Written by Shashi Knott
Shashi Knott is an English teacher and former Deputy Head of Sixth Form, with 16 years of experience teaching in state secondary schools across North London. After earning her MSc in Education, Power, and Change, she transitioned from her role as a full-time English teacher to focus on driving change within education. She is interested in working with other professionals to see how we can create more compassionate environments in schools. She is currently an outreach English teacher and Associate Trainer with KCA Training.
Decolonising the curriculum is like finding new love—it’s hard work, often requiring us to let go of what we’ve cherished. It’s a struggle, and one that calls for understanding and acknowledgment of the emotions involved.
The department meeting went silent. A chair scraped awkwardly as we shifted at tables. It was nearly 4.30pm. Everyone had marking to do. Was this about to get tricky?
In London, where I work as an English teacher, 46.2% of residents identify as non-white. It’s not a difficult context to make an argument that the texts we teach our students should be more representative. And yet, somehow, we don’t seem to make it happen.
We could absolutely have spent some of our fast- vanishing department budget on a new set of texts for Year 9. Amazingly, we all agreed that Elizabeth Acevedo’s ‘The Poet X’ would be an excellent choice for the spring term. However, when one of us asked, “What about George Orwell?” I know they were not the only ones thinking this. The silence in the room might have suggested otherwise, and we all knew what we should say next. So when our Head of Department was conciliatory, coming up with the comfort of delay, we were all secretly relieved. “We’ll revisit the discussion at the end of the term.” “ We’ll review again in our gained time.” “We’ll assess our existing schemes of work for diversity. ”
We know what we should be advocating for, but there are so many reasons why teaching ‘Animal Farm’ feels more comfortable, and it’s not just because we already have established schemes of work.
As English teachers and often English graduates, we have all internalised an idea of what constitutes the canon. Literary critic Harold Bloom describes canonical texts as works of ‘aesthetic beauty’ (1994) and therefore, he suggests, to question these texts is to question the merit of art itself. Bloom describes the ‘idealistic resenters’ who ‘denounce competition’ and want to focus on marginalised voices, as missing the point of art and culture. (1994) Whilst Bloom’s ideas have been convincingly challenged and are now certainly out of fashion, they are ideas that we cannot fail to have internalised. Many of us grew up with these views being the dominant narrative in the study of English Literature and speaking for myself, I did much work to embrace the canon. I certainly did not want to be seen as someone who missed the point of art.
We have to acknowledge that decolonising our minds is uncomfortable. It involves acknowledging that some of the texts we loved, we might need to let go. A bit like the way a song from our youth, however rubbish, will always evoke strong feelings, those first occasions of literary love will do the same. The first time you felt seen, grown up, clever, understood. That first moment of connection with the canon. Mine was Keats, the perfect poet for the
misunderstood teen. Decolonising the curriculum involves a deconstruction of the canon, of beloved texts, and that can mean a painful epistemic discomfort. We picked apart those texts. We invested meaning in them. We succeeded at them. That’s why we’re English teachers.
Decolonising the English curriculum is as much about interrogating our own relationship with literature as it is about buying new books or creating schemes of work. It is about being willing to forge new relationships with texts and giving our students those special moments of connection, potentially with texts that are not our one true love. It’s not just about representation for global majority students, it’s about a more inclusive literary canon for everyone.
Maybe as English teachers we need to go forth and find new literary loves. New characters to fall for. New writers to make students feel understood, and to voice, in new ways, all the age old feelings. Not a new canon. Just new names to add in. New, gritty, glittering, literary loves for students of English to come.
References
Bloom, H. (2014) The western canon: The books and school of the ages. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.