Decolonising Education: from Teachers to Leading Learners (DETeLL)

The project Decolonising Education: from Teachers to
Leading Learners (DETeLL) aimed to develop a multi-site
approach for interventions towards inclusion and
decolonisation to change the hierarchical nature of higher
education. DETeLL has identified the model of the
‘traditional teacher’ as embodying the structural exclusions
and discriminations built into the classroom and proposes
the figure of a ‘Leading Learner’ as first step towards a
radical change in the educational system. In this project,
decolonisation refers to a complete change in the way of
thinking and behaving and it is addressed by tackling the
hierarchical forms of the classroom structure. How do we
teach? Are the forms of pedagogy in use critical enough to
respond to the need of the next generation of students?
Within the education departments in the Theatre and
Dance Academy at ArtEZ, a research and teaching
programme has been created, engaging with students and
teachers in the faculty to create a non-hierarchical
educational practice. This has resulted in 1) a theory and
practice-based scientific base-line of non-hierarchical art
education, communicated in the form of workshops,
lectures, academic articles, and a (shortly) publicly
available toolkit on the figure of the Leading learner as
representative of non-hierarchical pedagogy; 2) Definition
of ‘Artist educator as Leading Learner’, as pedagogical
practice within Teaching Training programs at ArtEZ; 3)
Two new teaching programme for theatre education at
ArtEZ; 4) a plan to upscale the results on Faculty level in a
project for which an application is currently been prepared.

The project Decolonising Education: from Teachers to Leading Learners (DETeLL) aims to develop a multi-site approach for interventions towards inclusion and decolonisation in order to change the hierarchical nature of higher education in the Netherlands. DETeLL identifies the model of the ‘traditional teacher’ as embodying the structural exclusions and discriminations built into the classroom and proposes the figure of a ‘Leading Learner’ as a first step towards a radical change in the educational system. In collaboration with the education departments in the Theatre and Dance Academy at ArtEZ, the post-doc will build up a research and teaching programme that engages with students and teachers in the faculty to create a prototype of an inclusive and diverse educational practice. RELEVANCE: Education should be the critical space in which changes occur in order to shape best possible futures. In DETeLL’s acceptation, decolonisation refers to a complete change in the way of thinking and behaving. It does not refer only to the urgency of dealing with historical colonial legacies embedded in society, but also to the subversion of the deeply oppressive colonial culture that (also unconsciously) regulates public and private living, whether this is related to gender, race, class or sexuality issues.
RESULTS: 1) Create a theory and practice-based scientific base-line of decolonisation and art education; 2) Provide a definition of ‘Artist educator as Leading Learner’ following a practice- based methodology of intervention; 3) Design and Pilot a new teaching programme for theatre education at ArtEZ to be then upscaled to all educational departments in a follow-up project); 4) Produce a strong interdisciplinary and international output plan: 3 academic publications, 2 conferences, 4 expert group workshops. NETWORK: ArtEZ; University of Amsterdam (UvA); Ghent University; UCHRI; Hildesheim University; Cape Town University. The partners will serve as steering committee through planned expert group meetings.