On Being Human: Reconsidering an African Philosophy of Education - A Conversation with Prof. Yusuf Waghid

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

Whether it's Africans thinking about Ubuntu and Ukama, whether it's Muslims thinking about Shura, it's the virtue of recognizing that someone has something to say. And once we express that willingness to consider that perhaps this particular idea might change us, then we might have a better world.

Hi everybody and welcome back to the podcast. My name is Tim Logan and the podcast is brought to you in partnership with Noktoch. This week's conversation is with the distinguished Professor of Philosophy of Education at Stellenbosch University. Professor Wagied is a leading African philosopher of education and he holds 3 doctorates in the fields of education, policy, and philosophy from the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University in South Africa. He's been a prolific author, having published more than 50 academic books and edited collections, including Towards an Ubuntu University: African Higher Education Reimagined this year, Education for Decoloniality and Decolonization in Africa in 2019. He's also written African Philosophy of Education Reconsidered: On Being Human in 2014. In his other work, Professor Wagied has also pioneered an online course on teaching for change selected by the Sustainable Development Goals Academy of the United Nations. As a free online international course to learn about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. He also collaborated with renowned international scholars on a leading UNESCO-pioneered research project, Education for Flourishing and Flourishing in Education.

Hello, Tom.

Good morning, Dr. Waheed. How are you? Yeah, very well.

How are you?

I'm good. Good seeing you.

Absolutely. Same here.

It's a pleasure to talk to you this morning.

Fantastic. Oh, good. And I was, I was so happy to discover your book. You know, the thing that piqued my interest particularly was the subtitle. That's the thing that grabbed me, right? On Being Human. And I'm really happy to be able to talk to you because I think one of the things that I've been struggling with running the podcast for the last 3 years and the different work I do is I feel a little bit of a sense of there's a dominance within the education discussion around the kind of broadly construed North American, Northern European kind of paradigm. And even, you know, particularly my work a lot is in international education, but even when you start looking at education systems nationally, the discussion around what is a high-performing system and all of these OECD, UNESCO, et cetera, all these different kinds of discussions, often there is a little bit of a bias towards, let's say, Western values set, epistemologies, even metaphysics when you get right down to it, right? So I think that's one of the things I'm really interested in is, is trying to explore other ways of conceiving of education, what it means and fundamentally why it's, I think, absolutely centrally important in kind of facing down some of the challenges that we face as humanity right now. I mean, I deeply believe that education is a core part of that response. But I think the way we've conceived them in this kind of rugged individual sense is problematic in different ways. So that would be my, my first question to you. Is that a concern you share? Or, you know, what's your perspective about that as a philosopher of education working in Africa, thinking specifically about African philosophy of education?

Thank you for, for your comments on my book, and of course for the invitation, Tim. To engage with me. My pleasure. I welcome that, and I'm, I'm happy to share some of my thoughts. I thought the premise of authoring that particular book is based on the view that anything other than the hegemonic Western US, UK, Europe understanding of knowledge and education I consider that book as partially a response to the dominance of Western education, in particular higher education, because that's where I work. And I thought the rationale for saying that is in response to your question. The idea then is to counteract exclusion, marginalization, and As you mentioned prejudice, I call it the trivialization of otherness and others. And I thought that perhaps this book would be an entry into the discourse that there is something about an African philosophy of education, more specifically higher education, that might be of interest to an audience who's not so critical about what comes from the continent.

Yeah, and I mean, there's certainly, in my experience, I trained as an anthropologist, so coming from that background, there's certainly an exoticism around things that come from the African continent. So I find it really important, but I wonder if I could just ask you more specifically about that sense of kind of competitive capital-focused individualism that I feel kind of pervades the more Western style education system feeding the labor market and all the things that we know about the way— I mean, even K-12 education, which is where I work more predominantly.

First of all, I think there are some misconceptions about what is considered as African and other, and one of the misconceptions is that everything about African is projected or articulated and proffered as communal or communitarian at the expense of individual individualism or individuality. That is definitely not so, because the argument that I try to make in that text, for instance, is that a sense of community doesn't have to be separated from the autonomy of the individual. Yeah, you require the individual's freedom, her liberty to speak her mind, in order to make sense of what is deliberated on, discussed in community. So in that sense, it's not that African education or higher education or knowledge interests are exclusively communal or communitarian, but there is a bias towards a communitarian understanding integrated with the recognition that the individual is as important as the group.

