Zambezia (1990), XVII (ii).TSIKA, HUNHU AND THE MORAL EDUCATION OFPRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN*CAROLE PEARCETHIS ARTICLE EXAMINES the concept tsika from two different points of view,the analytical and the empirical. I attempt, firstly, to elucidate the meaningof the term and its philosophical relationship to the concept hunhu, and,secondly, to explore its relevance to a Kantian understanding of morality.The point here is to show that tsika morality is different from Kantianmorality, being tied, conceptually, to social beliefs and practices. I thendescribe ways in which tsika is conceptualized by teachers and parentsand the importance attributed to the teaching of tsika. The case of theeducation of Tonga children is then outlined and this leads me to concludethat in many instances learning tsika may be an alienating experience forchildren. Finally, I suggest that the formal qualities of tsika, particularly thefact that the concept can be taught only through an application of itself,may, if over-zealously applied, run counter to the aim of fostering moralautonomy in children. I conclude by suggesting that the concept is bestunderstood within the framework of a utilitarian moral system.A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF TSIKATsikaThe Shona term tsika refers to knowing or possessing and being able touse the rules, customs and traditions of society. Tsika is what a child isexpected to learn both at home and school: a good child is a child whopossesses tsika.The term covers more than what contemporary Westerners wouldcall 'good manners' and less than what the Kantian would call strictlymoral behaviour. It seems closer to the concept of decorum, defined as'that which is proper, suitable or seemly; fitness, propriety, congruity'(Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (3rd edn., 1975), I, 502). Naturally, thatwhich is considered seemly is considered so in relation to some set ofestablished rules: the better the behaviour approximates to the rules, themore seemly it is considered.Samkange and Samkange (1980, 74) say that behavioural signs of tsikaor good breeding are 'politeness, civility and circumlocution'. Tsika thus* I acknowledge with grateful thanks help from those who discussed the meaning of theseconcepts with me, particularly Dr Jamie Kurasha, philosopher, University of Zimbabwe, whoread the first draft of this paper, and Dr Pamela Reynolds, anthropologist, University of CapeTown. Any errors remaining in my interpretation, needless to say, are my own responsibility.145146 TSIKA, HUNHU AND THE MORAL EDUCATION OF CHILDRENembraces what we would call simple etiquette (how to address elders, forexample, and table manners), virtues such as obedience and payingattention to what others say, and prudential behaviour. This last virtue isparticularly important in relation to the ways in which girls and unmarriedwomen conduct themselves. Tsika includes modesty, self-respect and theability to reject the amorous advances of young men, together with thestrength of will to resist one's own physical and emotional impulses. Thepossession of tsika fosters self-control. According to my sources, a wellbrought-up child invariably grows into a respectable person.Sociologists sometimes regard the moral norms of a society asrepresenting that society's perception of ideal behaviour. If morality is tobe considered in this restrictive light, moral rules must be seen as sets ofconcepts which are situational or blurred (in the sense that they apply toa wide range of behaviour). These concepts have a social origin andfunction. It follows from this reading of moral life that there is no point inpossessing virtuous impulses, such as compassion, if they are nottransformed into actions which do some concrete good. Equally, it maynot be easy to distinguish between people whose behaviour, although inaccordance with moral norms, may hide an evil heart and those whoseheart and actions are both morally good.The point is whether we are constrained by this concept to considermorality in such blurred sociological and functionalist Š and indeed,situational Š terms. It seems that, if we are thinking in Shona, we are soconstrained. Morally good actions can come from evil intentions and it isthe end result which counts, not the motive.Although there are words in Shona which deal with concepts likeprudence, good manners, morality and self-respect Š uchenjeri, tsika,unaki, dharakubhe Š they are all covered under the umbrella concepttsika (although the higher level of morality is dealt with in the termhunhu). A child is expected to learn tsika without questioning in a protestingspirit. To challenge tsika is to challenge the authority and permanence ofthe social structure, what sociologists call the moral order (using 'moral'here in a very wide sense); it is to display one's own lack of breeding andto indicate that one's teacher (fete or sekuni) has failed in her/his teaching.Moreover, a child Š and possibly even an adult Š cannot question tsikabecause it encompasses the way things are done and the way things are;that is, it provides the framework within which actions are judged andevaluated. To learn the framework is to absorb the conditions for enteringthe moral order of responsible adult life.Tsika and hunhuThe concept hunhu means 'personhood'. This concept, Samkange andSamkange note, is more often