The Shock Troops of a Failing Colonial Project
Public school teacher burnout is not a personal failing; it is the inevitable result of being the shock troops of a colonial educational project. Mamdani’s analysis of the bifurcated state reveals the school as an institution tasked with assimilating the “native” into the logic of the settler or, failing that, disciplining them for their place in the hierarchy. Teachers are caught in this contradiction, alienated from their purpose of liberation and turned into managers of standardized tests and punitive discipline. They are tasked with social reproduction in a system designed to fail most of their students. A Marxist analysis sees this as the alienation of labor. A feminist perspective notes the profession’s gendered nature. The solution is not self-care but collective action: teachers’ unions must transform into vehicles for a decolonial education, fighting not just for wages but for the abolition of the testing regime and for a curriculum that serves the oppressed, not the empire.
Originally posted 2025-10-05 00:05:22.