Yeah.

So that kind of dichotomy I would break down is subverted in the sense that what is argued for is that you have to look at the individual as a voice in the group and can contribute ably to the group. And then in turn, the group can inform the individual. So there is this interrelationship between the individual and the group rather than doing things only for the social or for the communal.

Yeah, it's absolutely not an either-or, even though I think, as you said, there is a strong bias towards the individual in the more Western education sense. And I think that's why I'm interested is the redressing of that balance. And I suppose there's two things that come from that for me. One is the sense of what does it even mean to have an African philosophy of education, given that Africa is such a huge and diverse continent. And then I'd love to ask you about the Ubuntu part as well.

Thank you. It is the plurality of voices, which invariably is intertwined with a plurality of cultures, languages, forms of persuasion, religions, that inform what it means to have an African voice. So an African voice is a pluralistic voice, is a heterogeneous voice rather than a singular homogeneous voice. So it is that sense of plurality of voices that is recognized and espoused, not as a singular form, but there are voices which are situated within a multiplicity or a pluralism of cultures. And if one wants to analyze philosophically what a particular understanding of African philosophy is about, then you cannot be oblivious of the cultures of a particular group of people or individuals that inform that particular voice. So in South Africa, for example, there are multi-cultures. So you cannot speak comprehensively or exclusively about a singular South African philosophy of higher education. But that in itself would also not do justice to the notion of philosophy of education, which I argue is a discourse that embraces pluralist cultures, because humans cannot act without their sense of belonging, where they come from, without their articulations and how they articulated. So it's not a neutral person we're talking about, or a neutral group that you're talking about. You're talking about a group that is embedded, situated within a particular geographical and conceptual space. So people think in relation to the group, to the tribe, to the nation, to their sense of belonging. And, um, this kind of belonging is not just a belonging whereby everything is prescribed or ordained for you, but it's you as the individual that determines that sense of belonging. So you actually co-belong to a particular group or to a particular community. And that is what, in my way, seems to guide how humans interact with one another.

Yeah, interesting. And that is that relationality. And I think— and that's also going back to the point about the Ubuntu and the kind of communalist idea. So just to take your point about the context, I think that's another thing that we perhaps have forgotten when we think about education, that education in a community of people happens within a context, a cultural context. And we kind of, we've taken this almost this evidence-informed scientific approach towards education. And therefore, you know, it's a set of skills and competencies that we can define universally for everyone in all places that this is what a good education might look like. And therefore this is, and these are the kinds of good pedagogies that we could use. That's deeply problematic, I think, because of what you're saying that we, become persons in context, in relation with each other and with our, the culture in which we are being brought up. And for me, that is what education is about. It's about kind of person-making somehow. And, and so I, you, you use Ubuntu as an idea within your philosophy. And I, that seems to me to be a, a relatively familiar, maybe not deeply familiar with exactly what it means, but they've kind of heard the idea. So I wonder if you could just say a bit about what does that mean and how does it relate to that idea of kind of creating persons in communities of other persons?

So Ubuntu was then articulated in the sense that through human agency, more specifically dignity and interrelationships, interdependence, humans can in fact flourish. But more poignantly, in relation to their relationality, there's also the term ukama, which accentuates that they stand in relation to themselves and all others on the continent and beyond. So both the terms Ubuntu and ukama sort of underscore, constitute what it means to be human. So humans have their individualities, they have the sense of dignity, and they ought to be respected, and they ought to be considered. But they also stand in relation to one another. So it's not that you can just simply dismiss them unjustifiably or misrecognize them for that matter. But on the basis of the ukama, which is a term that is very much in vogue on the continent, in the histories of people that ukama, and together concomitantly with Ubuntu, efforts are made to espouse people's persuasions, their situations, and their positions, and their ways of understanding themselves in relation to the world. And for that reason, ukama and Ubuntu stand together as a form of indigenized way of looking at oneself. And this form of what one can refer to as indigeneity is one which proffers the individual and group's understandings of themselves and the world in relation to what is other and different, not in relation to what is hegemonically imposed as universalist on them, but rather how their localized understandings of themselves and events in the world can intertwine and fuse with what is other, what is global, what is universal, so that you in a way begin to talk about the localized notion of human understanding instead of a globalized or global way of looking at things in the world. So the terms ukama and ubuntu are there to foreground the position of communities of thinking within particular contexts on the continent.