used negatively than positively (1980, 40).CAROLE PEARCE 147Its root -nhu- is related to the Ndebele root -ntu- which forms the singularnoun muntu (a person), and bantu (the people). Anthropologists will alreadybe aware that the practice of calling one's own group 'the human beings','the people', is not restricted to Africa: it is also used, for example, byAmerindians. Munhu can mean either an ordinary person or a truly andfully moral person, that is, one who has morally worthy human qualities.The concept hunhu gains its force in contrast with pre-human or animalbehaviour. A person has moral attributes not granted to a wild animal.Wild animals 'do not have customs. A wild animal will allow its own son tomake love to it' (Samkange and Samkange 1980, 94).The relationship between tsika and hunhu which is of interest in thispaper is as follows: a good child is expected to know the rules, customsand principles which make up tsika but not to show the attributes of amorally autonomous person Š hunhu Š until around the age of puberty.Yet, like hunhu, tsika has a cognitive element: it must be learned in orderto form the basis for actions.Hunhu requires both that one knows (has learned) tsika and that onecan reflect upon, and take responsibility for, one's own behaviour. Ahigher level of cognitive activity as well as moral self-consciousness isrequired of hunhu. Perhaps a person with hunhu will agree with Socratesthat 'an unexamined life is not worth living'. But knowledge of custom(tsika) is a prerequisite for hunhu. An animal cannot be a moral agentbecause animal behaviour is neither regulated nor constituted by rules.But human behaviour is everywhere so regulated and the rules have thecharacter of social fact, being impartially obligatory on everyone accordingto his or her status and sex (Durkheim, [1895] 1935,13).It follows that not every adult will display the knowledge of or regardfor tsika and the reflective, autonomous, and therefore rational, characterof a full human being. In particular, a murungu (white person), although aflesh and blood person, is seldom hunhu in the full sense except in theunlikely event that she knows tsika. Thus, the elderly mother of a colleagueexclaimed to her son in Shona when I attempted to greet her in the properShona way: 'But this murungu is a munhu1. But any adult who fails to actaccording to the social rules displays her lack of moral autonomy.We can refer back to Kant for an elucidation of this apparentcontradiction. For the Kantian, it is only when one acts deliberately inaccordance with the Moral Law Š of one's own free will Š that onedisplays moral autonomy and thus personhood. To act against the MoralLaw contrary to one's clear deliberations is to display akrasia (that is,moral incontinence). In Shona society the moral rule is usually thought tobe synonymous with social rules. For although there is a God (Mwari), heis neither the source of morality nor the evaluator of moral behaviour, toreward and punish, as Christians believe. 'The high god', comments148 TSIKA, HUNHU AND THE MORAL EDUCATION OF CHILDRENBourdillon (1982, 267), 'is too remote and his interests are too broad toconcern himself with private individuals and their problems'. The sourceof morality, therefore, is society itself and moral goodness resides in theconcrete way in which our actions create well-being.As tsika is the sum of social rules, the society as a whole is responsiblefor its enforcement. A Shona proverb says, 'you do not educate your childfor yourself alone'. Samkange and Samkange (1980,78) comment, 'educationis for society by society'. Traditionally, any elder can, therefore, chastise achild who is behaving contrary to the rules (ibid.). Children, unlike fullyadult persons, may be physically punished. This notion is reinforced inthe complicated rules of address and deportment, whereby a child mustaddress a whole range of persons as baba (father) and sekuru (uncle) oramai (mother) and ambuya (grandmother) and behave with appropriaterespect towards these people (ibid., 72).If we trace the traditional ideal (and it is more correct to see it as anideal than an ideological position) concerning adult-child relationships incontemporary educational practice, we arrive at an enhanced under-standing of such remarks as 'the headmaster is the eye of the parents' and'the teacher stands in place of the parents'. Professional teachers, whomay or may not be part of the particular community of the school, areexpected to take up and extend the role of adult or elder in the communityby teaching, among other things and in the traditional way, tsika. Samkangeand Samkange believe that the concept of hunhu is strongly reinforced by,as well as oriented towards, a collectivist, social morality. They observe(in chapters 6 and 7) that traditional society promoted restitutive ratherthan retaliative justice (in contrast to the Durkheimian hierarchy of mech-anical and organic solidarity) which emphasized the restoration of theentire community to relations of peace.In this light (pretending for the moment that traditional culture isintact in the contemporary world) it is easy to understand that parentssometimes ask teachers to beat their children. If it is believed that a childis unlikely to understand the point of the rules, let alone display moralautonomy (hunhu), then it makes sense to treat that child differently froman