Lisa Ann Hacker 

An Honest Perspective: Bringing Colonial and Post Colonial Writers

into Dialogue in the Christian Classroom

When my oldest son, Justin, was in kindergarten, he toddled off the school bus one day with a tattered coloring page of Christopher Columbus amicably shaking hands with a smiling Native American.

“Mom, did you know that Christopher Columbus and the Indians were best friends?”

Had I not been in the midst of a college American History course, perhaps my academic feelers would not have been so sensitive. I felt it best to correct my son as gently and sensitively as I could, desiring for him to have a balanced and age appropriate understanding of the truth. (He did not get the total of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the World, but he did get a taste of it).

The next day, my son sulked off the bus, distraught and confused. His public school teacher had told him that his mother was wrong.

I can not say why this teacher fumbled the opportunity to teach the truth, but I can learn from it and address the issue today as a teacher in a Christian school. I certainly understand the concept of presenting information that correlates with a system of values, but my experience teaching Christian curriculum has been that it often presents edited versions of history that overwhelmingly support nationalism and missions-based expansion. Historical figures, like Columbus, are praised as men who answered a call from God, seeking Christian conversions and the spreading of the Gospel. Although I will not argue against all of these assertions entirely, I do see the need for painfully honest clarification and further discussion on colonial and postcolonial issues in the Christian classroom.  

The concepts I have learned in this class up to this point, and the writers I have been exposed to, have kindled within me a strong desire to present a fair and balanced truth to my students, regardless of the limitations that Christian-based curriculum may sometimes impose. I believe that the best opportunity to provide a balanced understanding of colonialism and post colonialism is through its writers. Valuable and enlightening dialogue between colonial and postcolonial writers in the Christian classroom should be taught from the angle of historicism, combining history with the study of literature.  This cross-curriculum approach is easily adaptable to any current Christian curriculum and will provide Christian educators with the opportunity to give their students a stronger, more balanced education.

Currently, the bias in most Christian curriculum is quite clear, especially to non-Christians. Because the focus of Christian curriculum is to raise up students with Christian values, this type of Christian curriculum will naturally focus on the attributes of historical figures that support those values, while oftentimes softening those that don't.

For example, in the A-Beka history curriculum for 8th graders, Christopher Columbus is described as a man moved by the Holy Spirit to bring wealth to his sponsoring country, Spain, and bring about Christian conversions. To today's Christian, the general concept of seeking conversions is a good thing. It is the Christian's goal to spread the gospel and bring others to the faith.

To the typical 13 year old sitting in the Christian classroom, this sounds good. But without explaining how Columbus went about doing this, and how he displaced and dehumanized natives in every place that he traveled, the truth has not been presented.

The first step in achieving this balance, surprisingly, is not to throw the current curriculum away. Despite its tendencies to be biased, the bias does not negate its value. It has been my experience that a great majority of curriculums are biased in one way or the other, whether they are conservative, liberal, or nationalistic. The bias in Christian curriculum provides for an intriguing explanation of colonial and postcolonial literature from the very first day of class.

Students will most likely be unaware of the genre, but after a defining introduction, the text itself could serve as the first springboard for dialogue.  After all, couldn’t this text be presented as another example of postcolonial literature, albeit one that favors the colonial viewpoint? Postcolonial literature is not necessarily limited to the viewpoint of the colonized, but is also seen as possibly including any contemporary postcolonial discourse. Simply put, a text that tends to encompass or favor the colonial viewpoint, in part, could still be considered part of postcolonial literature. “In other words, postcolonial studies is the study of the ‘totality’ of texts, in the largest sense of ‘text’, that participate in homogenizing other cultures and the study of texts that write back to correct or undo Western hegemony…” (Groden and Kreisworth). Although not fictional, Christian curriculum could be seen as correcting or undoing Western hegemony by actually defending it. Though certainly not a perfect fit, it opens up the classroom as a place of honest and searching discourse. I realize that this is a highly debatable assertion, but it is certainly one worth considering, and one that would definitely get the discussion going in a classroom.