Yeah, interesting. And I mean, the phrase that I've heard is, I think, is it John Mbithi? I am because we are, and we are therefore I am.

I am.

Yeah, right. Which is, which is a nice play on the Descartes notion, right? Was important. Correct.

The African dictum for it is Ubuntu ngumuntu ngabanja abantu. A person is a person with other persons. So the emphasis is on with other persons. In other words, there's a kind of inclusiveness, yeah, about humans, and they do not function in isolation and in insulation. And therefore concerns that an African philosophy of higher education, for instance, might not resonate with understandings of democracy and deliberation, that doesn't make sense. Because when you talk about inclusiveness and interconnectedness with others and otherness, you extend beyond deliberative encounters in that way.

Yeah.

And that is also, I felt, was a strong emphasis in your work is kind of going back to then the concept of justice and the kind of Islamic education perspective that you are also bringing into your work, because I've heard you talk about Islamic education's perspective on justice and how that, as you were just saying, that, that it's not contradictory to a liberal democratic kind of, or a view of global citizenship, for example.

Okay, so I prefer to talk about Muslim education because are people.

Yes. Okay.

So instead of this normative understanding of what is Islamic, and as if this normative understanding cannot be resisted or critiqued. So but when it's Muslim education, you talk about people and considering that Africans comprise of 40% or more people aligned to Muslim thought, that I thought that it's quite relevant to talk about an existing Muslim form of education. Now, for me, education cannot be education without humans encountering one another. Exactly. Whether one calls it neo-Aristotelian, it is there as a social practice. So I have to engage with you and others in order for me to determine my own educatedness. So humans cannot talk about education if there's no sense of engagement. And what do they do when they do engage? They articulate themselves, they listen to one another, and simply put, they talk back to one another. There's a form of agreement, there's a form of disagreement, there might even be dissonance and dissensus.. And this might not necessarily happen in a world without judgment and without belligerence. It happens in, in the real world. So people, they disagree vehemently and they encounter dissonance and discomfort. And for me, that's highly educative. And by highly educative, I mean it's a Muslim education, if you want, specifically Muslim education, that opens itself to a form of deliberative inquiry. And that's in line with trends of democratic engagement that is so eloquently articulated in, in literature. So my argument is that notions of shūrā' in Muslim education are not necessarily at variance with the notion of deliberative encounters. Because for an encounter to be deliberative, for ashura to manifest, which literally means to have a deliberation or conversation, you have to have people talking, listening, articulating themselves, and talking back at one another.

And that, I mean, that strikes me as a very poignant point in relation to all of the conversation around tech and the role of technology in learning and education, because that's deeply problematic when it pulls people away from that deliberative encounter, right? Away from other people, and it puts them in conversation with ChatGPT or an AI who's going to support their learning pathway in this Silicon Valley-fueled, you know, direction of learning where we might end up dystopian in my view. But anyway, I think that is really relevant, that idea that education is fundamentally a human interaction. But maybe you could say something about justice, because I also got the sense that justice as a— is it an objective for you of education?

For me, justice and education are intertwined. There is an inextricable relationship between the two concepts. I might even at times argue that to talk about justice is to talk about education. And I would like to foreground that position. So what does it mean to be just? Take the concept epistemic justice, for example. If I articulate myself and I'm not constrained in my articulation of thoughts and knowledge, then there is a sense of epistemic justice that prevails. Because I'm not excluded from the conversation.. But if I am marginalized, if I am prejudiced, if I am told that your views are not relevant to the discourses of the day, whatever that means, but there is a sense that your views are irrelevant.

Yeah.