adult and to try to train him through corporal punishment; for parentsmay see the rule against corporal punishment as a dereliction of theteacher's duty to inculcate moral behaviour into the child. To parents,corporal punishment may seem a reasonable way of inculcating tsika solong as the severity of the punishment takes into consideration age andcircumstance.A woman occupies an ambiguous place in the moral system. Foralthough she is munhu, she may be beaten as a child is, as we observefrom the following quotations (Samkange and Samkange, 1980, 96):'Mlotshwa would not have ordered the son of Matatu to be whipped if heCAROLE PEARCE 149had been a full grown man and not "only a child"'. Yet, in the novel quoted,Mamsipa, wife of Matatu, is flogged by her husband for adultery. Samkangeand Samkange continue, 'in African society, one does not thrash an adult.To whip an adult is, therefore, to treat him like a child.' They also state:'the society regarded her as an adult even though, to her husband, shewas a minor under his and her father's perpetual tutelage'. While a full-grown man is rarely beaten, a full-grown woman may be; that is, she maybe treated by her husband as a child.The traditional position of a woman is that of a minor under the legalguardianship of male kin. Her children, for example, are part either of herown family (if she has not been properly married) or of her husband's. Sheherself 'belongs' first to her own family and then to her husband's.* Afeudal relationship of rights and duties between a woman and her own Šor her husband's Š male kin means that there must always be tensionbetween the concept of an adult woman as munhu and her traditionalposition as a dependent. We may conclude that it is this tension which inpart accounts for the way in which women often present themselves asnon-autonomous agents, that is, as knowing tsika and showing all theoutward signs of decorum, but lacking the qualities of moral reflectivenessand moral judgement of munhu. We may also conclude that it is thistension which accounts for some of the difficulties of educating girls inour society.One further point must be noted. The Kantian moral agent displaysher moral autonomy by acting freely in terms of the Moral Law which shehas independently come to know through rational reflection. But theMoral Law is characterized by the categorical imperative. It is not a meremaxim of conduct Š one which an individual or a social group maychoose to follow, or not, depending on the goal or interest. The motivewhich directs a practical maxim is, ultimately, self-interest, although itmay come in the form of seeking to bring about the happiness of otherindividuals, or, indeed, the happiness of the whole social group. For Kant,prudential considerations like self-love and self-interest arise fromsubjectively felt desire and, because of the very nature of desire, it cannotbe categorically binding on all human beings.It is only human reason which can be the universal source of moralbehaviour because it is only reason which is free from subjective impulses.The Moral Law is, therefore, in a completely different category of activityfrom purely social rules. Beck (1960, 79) remarks that, according to Kant,social rules (such as are embodied in wise saws and proverbs) serve as aguide for 'the stupid' who do not trust themselves to act wisely in the* Quotation marks appear around the concept 'belong' to alert readers to the fact that,ideally, all individuals 'belong' to some social group or other.150 TSIKA, HUNHU AND THE MORAL EDUCATION OF CHILDRENcomplexity of particular cases and who therefore fall back upon somesimple standard commonplace.We recall that for Kant there is only one Moral Law. It is of a differentorder from the various practical manifestations of moral action which hecalled practical maxims of conduct and which are heteronomous, ratherthan categorical, in character:A reason which is the slave of the passions, a will which follows the promptings ofdesire and chooses laws of nature as its guide in satisfying them, a principle ormaxim whose content is the condition of an act of choice, and the imperative whichdirects this choice of a specific action Š all these can be called 'heteronomous'even if the laws are laws of nature or even of God (Beck, 1960, 102-3).The Moral Law is prior to, and indeed, the basis of, social rules Š even thebasis of the rules of God.Socially given moral rules or maxims may serve us well in times ofsocial stability, but in times of dramatic social change maxims may fail us.For moral codes lag behind economic and political changes which renderthem not only obsolete but morally harmful. One obvious example is therule or custom of nhaka or the inheritance of a wife by her dead husband'sbrother. While it is also part of this custom that a wife can legitimatelyrefuse to be inherited, her husband's kin are then no longer obliged tosupport her and are likely to remove her children from her and distributethem among their father's family for their upkeep.This custom has invidious consequences in contemporary society.The woman may be expected to become the wife of a man she has neverseen in order to keep her children. Or she may have to lose her children inorder to retain her autonomy. A social rule which in times past ensuredthat a widow and her children would be cared for by her husband's kinnow treats her as a chattel.When