School Days – A Summation
Patrick Chamoiseau’s novel entitled School Days is an intimate memoire of his experiences attending both pre-school and elementary in Fort-de-France, Martinique. Chamoiseau gives his own voice a space in which to breathe by artfully weaving his experiences with the other characters in the book. Chamoiseau has divided the book into two sections, the first entitled, “Longing” captures Chamoiseau’s intense desire to explore the world through words and drawings. His sibling’s days are filled with the hustle and bustle of school and Chamoiseau is impatient in his need to know where the Big Kids are going. His Mother (Mam Ninotte) tries desperately to keep Chamoiseau busy, and allows him to express himself by covering the walls of the apartment halls with drawings and paintings. Chamoiseau is thirsty to learn and explore which remains a constant theme throughout the book. His world at this point is carefree but also filled with the anxiety associated with wanting to join the Big Kids in what seems like a daily adventure. The world beyond the horizon was filled with books, satchels, chalk, slates, and Chamoiseau wanted to be a part of it all.
“No one had confirmed this, but the chalk, the satchel, the morning departure towards this unknown place seemed linked to a ritual of power into which he longed to be initiated” (p. 22).
He eventually begins to attend a pre-school that Mam Ninotte walks him to and from everyday. While he enjoys the experience he soon learns from the Big Kids that this place of words and numbers is not the same place that they know. Chamoiseau tries to dismiss this fact and works hard to maintain his perceived place as Mam Saliniere favourite. His Papa does not understand Chamoiseau’s intensity towards school and is quick to determine that “such a places, you went in a sheep only to come out a goat” (p. 30). When Chamoiseau entered his new school he quickly “felt trapped in the bottom of a net” (p.35). All children were now required to gain permission for everything except breathing, and even this was to be done silently. Order, discipline and respect were the name of the game. This was the beginning of the end of a culture that Chamoiseau was so intimately linked to. French would soon bombard Creole in a violent and strategic battle. In the second section entitled, “Survival”, Chamoiseau’s schools days quickly become a dreaded experience but he manages (for a short time) to hold on desperately to the hope of there being more meaning and excitement. He had to quickly learn “to leave some space between what his heart felt and what his mouth said. It meant surviving, I say, and dying at the same time” (p.75). The rest of Chamoiseau’s school days were lived within tensions between the colonial expectations at school and the celebration of a rich culture at home. Although he was often bored and oppressed at school, Chamoiseau maintained his love of words and life and created a memoire that speaks to the experience of many who are forced to swim upstream against the label of the “Other”.
Exploration of Major Characters
1. Big Belly Button
-Represents richness of Creole culture.
- Displays a natural resistance to attempts by Colonizer’s attempts to dominate the Colonized.
- Shows the strength and resiliency of Creole culture in refusing to be labeled as an inferior “other.” He tries to continually redefine himself outside of French cultural discourse, but the persistence and power of the Colonizer slowly erodes his ability to fend off their attacks.
- Displays the disconnect between what is valued in school and what is valued in one’s natural surroundings.
- In school he is worthless, the epitome of what is wrong with the world.
- Outside the gates of education he becomes a skilled leader, helping define and determine the future of his peers.
- Displays a natural resistance to attempts by Colonizer’s attempts to dominate the Colonized.
- Shows the strength and resiliency of Creole culture in refusing to be labeled as an inferior “other.” He tries to continually redefine himself outside of French cultural discourse, but the persistence and power of the Colonizer slowly erodes his ability to fend off their attacks.
- Displays the disconnect between what is valued in school and what is valued in one’s natural surroundings.
- In school he is worthless, the epitome of what is wrong with the world.
- Outside the gates of education he becomes a skilled leader, helping define and determine the future of his peers.
2. Teacher
- Represents those among the colonized who the colonizer must depend on to maintain their position of strength.
- Paraphrasing Bhabha, Radford asserts that “it is well known that colonial identity owes part of its constitution to that colonized other and that revolt is potentially immanent.” Therefore, in Bhabha’s formation, teachers are positioned hegemonically to mimic the forms and values of dominant culture because this is whom they represent.” (2004, p. 251).