Then a degree of epistemic justice manifests because you are told that your views are not worthwhile, your views are not poignant enough. And, and your views are ill-conceived. Now, that kind of epistemic justice only happens as a consequence of a lack of engagement among humans. And that form of engagement, which I call education in a deliberative sense, is what in fact highlights the presence of epistemic injustice that unfolds. So in that sense, Justice seems to be synonymous with the notion of education. So the point is, if nations are deprived of engaging with one another, they are deprived of the virtuous act of justice that they ought to engage with. So for me, justice is not ethically, morally, conceptually delinked from the notion of education and vice versa. To talk about education is to talk about justice. On the African continent, the predominant view among scholars would be that, considering that the Quran and the Sunnah, the practices of Muslims who follow the Prophet, that The kind of education he espoused is commensurate with the idea of justice, because justice was always there not just to tell people what to do, but that they had to be convinced by themselves that what they are going to do would be in their interests. And that in itself is a form of education when you are not just told what to do, but that you are persuaded by good thoughts, that you are persuaded by ideas, and that you make sense of meanings exposed to you in a deliberative way. So in that sense, when I look at an ethics of justice, I cannot delink it from what it means to be educated. So an educated person would be a just person. The argument that you can pursue later would be to ask, but do educated people always act justly? That's something else.

Right, absolutely. But no, I think that's really interesting that, yeah, you're coming to it somehow yourself, you're coming to that justice in relation, but through deliberation, through dialogue, through that kind of process of education. But I also, one of the things I thought that, you know, there are discussions in my world about decolonizing curriculum, for example, and that idea that we have to be very sensitive, I think, to the constraints and the structures that are around and support education. Because as you said, people with, in order to provide spaces for epistemic justice, where people feel that their perspectives and their views are absolutely valid and heard and there is a place for them, there's also a kind of a sense that if we don't problematize the curriculum itself, you know, some young people are not even seeing themselves. It's just not connecting with them because the curriculum is from a different cultural background or even political kind of position. I don't know. I think there's, there's something around the invisible structures of education that we also need to be quite sensitive to in order to end up with that space where everyone's views are heard and, and listened to.

I agree with you because for me the normativization of education in particular is our problem. Yeah, because the normativization of education has the view in mind that there is only a dominant understanding of things or events in the world.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And if we denormativize education, then we create spaces for decolonization, the deconstruction of ideas, so that we can allow the pedagogical opportunities to see things as if they could be otherwise. And that requires then, within this decolonization process, I would argue, not merely an exchange of ideas, but in fact, a provocation of thought, that things have to be done in order to provoke students to think differently. So a teacher who's provocative would recognize that in order for students to see things differently at universities, their potentialities have to be evoked. So this kind of provocation and evocation idea is necessary in the pursuit of decolonizing knowledge. And decolonizing knowledge doesn't simply mean that you subvert knowledge claims that are— some of the claims are plausible, others might not be— but that you begin to see things differently, and not just from a dominant or at times totalitarian perspective. So Notions of decolonisation can only happen in a university if we espouse notions of provocation and evocation. If I provoke my students, then I recognise their capacities to think for themselves so that they can come to speech. And if their potentialities are evoked, they can critique me as a university teacher And they can take issue with me. They can subvert my claims, but they have a voice and they have the potential to see things differently. Just imagine how our universities would be like if we say, let us recognize the potential of our students to think differently.

Amazing.

Exactly.

And we need, we need some different thinking right now, I think. But, but also, I would love to ask you, what, what do you think the place for that is in K-12 schooling, or is this— does it need to wait until learners and students are of a certain age and maturity to be able to encounter those different perspectives and come to their own?

The, the Rorty view, Richard Rorty, when he espoused that socialization are mostly linked to learners in the school, maybe primary school, but I don't think Rorty had in mind his other process which he espoused, individuation, only linked to university students. I would imagine that if you say that students have to develop critical minds and critical ways of understanding the world, the high school is predominantly the place where it should happen so that we don't perpetuate notions of knowledge regurgitation that dominates our schools today.

Yeah.

