Developing Metacognition of Ethnocentrism with Lessing's "The Old Chief Mshlanga" and Voltaire's Candide
The accurate perception of the Other can also be enhanced through the development of metacognition, the awareness, understanding, and control of one's own cognitive structures and processes and their consequences. "Mshlanga" is an excellent text for promoting metacognition of ethnocentrism because it models the development of such metacognition and also portrays the causes, operations, consequences, and processes for correcting ethnocentric cognition. Candide provides numerous episodes of ethnocentrism distorting perception of self and Other. With such episodes serving as exemplars of ethnocentric information processing, teachers can help their students learn to recognize the same cognitive processes underlying not only the actual historical realities that Voltaire is alluding to but also current beliefs and practices, including the students' own.