- Has fully immersed himself in the “French Universal” discourse, yet at times feels the essence of his Creole identity trying to resurface. The Teacher works hard to repress these feelings through self-regulation and technologies of the self, “which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform I themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality” (Foucault, 1988, p. 18)
- Sees complete acceptance of colonial discourse as only way to gain power within his world.
- Has learned to hate his old Creole self as constructed as the French colonial discourse. “The objective of colonial discourse is to construe the colonized as a population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction” (Bhaba, 1996, p. 92).
- He represses his Creole culture at all costs and has be co-opted by the French colonial system to inculcate these same feelings in his students.
- Paraphrasing Bhabha, Radford asserts that “it is well known that colonial identity owes part of its constitution to that colonized other and that revolt is potentially immanent.” Therefore, in Bhabha’s formation, teachers are positioned hegemonically to mimic the forms and values of dominant culture because this is whom they represent.” (2004, p. 251).
- Has fully immersed himself in the “French Universal” discourse, yet at times feels the essence of his Creole identity trying to resurface. The Teacher works hard to repress these feelings through self-regulation and technologies of the self, “which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform I themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality” (Foucault, 1988, p. 18)
- Sees complete acceptance of colonial discourse as only way to gain power within his world.
- Has learned to hate his old Creole self as constructed as the French colonial discourse. “The objective of colonial discourse is to construe the colonized as a population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction” (Bhaba, 1996, p. 92).
- He represses his Creole culture at all costs and has be co-opted by the French colonial system to inculcate these same feelings in his students.
3. Little Boy (Chamoiseau)
- Represents the tension of negotiating an existence in two very different worlds.
- Creole culture and French Universalism.
- At home, in the Creole world, he has developed a vast and intricate system of knowledge validated and encouraged by those around him.
- However, when he arrives at school, this knowledge is devalued and he is expected to be proficient in a completely different knowledge system without ever experiencing or being exposed to this alternative worldview.
- Thus, he is constantly being pulled in opposite directions, transforming his identity into something completely new.
- He struggles with how to deal with the tension.
- Should he submit to the Teacher and the powerful pull of education?
- Should he resist schooling at all costs, staying true to his Creole roots?
- How can he find a space in between?
- Creole culture and French Universalism.
- At home, in the Creole world, he has developed a vast and intricate system of knowledge validated and encouraged by those around him.
- However, when he arrives at school, this knowledge is devalued and he is expected to be proficient in a completely different knowledge system without ever experiencing or being exposed to this alternative worldview.
- Thus, he is constantly being pulled in opposite directions, transforming his identity into something completely new.
- He struggles with how to deal with the tension.
- Should he submit to the Teacher and the powerful pull of education?
- Should he resist schooling at all costs, staying true to his Creole roots?
- How can he find a space in between?
4. Monsieur le Directeur
- Represents the Panoptic Gaze of the colonial authority.
- French Universalism, Enlightenment Ideals, Capital T Truth,
- He is the homogenizing force that is constantly lurking in the background, threatening to take powerful action if the Creole youth stray from their self-regulation.
- The superior French culture, working to overtake the Creole identity.
- Regulates the regulators.
Major Themes
- French Universalism, Enlightenment Ideals, Capital T Truth,
- He is the homogenizing force that is constantly lurking in the background, threatening to take powerful action if the Creole youth stray from their self-regulation.
- The superior French culture, working to overtake the Creole identity.
- Regulates the regulators.
Major Themes
1. Language as a Colonizing Force (Linguicide)
- Language is critical in creating the self, of developing one’s own understanding of the world.
- Freire and Macedo (1987):
It is through their own language that they will be able to reconstruct their own history and culture … the student’s language is the only means by which they can develop their own voice, a prerequisite to the development of a positive sense of self worth.
(as cited in Schofield & Rogers, 2004, p. 244)
- School Days pg. 65
- “Teacher sometimes showed them pictures, any one of which the little boy could have turned into a thousand words, but the Teacher had reduced him to a silence that only deepened each time he heard the now constant lament: Oh, this Crreole brrood has nothing to say!”
- Teacher had taken from them their ability to create meaning. Their medium for connecting to the world around them had been programmed and beaten out of them through technologies of power, practice, and self.
- Students made to feel that Creole was the root of all evil, “the ball and chain that would keep the children prisoners of ignorance” (p. 64).
