This page is referenced by:

• 1 media/Screen Shot 2020-03-11 at 1.41.20 PM.png media/Screen Shot 2020-03-11 at 1.25.43 PM.png media/Screen Shot 2020-03-11 at 1.41.20 PM.png 2020-03-11T17:13:40+00:00 Values of the Shule 29 visual_path 1742 2020-04-19T15:57:12+00:00 Shule Ya Kujtiambua, as is common for Independent Black Institutions, persistantly ascribed to incredibly strong values. These values are often referred to as the Nguzo Saba or The Seven Principles. These values are cooperation, self sufficiency, self reliance, contributing to the community, and a positive attitude towards Black history and culture. The teachers at the Shule would incorporate these seven principles into each day. This curriculum was more than lesson planning, it was created throughout everyday life. Independent Black Institutions maintain that all experiences which surround a person are part of their daily curriculum.  Quoted from “Planning an Independent Black Educational Institution” the authors explain that “the community is the curriculum and the curriculum is the community”. By instilling the Nguzo Saba in the minds of these students, they will take these values with them into their lives.

  Among the values that are stressed in the curriculum are:

  Nation building - “to develop, service, own and control our lives and our communities… for the ultimate survival of African People”;
  Communalism - “a set of human relationships based upon cooperation and concern for African people transcending self and completely disavows competitive individualism”
  Humanism - stressing “human rather than material concern”
  African Personality - in which African People develop “attitudes, values, knowledge and behaviors necessary for the development, maintenance, and perpetuation of the African World”
  Decolonization - a reestablishing of the “political, economic, social and educational institutions” which stand in the way of ultimate freedom.
  Harmony between man and his environment - a stress towards “functional congruencey between man and his natural surroundings”
  
• 1 media/Screen Shot 2020-03-11 at 1.33.16 PM.png 2020-03-11T17:51:19+00:00 Afrocentricity and Nationalism 9 plain 2020-04-28T16:00:07+00:00

  “African Americans become Afrocentric through engagement in social interaction and individual reflection”.

  
  The goal of Afrocentricity and pan-Afrikanism is to unite the African people by forming a unified African state. Models like IBI and African Centered Education utilize the power of education to attain this goal. The destruction of hegemonically white public schools and the rebirth of systems that do work, like IBIs, are only one of the many revolutionary aspects of pan-African nationalism. This concept, combined with the idea that all African people are part of a familial group with a special bond ignited the Shule.
  
  Author Felix Boateng emphasizes that African American students are expected “to feel that they must reject the culture of their homes in order to succeed in school” due to the cultural mismatches the child experiences in the two discrete places. He offers that the only way to combat deculturalization is by creating “an approach that would address the inequalities in the public school curriculum and remove the barriers to academic achievement for the masses of African-American children.” He suggests that one of the best ways to do that is via multicultural education, as the goal of this form of education is to help students use their cultural experiences in: learning, accepting and appreciating cultural diversity, and develop their understanding of humanity via these. cultural lenses, similar to the Shule system.
   
• 1 media/Screen Shot 2020-03-11 at 6.19.26 PM.png 2020-03-11T19:22:27+00:00 Afro-American Community and Student Development Program 6 plain 2020-04-19T16:27:47+00:00 The AACSDP was a controversial program started at Oberlin College as a precursor to the Black Studies department. The program allowed college students and community members to engage directly with one another. A main focus of this program was to increase the access of education for people in Oberlin. Through this program, college students were able to gain class credit to work at Shule Ya Kujitambua.
  
  Using older students as educators was a common practice in Independent Black Institutions (IBIs). Frank Satterwhite, former dean of Oberlin College and author of the book “Planning an Independent Black Educational Institution” explains that in order to eliminate the “arbitrary barriers” created by “traditional institutions”, that:

  “IBI’s adopt the following philosophy: a student is a teacher, an administrator, and a community person; a community person is an administrator and a teacher, and a student; and both teachers and administrators are community persons and students”.

  
  Lomotey asserts that while any person is technically capable of teaching African American children, an African American teacher is best because they are “most capable of transmitting culture and properly socializing the child.” From a study done by Craig Brookings, he found that the most important variable in the student’s success was love and care given by the teacher, such as “touching” and “sincere concern for the child’s life experiences”, best distributed in smaller, family-like groups.