The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa: A Study of the Chagga Educational System (Garland Reference Library of Social Science)

Empowered by findings and insights from the wit and wisdom of the indigenous Chaga educational system, Dr. Mosha contends that an authentic educational program in Tanzania and elsewhere should be holistic in its unrelenting quest to educate the entire person: body, mind and spirit. She provides a comprehensive description of the indigenous schooling process and its underlying fundamental virtues and then proposes that modern education should give equal emphasis to both the spiritual development of students as well as to their intellectual growth in knowledge, science and technology. Dr. Mosha argues that for its own advantage and survival education has to prioritize moral consciousness and responsibility in its students to attain academic excellence. Without a consistent moral living and moral action by all who teach and learn, education eventually plunges into hopeless mediocrity. This book provides several contributions to the academy. First, it illustrates how the Chaga people of N. Tanzania cherish everyday experience and every here-and-now situation as teachable moments, teaching moments and learning moments. It is also rich in its description of stories, riddles, proverbs and rituals as powerful tool of holistic education. Thirdly, the book breaks ground by comprehensively articulating specific indigenous virtues such as reverence, self-control, silence and thoughtfulness, courage, diligence in work, and communality. This book therefore makes a significant contribution in the areas of indigenous knowledge, spirituality, education, African American studies, African studies, religious studies and anthropology.