Liberation is impossible if we fail to see ourselves in more positive terms. For without a change of vision, we are slaves to the oppressor's ideas and values --ideas and values that finally attack the very core of our existence. Therefore, we must see the world in terms of our own realities."Larry Neal, "Black Art and Black Liberation," 1969

NATIONBUILDING IS THE STANDARD /CLASSIC /MOST DEFINITIVE DISCOURSE--Review #3

BEST DEFINITION OF AFRICAN CENTERED EDUCATION MY RESEARCH HAS TURNED UP:

African Centered Education is a system of sequentially planned educational opportunities provided for African heritage children, youth and young adults to develop the necessary and required skills to participate in the global marketplace with specific interest on the upliftment and empowerment of their African-American communities and the total development and growth of the African continent.

Dr. E. Curtis Alexander

Professor Jacob H. Carruthers /Jedi Shemsu Jehewty

(February 15, 1930 - January 4, 2004)

(Click this photo for Dr.Carruthers on Africentric Education)

For those who would like to get deeper into RBG Street Scholars Think Tank Dr.Carruthers' essay on Africentric Education is highly recommended as it puts you smack dab into the middle of our scholarly education cipher and discourse. Professor Jacob H. Carruthers (RIU) was a founding director of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC) and a member of its national board of directors. He is a founding member of both the Kemetic Institute of Chicago and the Temple of the African Community of Chicago. He was also the acting director of the Center for Inner City Studies, Northeastern Illinois University, where he also served as a professor. He is the author of Science and Oppression, The Irritated Genie, and Mdw Ntr Divine Speech.

The Connection The current day Africentric-education movement, where Dr. Carruthers is one of our foremost authorities, is an outgrowth of the 1960s Black Studies Movement that we will be studying in the body of this curriculum.

Education Research, Background and Reference Resources that went into the building of our communiversity.

1. African Centered Education: Its Value, Importance, and Necessity in the Development of Black Children Haki R. Madhubuti
This book legitimizes the need for African-centered education at an early age in child development.

2. Afrocentric Idea by Molefi Kete Asante
This new edition of THE AFROCENTRIC IDEA boldly confronts the contemporary challenges that have been launched against Molefi Kete Asante's philosophical, social, and cultural theory. Expanding on his core ideas, Asante recasts his original ideas in the tradition of provocative critiques of the established social order. This is a fresh and dynamic location of culture within the context of social change. 256 p.

3. Nationbuilding: Theory and practice in Afrikan-centered education
Kwame Agyei Akoto
Improving Schools for African American Students: A Reader for Educational Leaders provides education leaders with access to critical ideas, research, andknowledge across a broad range of educational issues that affect the successfulschooling of African American children and youth. The articles that make up this book discuss generic education issues such as policy reform, the importance of high-quality teaching, and the improvement of schools from the perspective of the academic achievement of African American students. They explore the need to identify and redress policies and practices that hinder African American student achievement. They discuss effective teacher training programs, both pre-service and in-service, that focus on the academic and the ethical, social, political, and cultural dimensions of teaching African American students. These articles explore educational programs that build on the strengths that African American students bring to school, as well as how to create these programs in a widevariety of school settings, ranging from schools that serve predominantly African American students to schools in which African American students are a small percentage of the total school population...Read the full document in the Communiversity Multimedia e-Eine