Posted on 02/04/2002 5:25:13 AM PST by TopDog2
Afrocentric courses praised Feb. 4, 2002
By Leslie Jones McCloud / Post-Tribune correspondent
GARY — School officials hope by including Afrocentric instruction in their curriculum, they will attract the interest of students at Beckman Middle School and across the city.
They hope the change brings better school performance, behavior and higher test scores.
Beckman is the first school to try the inclusion and the first to make it a permanent fixture.
The move was celebrated Friday with a kickoff breakfast for faculty and staff at the school.
“We want to plan how we can infuse an Afrocentric curriculum into our current school curriculum,” principal Charles Mingo said.
“The goal is to increase student achievement,” he said.
Jacky Gholsen is coordinator of the African and African American Infusion Project, that has been in place since 1993.
“We are exhibiting a permanent Afrocentric instruction and behavior in the schools,” Gholsen said.
She said the mix of African and African American culture into the curriculum means students get to read books by African-American authors and note achievements of African Americans daily, not just during Black History Month.
Although the program has been adapted at the discretion of teachers, now because of a 1993 mandate, Gholsen said Afrocentric education soon will be a systemwide requirement.
Beckman teacher Katherine Wray said she started teaching the curriculum in the mid 1980s and hopes to expand the program more by including a student-managed museum of African artifacts in the school.
Helping to evaluate how well school officials are instituting the program, Temple University African American Studies professor, Molefi Kete Asante, evaluated the recommendations for curriculum changes and sat in on a kickoff breakfast celebrating the school’s move from the experimental phase to its demonstration phase.
“African American children don’t have an appreciation for African culture,” Asante told the teachers, commenting on questions he gets regarding Afrocentric curriculums.
He said students need more self confidence as well as cultural confidence. He applauded the work of the Beckman staff and the AAAI Project staff.
“Cultural esteem is the problem, not self-esteem,” Asante said, adding, of students he interacts with on Temple’s campus, most express “a distorted view of African culture.”
He applauded the committee for the inclusion of Afrocentric flags into a visual and behavioral plan as well as Kwanzaa’s seven basic principles.
Asante, a school curriculum consultant who offered the teachers a list of recommendations, said students look to instructors for behavioral cues.
Reach correspondent
Leslie Jones McCloud at ljonesmccloud@hotmail.com.
By lowering the standards no doubt.
Yeah, this should work. We already know that children of Italian decent are incapable of learning anything but Roman history, Greeks, Greek history etc. It’s about time that we do the same for the Fine African American students in this district.
Also, how about doing something to tie in their poor performance with suffering the effects of rashism.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
But it was all stolen from them by the wicked Ice People of the North and it was stolen from them so well that there are no records, no ruins, no traces of these marvelous inventions left in Africa.
--Boris
First, this is just a hustle in line with the scams taught at education schools. Why should the melanin deprived get all the gravy? Second, with an 8 year pilot project, you would think someone would ask for the results of that effort. Another day, another joke from the "education" industry.
Not much to appreciate about squatting in the mud
chewing on uncle mombata's thighbone.
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