social changes render customs obsolete we would expect themunhu to be able to reflect upon and evaluate the worth of such customs,because social rules can never have the permanently binding force of theMoral Law: they are necessarily contingent in character. Some kind offramework, therefore, is required for us to stand back from tsika and reflectupon it. Such a framework might be the Kantian Moral Law: 'So act that themaxim of your will could always hold at the same time as the principleestablishing universal law' (Kant, [1788] 1982,30).I have presented the concepts of tsika and hunhu as if they wereclearly distinguishable from one another. In fact, like many moral concepts,there is only a blurred line between them, especially when we considermoral responsibility. Creatures which are not morally responsible, suchas animals, can be trained by being beaten, but their behaviour does notelicit considerations of moral worth. It is only a morally responsibleCAROLE PEARCE 151creature which can be praised or blamed for its actions; that is, it is only amunhu who is morally autonomous.But a child can make moral deliberations and perform actions withmoral worth and can, therefore, be praised or blamed. A girl, for example,who allows herself to be the object of illegal sexual attentions (and bothpartners to the sexual act are often considered to have agreed to it,whatever their ages) has not simply failed to demonstrate tsika but hasbehaved like an animal Š someone without hunhu. In a similar way, afather who praises his daughter for truthfulness is not merely reflectingon the perfection of her training but is pointing out her human virtue.Even young children are expected, therefore, to display their personhoodfrom time to time.There is no general rule among Shona people as to the circumstances,the degree and the age at which a person may display the qualities ofpersonhood. This should come as no surprise, for the concept of childhoodis in all societies riddled with ambiguities and contradictions.TSIKA: THE FOLK VIEWIn this section I show that there is a wide range of views and evaluations ofthe concept of tsika among Shona-speaking Zimbabweans which Idiscovered during the course of my investigations and conversations withteachers and parents of primary-school children in different areas ofZimbabwe from 1989.1 also show that, in some areas at least, the empiricalsocial and economic foundations supporting tsika have been shaken.TeachersA number of teachers, but less than half of those I interviewed, thoughtthat children found their Shona lessons boring. Different reasons weregiven for this. One teacher said that the children knew it all already.Another said that Shona was not taken seriously because Shona was notan examination subject.* Some teachers emphasized that Shona must betaught because children did not learn about their own culture at home.Yet in order to teach 'Shona culture' the teachers themselves have tolearn it from books. 'Shona culture' is increasingly becoming a subjectwhose content is defined by officials in the Ministry of Education and bythe teachers and educationalists who prepare books for school use.Another negative attitude to tsika was expressed by a young Grade 4teacher working in a school in a high-density suburb of Harare. He wassceptical of the value of teaching Shona culture in the modern world. Hebelieved that Shona culture was not 'intellectually stimulating' and,* It has become an examination subject recently.152TSIKA, HUNHU AND THE MORAL EDUCATION OF CHILDRENtherefore, does not lead to personal intellectual development. I askedwhether one's personal identity was not to some extent bound up in one'sculture. He intimated that he thought this was a foolish notion: it isZimbabwean (i.e. national), not Shona, identity which must be developed.Many headmasters told me that they had been trained at missionschools and were practising Christians. One explained that he and hiswife, who was the daughter of a minister, were both brought up to regardShona customs as barbaric. They themselves, therefore, have a poorgrasp of Shona culture and have not taught it to their own children, exceptfor formalities like offering guests hot water for washing their handsbefore giving them tea. It was only recently that he witnessed, for the firsttime in his life, the traditional burial of a chief.The decline of traditional cultureThis brings us to the thought that the attempt to teach tsika takes place, insome areas at least, in the context of great changes in the social, economicand political organization of the countryside as well as the town. Thedecline of traditional culture, thus conceived, is at least a century old andis accelerating owing to the growth of the population and the displacementof people for economic and other reasons, not least during the years of thechimurenga war.Although space does not permit a detailed description of this decline,a brief description of the lives of some rural parents may indicate abreaking up of the family unit. Only six out of twelve parents whom Iinterviewed lived with their spouses Š of the remainder, four had husbandsworking 'in town' and two were single parents. Only two householdsincluded an older relative, that is, a person able to transmit cultural valuesto the children. Only two households were helping to care for kin. Oneman had brought up his own family and was