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• 1 2020-03-10T20:26:14+00:00 Brief Overview of The History of African-Centered Education 46 Historical context of African Centered Education visual_path 1709 2020-04-28T15:55:18+00:00

  History of African Centered Education

  Controversy surrounding the education of African Americans has existed since enslaved peoples were brought from Africa to the United States. Histories about the education of African Americans generally begin with the infamous integration case of 1954, Brown vs Board of Education, and then move through the 20th century. This history is far longer and far more complex than the traditional narrative teaches. The story of Shule Ya Kujitambua is an example of the complexities in this history, though we must begin with a historiography.

  1700-1954

  Before the Civil War, African Americans were denied education by law in the South. During this time, enslaved peoples educated themselves and each other, sharing information mainly through oral tradition (Spring, 2016: 53). Schools were established as early as the 1700s; enslaved peoples worked to educate their children in the way they saw fit. An early example of this are Free Schools. One of the most famous of these schools was the African Free School founded in New York in 1789 by the Manumission Society to free African Americans of “vices.” By 1832, African Americans had taken control of this institution, effectively removing whites. African Americans created a form of education that directly met their needs (Jones-Wilson 1996: 109). During the Reconstruction Era, “African Americans in the Southern states combined their resources to establish schools for themselves” (Shujaa 1992: 149) These schools abounded after the Civil War when thousands of formerly enslaved peoples were freed (Mccready 1992: 110).
  
  Under the Massachusetts Education Act of 1789 all children, regardless of race, were given access to formal education. Despite this governance, only a small percentage of Black children were actually enrolled in school. By 1800 a group of African Americans created their own private school in Boston (Spring 2016: 57). Segregated education remained the norm in the United States until 1954, with the Brown vs Board ruling. After this, schools were de jure desegregated. The transition from segregation to integration is illustrated as increasing social access, despite race. But, this shift is not always an ethical one because the needs of African American children in integrated schooling systems are omitted.  
  
  Since 1960, there has been a push to recreate African Centered Education, leading to the formation of the Council of Independent Black Institutions (Lomotey 1992: 457). The movement was necessary because African controlled institutions remained abundant until Brown vs Board. In 1954, African Americans effectively lost control of their institutions as the integration of Black students into white schools greatly diminished the community control of African americans.
  
  The benefits of segregation were extensively debated. Four of the main arguments in this debate are showcased in the next page.
   
• 1 media/Screen Shot 2020-03-10 at 8.19.33 PM.png 2020-03-10T21:38:06+00:00 African Centered Education: Necessity and Results 15 plain 2020-04-17T21:47:36+00:00 The aim of African centered education is to best meet the needs of African American students. Pauline Lipman explains how eurocentric educational models do not serve African American students :

  “The overwhelming failure of schools to develop the talents and potential of students of color is a national crisis.”

  
  Part of the failure of eurocentric education is that white teachers look at African American students through an incongruent lens. The students have life experiences that differ too greatly from what the eurocentric model teaches and thus are not included within the educational framework. These “cultural mismatches” mean that African American students are perceived to not meet eurocentric expectations.
  
  This is called deculturalization, “a process by which the individual is deprived of his or her culture and then conditioned to other cultural values.”
  
  Kofi Lomotey, a key player in the debate for African Centered education, explains that Black students generally have lower levels of self esteem in non-African centered education models. This is because the curriculum is not made to support them, they do not have Black role models, and they are not respected by their teachers or peers. By centering African minds, “educators encourage African American children to look at the world through an African-centered set of lenses that provide them with vision that is more focused, has a wider periphery, and more depth.” When students learn in a model that mirrors their cultural context they see themselves in the curriculum and become more attached and excited about their education. This is important especially for young children “because they are still forming their habits, personalities, self-concepts, and understandings of the world.”
  
  From this theory came Independent Black Institutions (IBI) and the official Council of Independent Black Institutions (CIBI). The model of Independent Black Institutions was built around the concept that  "a cultural frame of reference...has particular relevance to the students in the schools." When the educational needs of marginalized students are centered, there tends to be higher levels of achievement, engagement, identity building, and consolidation of material than marginalized students who are educated in eurocentric models.
  
  CIBI helps students reach higher levels of self esteem, represented even in standardized tests. Lomotey suggests that while curriculum is not the only way to combat self esteem or the achievement gap, it does provide a substantial benefit for students to have supportive learning styles.