To understand how CBC was marketed to the mindukras, let's go to that subject that GoK hates so much: language and literature.
What GoK did was to pick the dreams of Kenyans for education, and then use those dreams to describe CBC. Here are some examples.
What GoK did was to pick the dreams of Kenyans for education, and then use those dreams to describe CBC. Here are some examples.
There were videos that were shared until I was sick of them: the talks by Sir Ken Robinson on education. In those videos, he went on and on about letting kids' minds roam free, be creative and do artistic work.
KICD picked that, told people that CBC was about "talent.
KICD picked that, told people that CBC was about "talent.
But what Kenyans didn't hear (they rarely do when a mzungu speaks and government repeats) is that Robinson didn't talk about kids roaming in the streets and dancing or drawing on their own. He was talking about what kids were saying to arts TEACHERS in arts lessons.
But since in Kenya, one's crediblity is reduced the further down the race, gender, tribe hierarachy one goes, let me quote the guy verbatim: 
Robinson's speeches were about invisible teachers but attacks on schools and brilliant sweet kids doing awesome stuff. KICD picked rhetoric to support CBC, then Kenyans celebrated some god-knows-what talent, as I was alone challenging KICD to talk instead about ARTS education.
It was "double think" or "cognitive dissonance," because what KICD was actually promising was ditching the kids of the poor as "talented," and saying nothing about the fact that arts in teacher training has all but died. There are almost no programs to train arts teachers.
The other dissonance was "parental involvement." Jesus, that is the con of the century. That's why when Magoha rants about parents everybody dances about how "right" he is.
But what we're people hearing when KICD used it? This guy.
But what we're people hearing when KICD used it? This guy.
In case some of you are too young to know how my generation of Nyayo milk got so brainwashed in the 80s, short clips of this guy telling us how to raise Christian bourgeois families (1 wife, 2 kids, 3 bedrooms, 4 wheel drive and 5 acre plot) used to come just before the news.
By the time we were in campus, us Nairobi kids were attending bourgeois churches with white American pastors and their homeschooling wives, and dreaming that this was the real life (the Kirinyaga governor was one of the believers).
We were too young to understand that the economic diet of SAPs that had hit schools so hard was the reason why schools were crumbling. Rather than sensitize us to fight for public education, the Nairobi elite pastors told us to homeschool and raise kids in godly ways.
So when KICD was saying "parental involvement," Kenyans were hearing this bourgeois dream, when in fact, KICD increasing control through surveillance of parents and making parents do the bulk of the work and pay the bulk of the cost for education.
KICD has adopted using the arguments made against CBC to support CBC. Like one thing I said in 2018 was that a simple teaching approach doesn't require the replacement of the system. All it needs is teachers to be told what it is because we're trained to adopt several approaches.
In 2019, Dr. Jwan used that same argument I made but twisted it to say that teachers don't need to be trained in CBC.
In 2018, I kept saying that we need to stop obsessing with teaching tech because kids can learn to adapt if we give them the right skills of adaptation.
In 2018, I kept saying that we need to stop obsessing with teaching tech because kids can learn to adapt if we give them the right skills of adaptation.
In fact, at #sidebar with Larry Madowo, I said that I didn't grow up learning with computers but I eventually learned to use them. So this rush to carry out stomach surgery to treat cholera was unnecessary.
This year, KICD used the same argument about not needing to learn tech to say that teachers have a bad attitude towards gadgets, because who taught them to use mobile phones and MPESA?
Another argument I made in 2018 was that the problem with our education system was that it didn't allow teachers to be creative in the classroom, and that simply letting teachers teach would have been a cheaper than a system replacement.
Guess what? KICD took that argument to blame teachers when CBC was becoming a burden for parents.
I have no lesson, I have no solution. I gave the solutions I had, but KICD has twisted them to defend itself and CBC. But surely, if CBC was all that, and I was so "negative," why doesn't KICD get its own words to defend CBC instead of twisting the words of CBC opponents?
But Kenyans don't spot the contractions because we are so used to newspeak. Since the nyayo days when news began with "mtukufu rais, leo...." we have never been able to talk about ourselves and life other than in bureaucratic jargon given to us by media, government and school.
The media revolved around the same CBC point for 2 years. 2 years! They asked "what is wrong with CBC?" "Do we go back to 8-4-4?" and "are teachers trained and textbooks bought?"
But those questions are all about GoK action, not our education.
But those questions are all about GoK action, not our education.
So, all I can say is that we need the watch out for newspeak.
GoK has nothing to offer and nothing to say, but it needs to pretend that it does.
It will steall our words if it has to.
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GoK has nothing to offer and nothing to say, but it needs to pretend that it does.
It will steall our words if it has to.
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