Crossing the Parallel Universe(s): An Experimental, Multicultural, and Interdisciplinary Approach to Using Mythology in the South African Classroom

In South Africa, where the classical culture itself was inextricably linked with its colonial past, there is now a requirement to decolonize and Africanize the curriculum. Claudia C.J. Fratini, after giving an overview of the evolution of the South African education reforms, argues, that mythology could be used as an invaluable tool within the classroom to create a multicultural and interdisciplinary conversation within the South African school environment. Illustrating this, she provides a detailed example and lesson plans of how mythology can be employed in the classroom to journey through what she calls “the wormhole that links contextualized learning to the parallel universes inhabited by the debates on decolonization and Africanization of the curriculum”. The complete volume "Our Mythical Education: The Reception of Classical Myth Worldwide in Formal Education, 1900–2020", edited by Prof. Lisa Maurice, focuses on school education including a wide geographical and chronological range. The volume covers Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas (including Canada, the USA, and South America), Australia and New Zealand. Published in the series “Our Mythical Childhood”, edited by Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw Open Access of the whole volume is available at https://www.wuw.pl/product-eng-14887-Our-Mythical-Education-The-Reception-of-Classical-Myth-Worldwide-in-Formal-Education-1900-2020-PDF.htmlThis project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 681202 (2016–2022), "Our Mythical Childhood... The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Children's and Young Adults' Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges", ERC Consolidator Grant led by Katarzyna Marciniak. Project's Website: www.omc.obta.al.uw.edu.pl. The publication is licensed under (CC BY 3.0 PL) (full license available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/pl/legalcode)