Of Worlds Seen and Unseen: The Educational Character of Haitian Vodou
Education in Haiti's national religion happens everywhere and never in a classroom, and Michel treats that as a problem for comparative education. Vodou has no written dogma, no formal membership roll and few purpose-built temples, so its worldview reaches the next generation through ceremony, household routine, apprenticeship, storytelling, observation and the four grades of initiation. Everyone occupies both roles: elders, priests, priestesses, artists and the lwa themselves teach, while all participants keep learning for a lifetime. Assessment exists, informally. Michel describes it as criterion-referenced, judging each learner against personal progress in two things, konesans, meaning knowledge fused with wisdom and experience, and style, the individual manner of ritual expression. The spirits instruct by throwing people off balance so that they learn to recover it. She closes politically: democracy in Haiti will require the elite and foreign actors to respect this mass culture, and a school system that ignores it works against national consciousness.
Michel, C. (1996). Of Worlds Seen and Unseen: The Educational Character of Haitian Vodou. Comparative Education Review, 40(3), 280-294.