Surname & Initials: Maseko.SL
Student Number: 201416815
Topic: How does ‘explication’ promote inequality and unfreedom (the lack of freedom)
according to Rancière?
How does Explication promote inequality and unfreedom?
Introduction
In this essay I will be critically analysing explication and emancipation through
education as well as look at how can facilitators of instruction (a Teacher) can create
a sense of inequality and unfreedom not only in learners reasoning capabilities but
also in later stage how they now as citizens can be still unfree in the society. What is
explication? Explication is the process of unfolding and of making clear the meaning
of things, so as to make unprocessed information more sensible. Educational
inequality will then be the difference in the learning results or effectiveness.
Ranciere’s explains that educational principle should be based on the notion of
creating freedom of choice and understanding for the learner. He bases this point on
the manner of saying that education equality should be a process rather than a predemined destination. Explication as one of the traditional ways of instruction thus
contributes to inequalities and Gaps in the context of a free society, this is done
through situations where the learner is not given a chance to draw from his own
understanding but rather add on a existing view a taught subject or discipline. The
use of Explication is also deprived largely from the notion of saying that learners are
ignorant and therefore knowledge must be poured in learner’s heads.
Body
Explication is the process of making knowledge clearer. It is considered to be a
traditional way of teaching and learning. Ranciere collected from his research based
on the work of Joseph Jacotot that knowledge is not necessary for teaching and that
explication is not necessary for learning. This led him to the conclusion that no one
truly knows anything except for that which he/she has been taught. In this sense
explication is not necessary for learning to take place. The explication order is
considered as the knowledge from the book to the teacher to the learner. This in
itself constraints the learner from creating a new dimension or understanding of the
given information and does not necessarily promote equality but rather unfreedom,
Knowledge is presented on to the learners and it is supposed to be taken as the
gospel truth. Therefore learners end up replicating the teacher’s understanding of the
information rather than formulating their own. Explication then in greater sense
become the core of social inequality as learners are taught as much as the teacher
wants them to know, rather than enabling them to freely formulate their own views
and understanding. Rancière when studying Joseph Jacotot discovered that this use
of explication which at times was seen as liberating is in actual sense a main
contributor to a society which is unequal.
One of the constructivist theorists Reuven Feuerstein stated that “All learners can
learn, irrespective of age or stage of development that they are in” and that “All
individuals can change the way they think and learn at any stage”. Joseph Jacotot
proved the same pedagogy’ of learning without explication when he used
experiments that lead him to realise the value of learners creating understanding.
Jacotot had a language barrier in his classroom when he had to instruct his leaners
but found that they were not speaking the same language, Therefore limiting the
learners from what he wanted them to know Jacob then discovered that by leaving
the students to themselves with a book of knowledge he could then wait for the
understanding which the learners picked u or themselves.
It is my view that the uses of this experiment lead to the realisation in educational
terms which shy’s away from the aspects such as Indoctrination. By using
pedagogies which will allow people to use their minds freely, to create minds which
will not be oppressed by the cornered off knowledge that they get “brainwashed”
with. It will enable a person to go beyond than that which is presented to them and
fight against oppression, therefore rendering all as equally intelligent and in
extension creating a society of citizens who are aware of what they want to achieve.
When an individual are taught the power of drawing their own understanding then it
easy to free themselves from control and allows them to control their own minds and
knowledge.
The role Explication has played its role in South African education history and the
evolution of it. Steve Biko in I write what I like touches on those aspects which show
that even then explication was used as tool to oppress the disadvantaged black
students from acquiring and learning the information that they needed to learn in
order to liberate themselves. Steve Biko in one of his letters wrote “It seems
sometimes that it is a crime for the non-white students to think for themselves.”
What Biko was stating was that the Apartheid system then did not allow for Black
students to be in a position where they could draw their own understanding,
everything had to be explained to them and their own thinking was not allowed. Thus
it created unfreedom in terms of opportunity and equality.
Conclusion
It is noted by me that Explication does more harm than good. Although at times it
may seem like Explication is the only way to Teach, Instructors should engage more
time in trying to find out other pedagogies which must in fact promote liberation
teaching rather than prescribed teaching.
The teacher should situations and a teaching and learning environment where the
teacher does not become a dominant supplier of knowledge but rather a helper in
letting learners formulate their own understanding. By moving away from this way of
using explication then we would be moving in a manner of creating a society which
has citizens which can fully understand situations from their own perspective either
than be indoctrinated or be in a position where they are made to believe in others
theories.
Word Count: 986 words
Bibliography
 Biko, S. (1987). I write what I like. Oxford: Heinemann.
 Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: The Continuum
International Publishing Group Ltd.
 Jacques Rancière. 1981. The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Five Lessons in
Intellectual Emancipation. Standford, California. Stanford University Press