What Do We Leave Outside the Classroom Door?

Every learning space — whether classroom or boardroom, circle or screen — carries a hidden curriculum. Beyond what is named in the agenda or outlined in a syllabus, there are silent teachings: in what is included and excluded, in whose voices are heard and whose are absent, in the rhythms we enforce and the postures we reward.

Over the past few years, I’ve been walking the path of what I now call Dancing with Decolonisation — an ongoing process of inquiry into what we have inherited, what we have normalised, and what we might begin to unlearn. This journey has taken many forms: long-term courses, community immersions, leadership dialogues, and most recently, a short but potent engagement with a group of teachers with a Waldorf school in southern India. We met online, across a couple of sessions, to explore a deceptively simple question: What do we need to unlearn?

The space was framed not as a seminar or training, but as a gentle invitation — an opportunity to reflect on what colonisation looks like not just in history books, but in the language policies of our schools, the structuring of our workdays, the assumptions embedded in pedagogy, and the hierarchies we unconsciously recreate when we facilitate learning.

What emerged was both honest and profound. Teachers shared how the default emphasis on world literature in English subtly marginalised Indian voices. Some noted how games that prioritise linear speed and dominance (such as cricket or football) tend to become the norm, while more collaborative or intuitive forms of play fall away. Others began to notice how often classroom authority is framed around control and discipline, even in progressive spaces.

What struck me most, however, was how quickly participants moved from recognition to reimagination.

One educator shared a powerful shift in how she approached her role as a mentor. Upon realising how her induction conversations with new teachers echoed a colonial pattern — I am here to offer, you are here to receive — she consciously reframed the space. She began the conversation by acknowledging the teacher’s existing knowledge and experience, and shared her own story not as superior instruction, but as mutual introduction. In doing so, she stepped into what I would call a decolonial posture — one that honours wisdom, invites relationship, and recognises the dignity of each person’s lived journey.

This, for me, is the heart of decolonisation. It is not merely a theoretical critique or a political stance. It is a relational, embodied, ongoing practice. And it is deeply relevant not only in schools, but in all spaces where learning and meaning-making unfold — organisations, communities, development programmes, and movements for justice.

Decolonisation as Remembering — Not Reverting

When we speak of decolonisation, it is vital to clarify that it is not about reverting to some idealised past. There is no undoing of history. What we seek is not regression, but a conscious evolution — an ability to recognise what has shaped us and to choose differently going forward.

Colonisation is not a modern anomaly. It has existed in varying forms throughout human history. The onset of settled agriculture, for instance, marked one of the earliest large-scale moves away from reciprocal relationships with land, toward patterns of extraction and control. The work, then, is not to reject colonisation as a historical fact, but to recognise and transform its ongoing tendencies — particularly the logic of ‘power over’.

Whether the resource being extracted is natural, physical, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual, the colonial pattern privileges domination, hierarchy, and exploitation. Decolonial practice invites us instead into a ‘power with’ relationship — one rooted in co-presence, interdependence, and mutual dignity. This is as true in educational spaces as it is in organisational ones.

What Makes a 'Good' Student or Teacher?

One of the areas where colonised assumptions linger most subtly is in our definitions of what is "good." Good students are often those who are compliant, easy to manage, and perform well in standardised ways. Good teachers are those whose students deliver results, whose classrooms are orderly, whose lessons are efficient.

But what do we miss in this framing?

• The child who asks disruptive questions may not be a troublemaker, but a truth-seeker.
• The teacher who builds slow trust and allows space for silence may be doing deeper work than one who garners fast outcomes.

When we overly reward extroversion, compliance, and results, we risk silencing other vital forms of intelligence — intuition, introspection, embodiment, emotional nuance. We forget that people draw energy and meaning from different sources, and that not all learning can or should be expressed through words alone.

Decolonisation as Possibility — With Discernment

In the sessions I facilitated, we explored glimpses of alternative learning paradigms:

• Māori seasonal learning in Aotearoa, where knowledge aligns with land and ecological rhythm.
• Gandhi’s Nai Talim, where learning through the hands becomes a pathway to wholeness.
• Indigenous talking circles, rooted in relational listening and shared presence.
• Tamil storytelling traditions, rich with metaphor, song, and gesture.

These traditions offer valuable insight — not because they are beyond critique, but because they reflect different assumptions about time, learning, power, and community. To acknowledge their wisdom is not to glorify the past or romanticise indigeneity, but to recognise that other ways have existed — and can still inform the present. Our task is not to replicate, but to build upon them in ways that are ethically grounded and contextually relevant.

A Framework for Re-Seeing

Decolonisation is not a one-time shift, but a way of looking — an ongoing invitation to re-see the water we swim in. Below is a framework of reflective questions that emerged through this work. While born in the context of education, they apply equally to organisational learning, leadership development, and spaces of dialogue.

1. What forms of knowledge are centred — and which are made invisible?

Do we privilege academic over experiential knowledge? The written over the oral? The measurable over the meaningful?

2. How do power and authority show up in this space?

Who decides what matters? Are we reproducing hierarchies — between facilitator and participant, teacher and student, leader and team?

3. What languages are welcome — and what is silenced?

Are local or mother tongues left at the threshold of professionalism? What are the costs of linguistic invisibility?

4. What forms of expression are validated — and which are not?

Do we allow for silence, movement, emotion, or metaphor as legitimate ways of knowing and sharing? Do we privilege extroversion and fluency while overlooking the deep contributions of those who draw energy inward?

5. What do we ask people to leave outside the door?

Do we expect learners or colleagues to set aside their grief, intuition, ancestry, or culture in the name of neutrality? What richness are we excluding?

These questions are not meant to induce guilt or paralysis. Rather, they are intended to gently widen our field of perception — to help us notice the subtle ways in which colonisation continues to shape our pedagogies, processes, and postures.

From Questions to Quiet Shifts

What I witnessed in the group of educators was that decolonial practice often begins not with grand declarations, but with quiet shifts in presence. A softening of authority. A widening of what counts as knowledge. A remembering of what the body, the land, or the lineage already knows.

In the Dancing with Decolonisation course I facilitate, we often speak of the dance between inner and outer unlearning. The inner dance asks us to notice what we have internalised — beliefs about worth, power, legitimacy. The outer dance invites us to reimagine how we design systems, facilitate learning, and hold space.

Neither is easy. Both require community, courage, and the willingness to listen beyond the familiar.

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An Ongoing Invitation

If you are sitting with questions about what it means to lead, teach, or learn in a way that is more rooted, relational, and just — know that you are not alone. Whether you’re working in a school or university, a corporate organisation, a grassroots initiative, or a space of collective healing, the work of decolonisation is relevant and necessary.

I offer this reflection as both a marker of my journey and a quiet invitation. My work continues to evolve across contexts — from peacebuilding to leadership development, from narrative practices to anti-oppression facilitation. If you or your organisation are holding these inquiries and are looking for accompaniment — through workshops, policy development, consultative processes, or dialogue-based explorations — I would be glad to connect.

We may not always know what the next step is. But perhaps the work begins with this: noticing what nourishing aspects of ourselves we’ve been trained to leave behind — and daring to bring them back in.