now the guardian of a 14-year-old nephew. Most of the older parents had adult sons and daughters living'in town' who seldom visited their parents and made only infrequentgestures of help. The single women had been completely abandoned byboth their fathers' and their former husbands' kin.Differentiation is also clearly evident in terms of status and incomeamong these apparently homogeneous individuals. Those women whosehusbands work in town often have servants to help on the land and withhousehold chores. The servants may be young Mozambican men, refugeeswho are housed free and paid about one-third of the official wage. (Theyusually eat with the household.) Servants are also drawn from the landlessyouth. Some men work in the area as clerks, barmen, local-authorityofficials or health workers, and these men live with their wives. The life-style of people in paid employment is dramatically different from that ofsubsistence farmers since the income of the former may be up to ten timesCAROLE PEARCE 153greater than that of the latter. Even so, a net annual income of $3 000 (thesum mentioned by one such wage earner) cannot go very far.Moreover, as a teacher explained to me in one area, the 'community'was split into three different residential areas: the (good) 'traditional'community of the Communal Lands, the (scandalous) 'resettlement'parents; and the families 'on the other side of the river' where the army isbeing trained and where the women and young girls have fallen prey to thesoldiers' attentions resulting in divorces and domestic unhappiness. Otherdistinctions are made, for example, between local people and the newmigrant Mozambican farm labourers or forestry workers. Mozambicanfamilies are thought to care less for their children and to be less sophisti-cated than local people.We might think that traditional society consists more of a set ofpractical skills than a form of social organization. Yet none of the parentsadmitted to having skills in pottery, gudza-making, basketry and so on,except one woman who knew how to brew beer for religious festivals. Onefather was a self-taught carpenter and another older man made money bythatching and making migoti and yokes for oxen. All the mothers I spoke togave their occupation as that of farmer, although one earned her living byprofessional sex.Despite its decline, parents and teachers stress, however ambivalently,the importance of Shona custom. One headmaster said that central toShona culture were religious beliefs and superstitions which, as a scientificsocialist, he rejects. Yet he believes that some practices (mom, for example)are good. They show the proper respect to one's in-laws and should bepromoted. Other practices which cause suffering, like the killing of twins,should be abolished. This headmaster believes that cultural identity is akey to personal identity and to feelings of personal worth. He saidemphatically, smiling, 'When I think of myself, and feel good about myself,I am proud of myself as an African man Š as a Shona man'. He thumpedhis chest.The teachers whom I interviewed interpreted the term tsika in dif-ferent ways. Some thought of it as belief in the vadzimu, holding the viewthat fear of ngozi suppresses immorality, murder, seduction and adultery.Others went further, saying that it consisted of the religious rites ofpassage and spiritual values. One saw it in terms of the social rules ofdeference, especially in relation to girls and their male kin. A woman infantteacher said that tsika consists of polite behaviour and good manners.Another urban woman teacher saw it as learning the names for traditionalcooking utensils. A rural headmaster saw it in terms of learning the structureof authority in traditional society. All believed, naturally, that childrenmust receive a moral education. The question is, is this education to begot from tsika?154 TSIKA, HUNHU AND THE MORAL EDUCATION OF CHILDRENPareutsAH parents interviewed agreed that education ought to develop the childinto a morally responsible human being as well as to secure for that childsome kind of economic future in the world of work. One mother believedthat the school can perform both tasks but that the final responsibility laywith the parents. A good home, she said, is as important as a good.schooland it is part of being a good parent to make sacrifices in order to be ableto send one's children to school. It is at this level that the home impingeson the school Š providing support, obeying the instructions of the teacherand reinforcing school discipline. But as far as tsika is concerned, homeand school are equal partners.All the parents questioned saw education not merely as a route intothe world of paid employment but as a route into modernity itself. Theydid not falter at the thought that this might lead to their children living incities or even abroad and forming modern social relationships. As a test Iasked some parents how they would respond to their children marrying amurungu if it meant that their child had to give up Shona customs. Mostsaid they would not regret their daughters' losing touch with the Shonaway of life if they were to marry a man who would make them happy.In this context, the insistence on the importance of tsika rings some-what hollow. A few mothers said that they were teaching their daughtersthe rudiments of child care and would teach some form of sex educationwhen the