Welcome to Decolonizing the Curriculum @ Grinnell. The small group that developed this resource worked together to create a “Toolkit” as a contribution to our collective responsibility at Grinnell College to think—and rethink—what it means to be a welcoming and inclusive community. This is not about being nice to each other. This is about working tirelessly to acknowledge and confront the histories of our institution, our fields, and our pedagogies that continue to affect how we do what we hold dear—living and learning together.
There is not one way to understand what it means to decolonize a syllabus. Still, what many perspectives share in common is a call to highlight how power—and especially colonial histories and realities—shapes who we read, how we read, what kinds of knowledge we value and produce, the goals we have in living and learning together, and our relationship to the land on which we do all of these things as a community. The toolkit that emerged from a Humanities Center course called “Decolonizing the Curriculum” poses questions to help teachers and learners in all fields think about their own assumptions and practices.
We are happy to share materials from the course, which provide essential context for the toolkit, as well as further reading and online resources that can help you think about what it means to decolonize your syllabi.
Yvette DeChavez kindly gave us permission to use an image of her print “Decolonize Your Syllabus” in our project. You can find more on Dr. Chavez’s website.