And yes, of course, in K-12 and in, in South Africa, we would talk about criticality being cultivated as early as a child's entrance into high school, because already in his primary years, there is that potentiality to look at things, to begin to ask questions. So we cannot say that youngsters do not have the potential the capability to look at things differently. And that's why our pro— our curricular programs have to be offered in such a way that we do encourage them to develop their critical acumen, their ways of seeing things in the world, and recognize they have the right to question. And that they don't have to wait to go to university. By the way, there is quite a possibility if they are not nurtured along the way that they would be quite rigid if they reach universities.

Sure, absolutely. Yeah.

So no, I encourage it at a very young age. Well, if I look at some of my grandchildren, they are beginning to ask questions. So who says that questioning is only the reserved ownership of more mature?

Exactly, exactly. I mean, some people would argue, you know, people who work with early years or primary, that, that actually it's something that we lose and we train young people out of rather than training them into.

Right?

I agree. Yeah. No, interesting. So you've talked a little bit about deliberation and that idea of kind of coming into relationship with each other, with ideas through dialogue and through in these spaces of inquiry, et cetera. You also talk about imagination and responsibility. I wonder if maybe you could just talk to those two, because I think those are also both really important thinking about creativity and different things like that. And then agency. So yeah.

When you begin to deliberate on matters, then you are going to see things. So in that sense, you develop a critical perspective.

Yeah.

So deliberative engagement in and about knowledge is necessary in order for the individual to develop a sense of an imagination. How can you imagine things without a platform, without some understanding of how things happen in the world? So for me, imagination is merely an expansion of one's engagement with knowledge, because then you are beginning to ask questions that have not been asked before. So you can ask these questions and begin to think differently about matters. And that's why philosophers of education, in particular Maxine Greene, have argued for cultivating this sense of evocation I talked about earlier on, so that students can begin to see things differently, as if they could be otherwise. And, and when they develop in that sense the capacities to, to see things differently, they begin to develop what Martha Nussbaum would call an enlarged mentality. And this enlargement of their mentalities is what, what I would call accessing the domain of the imaginative. So you begin to imagine things that you haven't given thought to, you begin to ask questions about matters that might be considered as controversial. But it's entering the moment you enter discussions about the controversial and begin to come up with ways as to how perhaps to resolve things that are different, that one have never given thought to, then you're entering the imaginative.

Yeah. Can I ask you just about that in relation to the concept of the future? Because I think I also see that sometimes that, again, in perhaps a more of a Western framing, there's, there's this kind of obsession with future. So imagination is somehow this creativity process of creating a better future or imagining a better future and all of, you know, that kind of future orientation. And from an African philosophical perspective, I wonder, where does— what's the relationship there with future and imagination?

So imagination, of course, there are links to the future, but imagination is about the present.

Yeah.

And it's how you can stretch the present beyond the present, perhaps into an alternative future, perhaps also back to what you think it ought to have been. So you don't have to necessarily go seeking for an alternative future, but you can also go back and rethink your notions so, so that notions reimagined could give rise to a better present. So what imagination does for me, it makes the individual functional and functionable within his present, so that she stretches her present towards another present, which you might refer to as a future. But then the capacity— or some, in, in one of the books, I argue the chaotic capacity to run back Just say, and, and think and rethink what you have done. And all these actions happen within the present. But you cannot have this in mind without a responsiveness towards society and community where you happen to find yourself. Yeah, because otherwise, your actions would only be for the sake of actions. There's nothing wrong in acting for the sake of acting. And I do not disagree with the, the ancient scholars. If your actions have some morally worthwhile purpose in mind, then your actions teeter on the boundaries, on the edges, on the periphery of virtuosity, that it is for the good of life, for the good of society, and for the good of the self. Now, I think that is necessary to enact your responsibility if you want to eradicate the violences, the inhumanities, the injustices which is so pervasive in the world today. And that for me, education for human and non-human responsibility becomes a necessity because it allows you in your presence to act towards eradicating those, um, heinous evils that you are confronted with. Otherwise, you would just be standing back with all your knowledge, not doing anything about it. So, I mean, we, we have the most advanced societies today who have partially expanded knowledge about the use of nuclear arms, but nuclear arms are used as threats against the existence of humanity in wars that seem to be unjust, or any war is always unjust. So I would imagine that if you use your knowledge for the advancement of humanity and not to curtail people and constrain them in their pursuit of what I— this is a term that is overused, but for the pursuit of goodness whereby people can cooperate, live together, and live peacefully, then your knowledge means nothing. I think it's a responsibility for me.