children grow older. Some, after specific questioning, said thatthey were teaching family history. One family at least was teaching Shonato their children so that they would learn the richer, subtler, more poeticand expressive form of the language which is spoken in the countryside.Obedience is seen as an important virtue. Many interviewees emphasizedthe value of hard work. Only one Š the professional sex worker Š saidthat what was important was to develop in the child the attributes ofhunhu.TSIKA AND TONGA CHILDRENThe inculcation and dissemination of cultural values and of tsika is alwaysconsidered of primary importance. There is, however, a lack of a clearlyagreed application of both terms and tsika is not always positivelyevaluated, even by Shona-speaking people. This section gives an exampleof a negative evaluation of tsika.Among the schools that I visited were two primary schools in theTonga-speaking area of northern Matabeleland, staffed by Shona-speakingteachers. The Tonga people are polygamous, matrilineal and virilocal.They were removed from the banks of the Zambezi by the government inthe early 1950s prior to the building of Lake Kariba and relocated on a hotCAROLE PEARCE 155and barren piece of land on the Zambezi Escarpment, overlooking theLake. Before this period, according to Beach (1980), the Tonga had beensubdued on a number of occasions by Shona-speaking peoples whoprovided them with chiefs and totems and who ultimately came to speakTonga. Shona hegemony has thus been experienced for centuries overTongaland but the destruction of the Tonga economy must be attributedto their removal from the Zambezi valley.I interviewed the headmasters of these schools and report on theirperceptions, noting, however, that they were expressing their own viewsŠ views which may or may not represent those of the Tonga peoplethemselves. The point is not to explain Tonga culture but how Shona-speaking teachers perceive Tonga behaviour.Both headmasters told me that women have very low status in thissociety. Tonga parents are uniformly hostile to schools and to schoolteachers, none of whom are Tonga-speaking. This hostility manifests itselfin the following ways:1) Far from discouraging absenteeism amongst the children, parentsactually promote it, especially when children are needed at harvesttime.2) Parents do not support teachers or school activities, thus makingit difficult for schools to obtain co-operation from the children.3) Parents seem not to understand the value of education and do notappreciate the necessity for regular attendance at school.4) One informant, Mr H., thought that Tonga parents have 'aninferiority complex' and believe that the Shona teachers are'stuck-up'.5) Parents complain if children are disciplined in any way at school.There is clearly a lack of communication between the community and theschool and this makes teaching difficult. Mr H. has a class of forty Grade 7children and expects twenty to be absent at any one time. Sometimes achild comes for a few weeks each term, sometimes for one term a year. Hesays that fewer than half the total cohort of eligible children actuallyregister for school; his school should have 1 000 pupils and four classesper grade, but actually has 660 pupils. Mr H. compared this situation witha Shona-speaking area in the Midlands where parents take an Interest inthe children's work and will bring the truant child to school to ask theheadmaster to beat him.No books have been written in Tonga and none of the teachers at theschools I visited are Tonga. This means that children coming into schoolmust communicate with their teachers in Shona (a foreign language) untilthey have learnt English. The Shona-speaking teachers are not motivated156 TSIKA, HUNHU AND THE MORAL EDUCATION OF CHILDRENto learn Tonga, partly because of the way they are treated by the com-munity, and partly because they do not intend to stay in the area longerthan they can help. Communications with friends and relatives are poor, itis very hot and they receive neither recompense nor support for theinhospitable conditions under which they must teach.Learning in the Shona language means, according to these teachers,that Tonga children are, linguistically speaking, two years 'behind' theirpeers in other areas. Mr H. gave his Grade 7 class a Grade 5 textbook towork through as an experiment; few could handle this material competently.The failure of children at school may be another factor accounting forparental hostility to education.My second informant, Mr M., a gentle and sensitive man who has anNdebele father and Shona mother, agreed that the community attitudewas universally experienced by teachers as hostile. His own view wasmore subtle. He believed that the apparent discourtesy of the Tongapeople was to be explained by the fact that they had different customsfrom the Shona or Ndebele. He thought it was important to understand thelocal culture, but hard to do so as, I suppose, there is no one to teach theShona administrators Tonga tsika.Mr M. said that by using the Shona language as a medium of instructionthe school was unconsciously promoting Shona values. The same wastrue of all primary school textbooks. For example, the curriculum un-consciously and subtly promotes the value of limiting family size and ofmonogamous sexuality. Discussions on these themes touch a sore spotamong the polygamous Tonga who interpret