Once students have been brought to the understanding that certain texts have a place as either colonial or postcolonial writings, they can begin to look at the actual works that are representative. While learning about the age of exploration and discovery in The New World, students could be reading excerpts from Robinson Crusoe. After the presentation of factual information, they would probably enjoy reading the fictionalized account of Crusoe. (What teenager today is not intrigued by the concept of parental rebellion leading to a defiant journey towards independence?) 

At some point in the study, students would come to see that the complexities of this novel extend far beyond the initial adventure story.  Crusoe will emerge not simply as a story of one man’s survival, but as a story of one man’s desire to rule over another. The parallels between Crusoe and colonizing nations such as England and Spain will help students see that the explorers who came to The New World were not acting only as ambitious individuals, but as representatives of nations influenced by entitlement and a desire for wealth that benefited both themselves and their home countries.

Yes, Columbus did desire to convert natives to Christianity, just as Crusoe initially desired to save Friday’s life. But for what purpose? The process of conquering and converting resulted in the re-education of Friday, just as Columbus’ efforts and the efforts of those after him resulted in the re-education, displacement, and eventual near eradication of entire people groups. Friday was forced to lay aside his language and take up Crusoe’s, abandon his own religious and cultural beliefs, and even leave his homeland in order to better serve Crusoe’s needs and vision. The same happened in colonized nations. In this type of study, literary fiction definitely plays a part in instructing students’ knowledge of world history because it provides such a close parallel to the truth. It also helps to reveal the thinking behind the actions.

The Christian student will, undoubtedly, struggle with the complexities of this narrative.  I have seen it happen in my own classroom. While presenting the poem “White Man’s Burden” to my 8^th graders, students were astounded at the racial tones and proclamations. The fact that this “horrible” poem, in their words, was written by the same author of “The Jungle Book” made it only worse. But in our college classroom, there was not as much shock because we have been educated in the truth of the colonial process.

Some Christian teachers may fear these types of dialogues because it focuses attention on the missteps and mistakes made by fellow Christians. They may be unwilling to delve into the sins of the forefathers, so to speak. But it is a grave mistake to "teach" in a manner that whitewashes history in an effort to preserve outdated an false historical assumptions.

It is at this crossroads in the classroom that intertextuality between colonial and postcolonial writers  becomes such  a vital tool. After the introduction of texts from postcolonial writers such as Jamaica Kincaid and Derek Walcott, the classroom discussion becomes complete as students can visualize the impact that this type of colonization has had on emerging and current generations.  Both Kincaid and Walcott are masterful writers who provide profound expositions on colonialism and postcolonial issues, but they also represent two different modes of thinking.

For Kincaid, the bitter aftertaste of colonization is ever present. Students would be exposed to a variety of her pieces, including excerpts from A Small Place, which show that the author herself still struggles with coming to terms with what has happened to her home country. In Karen Daniels’ midterm, “The Purpose of Ambiguity in Literature”, she asserts that students should always understand the difference between narrator and author, because they are not one and the same. But with the case of Kincaid, the author writes from such a strong autobiographical viewpoint that the two can not be completely severed. The narrator’s frustrations and hurts parallel Kincaid’s personal view. By reading A Small Place, students would have an example of the everlasting effects of colonialism on current and emerging generations:

"I cannot tell you how angry it makes me to hear people from North America tell me how much they love England, how beautiful England is with all its traditions. All they see is some frumpy, wrinkled-up person passing by in a carriage waving at a crowd. But what I see is the millions of people, of whom I am just one, made orphans: no motherland, no fatherland, no gods, no mounds of earth for holy ground, no excess of love which might lead to the things that an excess of love sometimes brings, and worst and most painful of all, no tongue."

