It was the most dreaded piece of wood, more like an extremely dangerous disease if it landed on your hands.
The palm-sized piece of wood, with string on it, had the word ‘disc’ engraved on it. Your only crime would be speaking a language other than English.
In the evening, the class prefect would call the first person he or she gave the disc, and that person the next, until the last person who would produce the disc.
The culprits of the day would receive their punishments, depending on the mood of the teacher on duty. The same would be repeated the following day.
But have you ever wondered where the idea of a disc came from?
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, in his book, 'Decolonising the Mind', talks about how the disc came to be.
It was during the colonial period, where resistance against British occupation had reached fever pitch. In protest, educated Africans had started native schools where the primary language of instruction was Kikuyu.
The declaration of the state of emergency in 1952 led to the seizure of these African schools, and the medium of instructions reverted to English.
To reinforce it, the British teachers came up with the disc, where anyone found speaking Kikuyu was given, and the holder would find his next culprit. Ngugi talks about the idea having taught African children to snitch on fellow Africans, and their mother tongue.
Punishment on those who spoke their mother tongue would even lead to fines on the part of the parents, who had nothing at the time.
English, then, was the epitome of intelligence, where a student would automatically fail an exam if he or she did not pass English. It did not matter that one had distinctions in the other subjects.
The white man considered the African culture as a vast wasteland, where nothing good was in it.
Ngugi says that it was a form of creating feelings of inferiority in the African, by banning the language from being used.
'Decolonising the Mind' is Ngugi’s last book written in English, as he did promise at the time of publication, laying emphasis on Kiswahili and Kikuyu as his medium of expression.