them as personal threats tothemselves and their values. He said, with wild exaggeration, that theTonga were accustomed to taking four wives and that each wife wouldbear as many as fifteen children. He thought that it was this practicewhich was partly responsible for the poverty of the people. Yet to condemnlarge families was to criticize the children's domestic values. Mr M. believedthat it was very important, pedagogically, to start from where the childrenwere: but he did not know where they were.What these interviews draw attention to is the possibility that theschool curriculum is biased in favour of what these two teachers saw asShona tsika Š albeit in its modified and modernized, urban version. Thisappears to inflict upon Tonga children Š and their parents Š the samekind of moral alienation from school as Black Š indeed, all non-Whitechildren Š suffered during the colonial era. It is not just a matter ofpresenting to children a horizon larger than that of their own daily lifeexperience. The world held up to children as a model in school is adifferent moral universe from that which they experience at home.The alienation of the Tonga child is two-fold: it is an alienation fromthe language of discourse and an alienation from the moral content ofCAROLE PEARCE 157discourse. Mr M. believed that the root of the problem of absenteeism wasthe way in which the Tonga community has been 'frog-marched' (althoughfrom the most generous of motives) into accepting an education whichdefines them as ineducable and 'primitive' in various subtle ways, many ofwhich may have escaped even such an acute observer as Mr M.The truth of the above remarks does not depend on whether curriculumbias reflects Shona tsika or merely urban values. Any set of practicalprecepts generates distinct and different moral universes. Any curriculumgenerated from any one moral universe may be experienced as alienatingto a child whose customs differ from the model. If the textbook stereotypeis a model of social organization which conflicts with the child's own, orsubtly downgrades the value of the rural experience, or presents asdesirable models completely beyond the grasp and experience of thechild, it may succeed in alienating hundreds of thousands of childrenwhose own life experience does not and cannot conform to the model.Under these circumstances, the practical moral precepts embedded in theteaching of tsika may have undesirable consequences.THE FORMAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TSIKAI have tried to show that tsika can be experienced by some children as analien and perhaps irrelevant moral universe. But is this merely becausethe content of tsika is alienating? We recall that tsika is the body ofcustomary knowledge and rules which must be learned and applied,whether the child understands the purpose and point of a rule or not.Reasons are seldom given to the young child to explain why she should, orshould not, do something. It may be that underlying this is the thoughtthat to give or ask for reasons is in itself a form of bad mannersdemonstrating a lack of trust. And tsika forms the framework of adult-childrelationships, in the classroom as well as outside it. The application oftsika is necessarily involved in the teaching of tsika.In the classroom where tsika is practised we do not expect, therefore,to find children challenging their teachers or even spontaneously askingquestions or initiating discourse. A 'good' child does not question adultsbut tries to imitate the moral model and learn the moral rules held up toher. The moral framework of tsika generates a pattern for the transmissionof all knowledge: a body of socially accepted beliefs transmitted intact byadults to unquestioning children. I found that in very few of the classroomsthat I visited did children initiate discussion, say that they had a problem, orpoint out an error which the teacher had made on the blackboard.But it has long been thought that this model of learning and this conceptof knowledge is both inadequate and ineffective. It is difficult for youngchildren to have to play the role of passive recipients of the teacher's knowledge158 TSIKA, HUNHU AND THE MORAL EDUCATION OF CHILDRENfor long hours at a time, however gifted the teacher; and less able children, asI argue elsewhere, are likely to become profoundly alienated in the process.And it is unlikely that a pupil-teacher relationship based on reverence will becognitively and morally fruitful for the child, especially if it is combined withcorporal punishment.Morality can be taught, if at all, only within the moral framework fromwhich it emerges. For example, we are unlikely to learn that lying is a moralevil from someone we know to be a liar. In just the same way, the teaching oftsika needs to be taught within the framework laid down by custom. Theframework of tsika provides for social relations where the child learns obedi-ently and without questioning the authority of the adult. The application oftsika is thus designed to produce docility and conformity rather than inde-pendent thinking and moral autonomy.This naturally greatly facilitates classroom control, especially when thereare large numbers of children in each class and harassed or badly-trainedteachers. The wisdom of tsika is that it makes provision for those stages of achild's development when he is not capable of making abstract moral