Decolonial Ethics as the Compass in the University-School Relationship

A Journey Worth Undertaking

Abstract

Universities and schools are – unfortunately – quite often seen as two separate continents, distantly divided by a major body of water. The core argument in this paper is that, despite the unique constitutive elements of the school’s and university’s continents, relationships can be built between them and guided by maintaining the Decolonial Ethics as the compass, in which the consideration of the context uniqueness is key. By writing this piece, it is my intention to destabilize this binary of a two-continent mindset. Drawing from decolonial scholars worldwide and Brazilian applied linguists interested in decolonial, critical teacher language education programs, the goals of this conceptual paper are to destabilize the two-continent (schools and universities) excluding perspective by problematizing the Modern/Colonial ideologies that set them apart, as well as to reflect upon decolonial attitudes to be enacted with pre-service language teachers during their practicum. Examples that illustrate this ethics in the university-school relationship are interpreted as decolonial attitudes, namely: (i) the goal of school and classroom observation is to understand someone else’s teaching praxis, not to freely – and sometimes baselessly – criticize it; (ii) the understanding that pre-service language teachers’ presence in the school is not supposed to impose a change to its routine; they are there to collaborate with the school on its projects, events, and so on; and (iii) the first classes could be taught by using getting-to-know-each-other activities.