Hlonipha Mokoena

Hlonipha Mokoena is a South African historian at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research of the University of the Witwatersrand. She is a specialist in South African intellectual history. She formerly worked in the anthropology department at Columbia University. She received her PhD from the University of Cape Town in 2005. Quotes Can I touch your hair? Where are you from? I cannot do anything with your hair unless I texturise it! We don’t have anything to do with it, it’s dramatic, it doesn’t ‘flow People don’t know how much money is made in telling black women that they need straight hair If black people are not trained to care for their hair, then who? Hlonipha Mokoena at a seminar speaking about black woman hair We should want to cultivate our minds and intellect because we think that it makes us better human beings, especially that it enhances our ethical sensibility. An education that is devoid of ethics is empty and meaningless and will produce smart but reckless human beings. The benefits to society of having an intelligent and articulate citizenry are priceless; they cannot be measured in terms of GDP per capita or literacy rates or productivity We need to start the conversation at primary school level. At the core of an academic mind is curiosity, and curiosity cannot be taught - it can only be nurtured. Children are naturally curious and I would argue that our education system destroys this curiosity and replaces it with anxiety about performance Learning should be a joyous experience. Hlonipha Mokoena speaking about boosting academics in South Africa External links Category:Living people Category:Women academics from South Africa Category:Anthropologists from South Africa Category:Historians from South Africa Category:Columbia University faculty