The Ile-Ebu and the Ile-Iwe: an Ethnographic Study of Traditional and Contemporary Pedagogy Among the Yoruba (Nigeria).

An ethnographic study of pedagogy in two contrasting settings--"House of Books" and "House of Pots"--was conducted among Yoruba children and adults in Ile-Ife and Moro, Nigeria. In reviewing the literature about education in Africa a dearth of information about Yoruba, Nigerian or African children which presented their lives on their own terms was found. A critical analysis of this literature revealed that this situation is linked to the analyses of cross-cultural psychologists which do not accept African contexts on their own terms. Implications of recent scholarship in the sociology of knowledge for cross-cultural psychological discourse make clear that African "cultural contexts of learning and thinking" cannot be considered understood when the basis for the analysis is Euro-American middle-class cultural contexts. Moreover, models of thinking and modes of constructing cultural contexts based on historical dichotomies between "primitive" and "civilized" people from the 19th century do not serve to help us underst and . In the "House of Books" teaching and learning in the classroom is determined by the structure of the text which controls not only what is written but teacher-pupil interactions during oral encounters which are limited to four major modes: narrative, in chorus pat-answer responses, repetition, and the catechistic mode. In the "House of Pots", one learns by actually performing the task of pottery-making in the apprenticeship which involves children and adults teaching the learner to mould, shape and build clay pots. The pedagogy of the apprentice proceeds from example by showing the learner how to craft correctly in response to attempts considered mistakes. Asking questions or asking the names of things conflicted with the potter's method of teaching. "To know the craft" in the pedagogical perspective of the pottery teacher, the learner must "do the work". Children and adults' cognitive experiences in the composites of classroom teaching and learning were being undermined by a "civilizing" pedagogical infrastructure. A discussion of the implications of the research findings in terms of the discontinuities between the pedagogy of the Ile-Iwe, the Ile-Ebu, and some of the goals and objectives of primary school education, suggest ways in which pottery-making and primary classrooms might be integrated to create an indigenous form of African education. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)Ph.D.Educational psychologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161519/1/8720250.pd