African Centered Schooling: Facilitating Holistic Excellence for Black Children

Abstract During the early 1970s, scholars, parents, and educators began a campaign for schooling experiences that were culturally affirming for Black children. This community of concerned individuals vested their energy and support in schools that subscribed to a worldview and ideology of education that focused on enriching the holistic development of children. The product of these efforts is known as the African centered school movement. To capture how African centered schooling has striven to awaken and invoke the natural genius of Black students, I focus my discussion on the history as well as the ideology and pedagogy of the African centered school movement. Additionally, I provide examples of exemplary African centered schools and present some challenges and threats to these types of schools. Introduction Since the early 1970s, there has been a vast number of inquiries and scholarly conversations about how to improve the educational experiences of racial minority student populations. These conversations were sparked by an increase in what is commonly described as minority student populations, the discontinuity between the experiences of the teaching force and students they teach (Swartz, 2003), and the disconnect between students' home and schooling experiences (Gay, 1993, 2000). Minority student populations are those who can be distinguished from mainstream society by any of the following: ethnicity, social class, and primary language. These multiple identities have played a key role in the quality of their schooling experience (Lippmann, Burns, & McArthur, 1996; National Center for Children in Poverty, 2006). For example, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) (2006), racial-based minority students are primarily low-income Black or Latino students. Also, NCES shows that in 2005, 48% of Black, 49% of Hispanic, and 36% of American Indian students were enrolled in schools with the highest measure of poverty.2 Furthermore these students, particularly Blacks, lived and were schooled in urban areas. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), in its quest to measure academic achievement, has reported differences between the fourth and eight grade scores of Black students and those of White students. Those results showed that, on average, Whites had higher scores in reading and mathematics (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2006). Specifically in the area of reading 42% of Black fourth graders scored at or above basic skills level compared to 76% of White students on the NAEP (U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences, 2006a). Similar results were found in mathematics for twelth graders on the NAEP assessment in which White students scored on average 30 points higher than Black students (U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences, 2006b). Clearly some education scholars focus their discussion on differences between Black and White students (Ferguson, 1998; Lee, 2002; Rothstein, 2004). However, others have argued that the difference is actually between the current level of performance of Black students and their potential for holistic excellence (Gordon, 1994; Hillard, 2006; Lee, 2005). Proponents of this argument suggested that Black students should not be tracked towards a White benchmark for success; instead they should be immersed in an educational environment that supports their holistic development, which inevitably tracks them towards excellence in character, spirit, and intellect (Giddings, 2001; Hilliard, 1992; 1998; Hoover, 1992; Karenga, 1995). Moreover, to awaken the natural genius of Black children, researchers, parents, and educators have supported an effort known as the African Centered Education Movement (ACEM). According to Lomotey (1992). African centered education enables ... students to look at the world with Africa as the center. It encompasses not only those instructional and curricular approaches that result in a shift in students' world view, but it engenders a reorientation of their values and actions as well. …