Abstract:

Empowered by findings and insights from the wit and wisdom of the indigenous Chaga educational system, the author 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. He 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. This book provides several unique 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 uniquely rich in its description of stories, riddles, proverbs, and rituals as powerful tools 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.