By comparing Lucy in reference to Crusoe, students can also see the issue of transmigration come to life. Lucy comes to America looking for a better way, but finds heartache in every turn. From the betraying sun that promises a false heat the to the stomach-churning image of daffodils, Lucy is a captive to her past. For the colonized, it is a double-robbery of the soul. She can not find peace at home, but she also can’t find it away from home.

Students would also see, as we discussed during Mallory Rogers’ class presentation, that when Lucy came to the states to work as an au pair, she was in a similar position of Friday, working for the good of the colonizer. Lewis and Mariah are perfectly content for Lucy to serve them, but unable to accept her for who she is. Therefore, while Crusoe is successful in recreating a version of his home in another land, Lucy finds herself in a continual and repetitive cycle from which it’s difficult to escape: displaced, discontent, and disengaged from her identity.

While Kincaid is an example of a postcolonial writer who remains bitter about colonialism, Walcott is an example of a postcolonial writer who has emerged from it and found a semblance of peace. In an interview in the London Guardian, Walcott is described as a writer who is “…a profound critic of how the Caribbean has been treated by empire, but is also very aware of the cultural legacy and riches that connection brings.”  (www.nalis.gov). Walcott acknowledges that he is torn between the hatred for England that he and Kincaid share, and the love for the culture and identity that he is grown up a part of:

Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?

In his own words, Walcott attempts to define the relationship. “Obviously, colonialism was there and racism and history and so on. We had our anger, but it was kind of great to be angry-it had its own vigor. It wasn’t at all sour or vengeful.” (www.nalis.gov).

Walcott also provides a perspective that further reflects his place of healing when he says:

"...we're all imported, black, Spanish. When one says one is American, that's the experience of being American-that transference of whatever color, or name, or place. The difficult part is the realization that one is part of the whole idea of colonization. Because the easiest thing to do about colonization is to refer to history in terms of guilt or punishment or revenge, whatever. Whereas the rare thing is the resolution of being where one is and doing something positive about that reality." (www.english.emory.edu).

The fact that two postcolonial writers can have such contrasting ways of thinking will provide an even richer discourse in the classroom. Like most elements of history, nothing about these writers is simple or one-sided. By comparing and contrasting these two postcolonial writers, the students in a Christian classroom can engage in a more fair and balanced dialogue. It will also lead to a more compassionate  understanding of the effects of colonialism in colonized countries.

It is clear that there is a gap in Christian curriculum where it concerns colonial history. The fact that Christians have not always done the right thing is no surprise, but it is also not justification to abandon their contributions. In the Christian classroom, this conflict may be one of the most valuable teaching opportunities a teacher will have to explore. Without abandoning Christian-based curriculum  and without demonizing the Christian faith, the Christian school teacher can teach a more balanced and truthful account of history by using colonial and postcolonial literature.

As a student in Professor White's Colonial and Postcolonial literature course, I have been exposed to theories and texts that I will now bring back to my own classroom. As a teacher, I will choose to present information in a fair and balanced manner so that my students are the better for it. And I am thankful for other teachers who are committed to the same, like retired College of the Mainland Professor Larry Smith.

 After listening to my frustrations with my son’s kindergarten teacher, Professor Smith agreed to meet with Justin one morning. I kept Justin home from school and we met with Professor Smith before my 8:00 a.m. class. Justin brought a list of questions that Professor Smith answered with great patience and clarity. He then allowed Justin to sit in on our class and listen to the discourse about Columbus, colonization, and Native Americans in great detail. My son took note the entire time, sitting quietly and attentively.

Later, Professor Smith was concerned that he had let slip a couple of words that may have been inappropriate for Justin’s young ears, but the greater good had been achieved, nonetheless.

My son learned the truth.

Works Cited:

"Derek Walcott" www.english.emory.edu, n.d. Web 28 Sept. 2011.

"Derek Walcott: The Laureate of St. Lucia." www.nalis.gov, n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2011.

Groden, Michael, and Kreiswirth, Martin, eds.  The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Print.