judge-ments, corresponding to the Piagetian Stage Two (Flavell, 1963,290-7). It alsoemphasizes the social nature of everyday morality and the desirability of co-operation among people.But to overemphasize tsika in the classroom is to encourage compliancerather than personhood. For how are compliant children to be transformed intoautonomous moral beings? Tsika is just too successful and too easy a way ofhandling social interaction: its very success militates against the development ofhunhu in the child. If the learner is to become autonomous, cracks must appear inthe teaching of tsika and these cracks must inevitably undermine tsika itself.Although the concepts of hunhu and tsika are closely related and inter-woven in Shona thought, and although they appear to represent the stages inmoral growth familiar to students of Piaget, they are actually in conflict witheach other. To take seriously the former is to undermine the force of the latteras a form of moral education.CONCLUSIONNo one doubts that children must learn, both at home and at school, to bemoral. It may even be the case that learning morality is a necessarilyalienating process, for it is only by this process that the child may bealienated from 'natural' desires in the form of the expression of egotisticalwants in order to bring her passions under the control of reason. Thequestion is whether tsika is a form of education which will lead to thedesired goal Š moral autonomy. If tsika entails the transmission of tradi-tional culture, teachers will increasingly find themselves fighting a losingbattle, for there is little meaningful which remains of that culture in thisCAROLE PEARCE 159period of increasingly rapid social change and, perhaps, social disinte-gration.In addition, perhaps the teaching of tsika should be questioned if theauthoritarian traits which are manifested in many different ways inclassroom interaction (for example, in the centrally designed curriculumand In the syllabus) are direct products of tsika in action. Colleagues atthe University of Zimbabwe have noted that even undergraduates presentthemselves, officially at least, as 'good boys' and 'good girls', that is,people who have not proceeded beyond tsika to hunhu. The ritualizationand bureaucratization of the whole intellectual quest from the postgraduatelevel downwards may be seen as an over-zealous return to the first stageof traditional morality, without a leap into the reflective and criticalautonomy of the second.This study cannot end without reflecting upon the relevance of theKantian conception of morality. The utilitarian aim of reproducing a com-pliant, closely integrated, 'happy' community cannot be the ultimate moralgoal of the educator. For just as she is committed, by virtue of the meaningof the concept 'education', to help develop in each individual child cognitivecapacities and practical skills, so is the educator committed to guiding thechild towards rational moral agency.For the Kantian, a morality which functions on the level of socialutility alone cannot count as a full-blooded ethical system. And, for aKantian, rationality resides in the very heart of morality: it is not merely aninstrument to measure or evaluate empirical judgements about the relationsbetween means and moral ends. Rationality and morality are necessarilydirected to the well-being of the individual child, long before considerationsof the well-being of the society are taken into account.Glossaryamai Mother (Shona).ambuya Grandmother, and female relatives of her generation(Shona).baba Father (Shona).bantu The people (Ndebele).chimurenga The war of liberation fought against the White settlerregime in 1896/7 and during the 1970s.dharakubhe A person who lacks self-respect (Shona).gudza An article woven from bark fibre (Shona).hunhu The human qualities of moral autonomy (Shona).migoti Stirring sticks for cooking sadza or maize-meal (sing.mugoti) (Shona).160TSIKA, HUNHU AND THE MORAL EDUCATION OF CHILDRENmunhumuntumurunguMwaringozinhakaroomtetesekurutsikauchenjeriunakivadzimuA person (pi. vanhii) (Shona).A person (Ndebele).White person (Shona).God (Shona).An aggrieved spirit, especially one who seeksrevenge by inflicting harm on a living person(Shona).Wife inheritance (Shona).Bride-price (Shona).Paternal aunt and, by extension, all women of thefather's generation belonging to the same clan. Herspecial role is to mediate between children andtheir father when marriages are arranged and in theeducation of the child.In this context, mother's brother, also responsiblefor a child's moral education (Shona).Knowledge of Shona customs and thus morality(Shona).Prudence (Shona).Moral goodness (Shona).Ancestral spirits (sing, mudzimu) (Shona).ReferencesBEACH, D. N. 1980 The Shona and Zimbabwe, 900-1850 (Gwelo, MamboPress).BECK, L. W. 1960 A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason(Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press).BOURDILLON, M. F. C. 1982 The Shona Peoples (Gweru, Mambo Press,2nd. edn.). 'DURKHEIM, E. [ 1895] 1938 The Rules of Sociological Method (New York,The Free Press).FLAVELL, J. H. 1963 The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget (NewYork, Van Nostrand Reinhold).KANT, I. [ 1788] 1982 Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N. Kemp Smith (NewYork, Macmillan).SAMKANGE, S. and Samkange, T. M. 1980 Hunhuism or Ubuntuism(Salisbury, Graham Publishing).