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• 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.
• 1 media/Screen Shot 2020-03-10 at 7.34.41 PM.png 2020-03-11T00:03:26+00:00 Council of Independent Black Institutions 15 plain 1721 2020-04-28T15:56:05+00:00 Founded in 1972, CIBI is a foundation that utilizes African-centered learning approaches in the education of African-American children. The council was created by a group of educators during the African American Teachers Association Conference. During the 1970s the council became a national, and ultimately international, organization. The majority of students that CIBI serves are in elementary education, though they span the ages of prekindergarten through secondary schooling. Schools founded under the CIBI organization are not direct alternatives to public education, rather they aim to fill a need to comprehensively educate African American students. Lomotey explains that “African Americans working within IBIs see themselves as a part of a worldwide community of African people." In her monograph, “Race, Class, and Power in School Restructuring”, Pauline Lipman writes that:

  “CIBI was formed to enable educators of African descent to share information, materials, and curriculum and to have material unity that would support the development of independent schools as alternatives to public education.”

  
  The council had direct distribution efforts to schools, including a semiannual newsletter entitled FUNDISHA! (translated into english as TEACH!), a book called Positive African Images for Children, and direct support for curriculum development and financial outreach.
  
  
  
   
• 1 media/Screen Shot 2020-03-11 at 1.32.22 PM.png 2020-03-11T18:15:36+00:00 Family 6 plain 2020-04-19T16:18:58+00:00 African centered schools rely on a family model to drive education. They focus on this model because in public schools “the black nuclear and extended family as well as the Black community, are no longer galvanized around a common set of values, goals, and guiding principles as they once were.” By re-centering the family, African centered schools are able to draw the family and the community back in. referencing traditional forms of education. Teachers treat their students as their children, and encourage their students to treat their teachers as parents. By navigating the institution as a family, students and teachers are deeply embedded within the Shule. Pauline Lipman explains that “smaller, family like groupings” benefit students of color because they decrease anonymity and increase aims for shared goals as well as increase teacher-student empathy.”