Absolutely. But I think there's something really kind of synthesizing in all of— because even that definition of what goodness is, is a kind of a constant negotiation and renegotiation. And that is done in dialogue and in deliberation. So it brings you back to deliberation, right? But I think I'd just love to reflect on what you were saying about the present, because I think, and that goes back to the subtitle of your book for me, which I think is so powerful. It's about, it's this humanness, right? On being human. And again, this just reflecting on the more Western individualistic education system, the trope of the industrial system and, you know, is quite overused, but There is a kind of mechanistic way of thinking about, well, we define what our future is going to be, and then we engineer backwards from this idealized future that we've, we've all kind of envisioned and agreed that's where we're going. So now, now it's just a process of engineering. What do we need in the right place at the right time to get to that idealized future state? Clearly, well, I think that is a complete fiction. And actually what all that we can only ever do is be in the present that we're in, in this kind of messy middle of just trying to figure things out. Obviously we want some kind of sense of direction in that, but I think that idea of alternative presence and, you know, and just the imagination of other ways of thinking in that present is just the messiness of being human. And I think that's a really powerful way to frame education.

Yeah, and you have to commit yourself to that. And that's why the claim that education is an encounter means that you cannot just willy-nilly dismiss others from that encounter, because what others have to say are significant to the encounter in that present space.

Yeah, and the epistemic justice again, right? They are in your present moment, they are part of it, and their views on that present from their perspective, or from other perspectives that their imagination can take them to, are just as valid as yours in that moment.

Yeah, it's the question Alistair MacIntyre asked in his book so many years ago, whose truth, whose rationality, which, which is quite pertinent.

It is, it is.

If there's deliberation, which is a genuine encounter, then you can talk about those matters.

Yeah. But then going back to your earlier point about the dichotomy between the kind of individualist and the communalist, we're not necessarily talking about clear split between some kind of monolithic truth and complete relativism, right? We're talking about this negotiated space in the middle, which is just, that is where we live, I think. And we get obsessed with these arguments, these kind of purity arguments about whether it's true or whether it's not, or whether it's completely relative and everyone's, you know, it's a complete free-for-all. That's not how we live actually. That's just not how we function.

I agree.

Yeah. Interesting. So I'd love to, if I can, just lastly ask you, where do you see the kind of practical implications of your work? I mean, you know, obviously I think the conceptual framing is absolutely essential and I spend a lot of my time thinking about this and I think it's really important, but then I also have to try and kind of bring myself back down to, you know, the lived reality of, you know, for example, across the African continent, there are lecturers and teachers going into schools every day often, perhaps, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, but in a kind of structure that is a legacy of colonialism. Yeah. And so what's the kind of practical— and, you know, action and practice are also, I think, a key part of your thinking— what are those kind of practical actions that educators now can be doing?

I think in, in my relationship with my students, we have developed collectively a sense of what it means to have an African philosophy of education, and that implies that we identify problems on the continent and then examine its implications for education. So I think the minds that, that we are cultivating through what is called an African philosophy of higher education is where individual teachers use their thoughts in their daily practices, whether it's the universities they work at, whether it's the schools they are engaged with, or whether it's the community organizations they are involved with. That is where those ideas should and ought to and may be manifest. You cannot just develop thoughts in an— in the so-called ivory tower, because that would disconnect your thoughts from the possibilities in the societies in which we live. So if you ask me for the practical implications, for me there has never been a dichotomy between theory and practice. So what you think about is what you ought to enact.

Yeah.

And it can only be in relation to who you have contact with. So wherever you serve you have to be vigilant in the kinds of theories you espouse. So if you say that an African philosophy of higher education exists theoretically, then espouse it.

Yeah.