- This continually re-inscribed them as the colonized “other,” who spoke in wild, barbaric, free flowing way. They had be submitted and controlled by the rules, regulations, and logic of French in order to gain the enlightenment of their colonizers.
- In this way, Linguicide was committed, destroying the student’s ability to interact with their world and understand their surroundings.
2. Longing for More then Survival, Longing to Thrive
- The little boy is constantly searching for ways to understand the world around him, expressing what he sees through his own lens as constructed by his language, culture, and surroundings.
- He has a strong desire to participate, to make known his thoughts and views to those around him.
- School Days pg. 20
- It could be said. His own scribblings inspired sounds, feelings, sensations that he expressed however he pleased but always differently: their interpretation depended on his mood and the ambience of the moment.
- He longs to create meaning and sees school as an outlet for giving him new mediums to do so.
- Pg. 22
- The ability to capture pieces of the world seemed to come from school. No one had confirmed this, but the chalk, the satchel, the morning departure toward this unknown place seemed linked to a ritual of power into which he longed to be inititated.
- However, when he arrives, his previous knowledge is eradicated by a system valuing a narrow and very particular way of making meaning, one that does not include the little boy’s vision of the world.
- This creates a disconnect between who he is and who he is supposed to be forcing him to wallow in between, undefined.
- “Education as the practice of freedom - as opposed to education as the practice of domination - denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent and unattached to the world; it also denies that the world exists as reality apart from people.” (Freire, 1970, p. 81)
- The Teacher denies these ties to the world and thus, works to oppress rather than free the Little Boy and his classmates from oppression.
3. Tensions Between Home and School
Home represents – beauty, he felt born to wander, the lost enchantment of home (p.13), full of questions to be answered, port in a storm (p.15), potential for the future, between his true self and the “Other” that he was forced to learn to inhabit at school, the tension between the anxiety of school and the desire to continue to attend (p.20), home was a sensual experience, in school his senses were reined in and forced in a certain direction, at home he felt represented, the chalk slate represented the possibility of being erased, “school was fun” (pre-school), Mam Saliniere’s only punishment was indifference (p.28), school versus home as a dichotomy in itself, his walks home created space between two worlds.
Foucault: “technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being”
The teacher demonstrates to the students an “acceptable” performance of self thereby erasing their own selves that are in the process of being self-defined through their own cultural expectations of how to “be”.
Foucault: “technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being”
The teacher demonstrates to the students an “acceptable” performance of self thereby erasing their own selves that are in the process of being self-defined through their own cultural expectations of how to “be”.
4. Maintaining Culture (which is always shifting and changing) in the Midst of Other Cultures
How can you maintain your own culture (which is constantly changing and shifting) while also participating in a school system that is actively trying to fit you into another culture that is also constantly shifting, changing but also excluding? Part of the colonial cultural identity is based on an exclusion and repulsion of the “Other”. The process of colonizing is not only forcing colonial identity onto others but is demonizing the value of the “Other”.
Community: “We” normally speak about community in terms of shared value and caring, how does the school in Chamoiseau’s School Days work to create a sense of community. Does the school even create a community? Who gets to decide what makes up a community? Does this school adhere to any type of democratic ideals?
How does language play into the sense of community?
Individuals make up the community and without the individuals the community does not exist.
Discussion Questions
1. Do the themes we presented speak to your experience of the book? Why? How? Why not?
2. Did other themes emerge for you? Explain.
"A Class Divided"
Community: “We” normally speak about community in terms of shared value and caring, how does the school in Chamoiseau’s School Days work to create a sense of community. Does the school even create a community? Who gets to decide what makes up a community? Does this school adhere to any type of democratic ideals?
How does language play into the sense of community?
Individuals make up the community and without the individuals the community does not exist.
Discussion Questions
1. Do the themes we presented speak to your experience of the book? Why? How? Why not?
2. Did other themes emerge for you? Explain.
"A Class Divided"
Thoughts on“A Class Divided”
A Class Divided displays the efficiency and speed of education in creating student identities, which in turn dictate student behaviour. You can observe over the course of a day, how young individuals live out the self-fulfilling prophecies created by their teacher. It illustrates the potentially harmful nature of education as a force working to enhance negative understandings of the "other" rather than one of democracy and understanding.
