find
solace in low cognitive approaches because the former advocates for learner
engagement using the previously mentioned skills whereas the latter reinforces
rote learning which is against pragmatic and democratic education found within
our education policies. It is dismaying that the section of activities in
preparation books is filled with low cognitive tasks that are not in tandem
with what the syllabus recommends under the methods of teaching.
Although teachers have
been blamed for being the root cause of the use of lower thinking skills above,
part of the problem rests with the syllabus itself. A careful analysis of the
objectives listed therein reveals that our educational ends are mainly within
the cohort of low level thinking thus forcing teachers to use low level
thinking approaches and activities when developing lesson plans. The Blooms
Taxonomy which is a guide to behavioral objectives reveals that low level
instructional objectives and teaching techniques require learners to merely
recall, remember and memorize facts which is an antithesis of educational aims
and objectives.
Lastly, teachers are
faced with an examination oriented syllabus which is to be finished within a
stipulated time to test whether learners have grasped the taught concepts.
School managers are being reprimanded with letters regarding low achievement by
their superiors and they in turn place pressure on teachers to finish the
syllabus quickly so that they do revision for tests. Consequently teachers are
forced to rush over the instructional objectives and sometimes combining two or
three separate leaning objectives in a single lesson. For example, a standard
seven social studies lesson may incorporate an objective on continents of the
world, lines of latitudes and longitudes, major continental physical features,
world climatic regions and calculating time using longitudes. This fabrication
is done merely to finish the syllabus and create more time for revision
forgetting that it leads to confusing learners precipitating failure. Thanks for reading through🙏
Boikhutso,
K. (2010). The theory into practice dilemma: Lesson planning challenges facing Botswana student teachers. Improving Schools, 13 (3), 205-220. doi:
10.1177/1365480210385668
IMRaD model: A blueprint to article writing
Hello! I hope you guys are keeping well. In this latest post, I
wish to share with you, albeit briefly, an IMRAD model globally accepted as a
blueprint to scholarly article writing.
If you aspire to publish in highly esteemed journals (i.e
beginners like myself), this should serve as a starting mark.
This model was developed in the 1940s and began to be appreciated
by the 1970s and has gained traction over the years to be accepted by most
journals and editors-in-chief (Wu, 2011).
THE ACRONYM
1. Introduction 2. Methods
3. Results & 4. Discussion
STEP BY STEP
1. Introduction: The importance of this
initial part of the scientific paper needs does not have to be over emphasized.
Like in any kind of composition, the introduction should set the scene, open
gates and entice the reader to go further. It should be well crafted to reveal
gaps that exist in current literature that which you aim to address (in part as
research can't cover every part of a phenomenon). The problem you are trying to
address should be painted RED and
explicit enough for the reader (Nenty, 2009). It also has to provide some background
information about what you are writing such that readers can appreciate and
trace the timeline of issue under investigation.
NB: Start as general & end as specific as possible
(Todorovic, 2003).
2.
Methods: “Sedibeng go iiwa ka
tesela” (a Setswana proverb) implies
that there has to be a way which is to be followed if we are to achieve our
targets. This also goes for empirical research. Researchers have to provide a
clear map of how they intend to tackle the problem under investigation. In
fact, the approach and design, subject/participants, sample & sampling
techniques and the tools for data collection should be described to the reader
& or researchers who would otherwise intent to embark on the same to try
and replicate your study findings.
NB: This should usually be described
under suitbale sub-headings (Todorovic, 2003).
3.
Results/Findings: These
should be presented subsequent from the data collection exercise. A rule of
thumb is to present the results/findings that are only congruent to the
research questions, objectives or hypothesis while anything else should be
treated as surplus to requirements and beside the point. Apart from being
presented in writing, illustrations, graphs and tables might be considered to
help present the results/findings differently and for emphasis purposes.
4.
Discussion:
This is one aspect of scholarly writing that is tricky to research rookies
because it demands a different kind of creativity, analysis and writing
prowess. However, practice and experience will lead you to the promised land.
In discussing the findings, writers should try to position their results
vis-à-vis what other writers before them have reported. As a point of caution,
this step should not be confused with literature review (a part of step 1
above). Connections and inferences based on and between the findings discussed
should be well laced as the writer makes their conclusions and recommendations.
The IMRAD serves as a
path to follow if one is to publish their works. This post should not, however,
be treated as absolute. It is not an in-depth description of the model but
rather a stepping stone for beginners. That notwithstanding, I hope this rant
helps a few starters out there in their pursuit to academic writing.
References
Nenty, H. J. (2009). Writing a
quantitative research
thesis. International Journal of Educational
Sciences, 1(1), 19-32
Todorovic, L. (2003). Original (scientific) paper- the IMRAD
layout. Archives of Ontology, 11(3),
203-205
Wu, J. (2011). Improving the writing of research papers:
IMRAD & beyond. Landscape Ecology, 26(10),
1345-1349
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