An exposition of that will invariably manifest in the things you do in society. So if you ask me, I cannot pinpoint you— there's a school of African philosophy of education, right? But I can remind you that they are agents, human agents who, who have worked with our ideas and then engage in the institutions, in the social practices, in the formal, in the non-formal sectors of society where these ideas will inevitably manifest. They will find a way in these institutions, but For me, the— not the valorization of theory, but the engagement with theoretical thoughts should be your first priority. And that's what makes philosophy of education what it is. But I think it will find a better space for implementation in schools and institutions of higher learning.

Yeah, my feeling about that is that perhaps what you've been doing in developing this kind of framework and this, this theory, this African philosophy of higher education is important because it then, it supports, as you said, this kind of, you were not valorizing theory, but it is important in a way to frame the action that you then undertake in context, in the place, in relation with those people that you're educating. And I think that's one of my, again, not to harp on about your subtitle, but you know, some of our, the ways we view education is not very human actually. It's very mechanistic, it's very transmissive, and we're not creating a space through the theoretical framing. We're not creating a space where people, persons can go into a community of other persons and be as human as possible and help each person thrive and grow. That doesn't feel like what the industrial model has done. And that's why I do think that there's, there's something really important about your work in giving it that framing that somehow validates what we sometimes know to be true, is that we just go in a, into a room and we are people, persons with other persons, you know, whether we are teaching physics or whether we are teaching dance, you know, it, it's, that's what's going on.

Ja, so, I mean, if we persist in instrumentalizing education, we do subvert the human element. Ja. So in our deliberation, say I'm a member of the Council on Higher Education in South Africa, in our deliberations as members of that council who play a significant role in advising our Ministry of Education, if you ask me where it should manifest, it should manifest there. When we recognize one another as humans, invariably that kind of recognition will filter down to the work we do, to the policies we, we rethink, to the educational systems we give thought to, to how we address corruption in our institutions, and how we advance learning and teaching. Collectively. And I would imagine it has to happen in deliberative spaces. And if one says that Africa is not renowned for its deliberations, we have to think again, because there are ample opportunities for humans, youngsters, young minds, their teachers, their parents, to engage in this kind of deliberative engagement about thoughts that impact their lives. And I would imagine that is where it should happen, that it should happen in the family, should happen in the community, in the formal and the non-formal institutions of life, of society. And ultimately, if we were to do that, even with a degree of unconsciousness, we would have engaged in education. Sometimes we, we, we do not have to be formally attached to an institution, but just to sit under a tree and talk about matters that influence us. Yeah, that should happen in our society. It has to become more ubiquitous and more pervasive in, in our communities. Yeah. And then we would be practicing what our Greek ancestors, the Stoics, spoke about when they had in mind the notion of a genuine paideia, a genuine educational encounter.

Exactly.

It's not that Diogenes just contrived the notion of cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitês, that the engagement of the human with others when he sat somewhere there in ancient Greece. But he, he could see himself in relation to others and how this particular thought has been central to his understanding of human life. And whether it's Diogenes thinking about cosmopolitism, or whether it's Africans thinking about Ubuntu, and uqama, whether it's Muslims thinking about shūrā as a form of deliberative engagement, it happens and it has to happen. And any form of discussion about education requires the willingness of people to want to engage. If you don't have willing people to want to engage, it will never manifest. And just respond to your question directly, how do you think, or where does it manifest? You require the willingness of people that what we are going to talk about here impacts our lives, and that is doing justice to education. So if there are any preconditions or virtues that you require In addition to the cultivation of education, it's the virtue of recognizing that someone has something to say, in that simplistic way, which is worthwhile taking up, which is worthwhile considering. And once we express that willingness to consider from the inside that perhaps this particular idea might change us, then we might have a better world.

I couldn't agree more. I think that's absolutely beautiful. Yeah, no, we— I think it's essential. I think we've become obsessed with institutions in all of our conversations around education, and there were— the educational encounter that you've just described happens everywhere, all the time, but we don't even look at it. We don't even see it as part of the educational landscape anymore because we've become obsessed with these kind of rigid institutions of education. And that's not really where education happens.

I agree.

Good stuff. Amazing. Thank you so much, Yusuf. I so value this conversation and really amazing stuff. So thank you.

Thank you, Tim. And thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you. And the fact that I could learn from you as well.

Amazing. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day, Yusuf.

And I'll be in touch.

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