Centering Africa in the Curriculum

• In Event: Interrupting Anti-Blackness: Imagining the Possibilities

Abstract

Objectives :
In this session, I look at curriculum building about Africa as a way of centering Black youth. In this session I introduce a framework for teaching about Africa more holistically and truthfully.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework:
The abysmal state of affairs regarding curriculum about Africa can be summed up in three words: omissions, silence and distortion (Bellinger, Hope-Scott, Healy-Clancy & Wiehe, 2021). Many of these issues stem from colonial ideas about Africans that developed over hundreds of years. In the colonial mindset, Africans were seen as having lesser intellect, no culture, and no complex civilization. Colonizers used this narrative to enslave, exploit and ultimately invade Africa (French, 2021). While it is easy to identify colonizers’ ideas as racist in a larger context of white supremacy, it is not so easy to identify how omission, silencing, and distortion continue to contribute directly to anti-Blackness and to the racist representation of Africans throughout the globe (Dei, 2006). The colonial mindset’s racist representations took away people’s intellect, agency, and creativity. Our curriculum resources and frameworks seek to undo this.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry:
I will share a three-pronged model for teaching Africa more robustly: noticing omissions, disrupting silence, and countering distortion. Omissions occur when Africa is absent altogether. In these cases, the curriculum touches upon Africa in geography, but never engages with the immense diversity of African societies, cultures, and histories. When Africa is silenced, it is represented, but only partially and in tokenistic ways. The process of curriculum distortion occurs when Africa is represented inaccurately through themes that perpetuate the negative ideas that the continent and its people are passive, needy and dysfunctional.

Data sources, evidence, materials:
Through maps, book lists, book awards, a guide for choosing & critiquing African curriculum resources, and approaches to pedagogy, I provide objects and evidence which will delineate explicit ways teachers can build out their Africa curriculum.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions:
Since 1979, our program has received the prestigious Title VI federal funding to broaden the accessibility of knowledge about Africa. I extensively document our impact and report on our programs. Over 250,000 educators have benefited from our extensive online library of curricular resources. Teaching Africa well is part of countering anti-Blackness.

Scientific or scholarly significance:
Africa has deeply shaped the cultural context in the United States and is the root culture for many of our students. While the New York Times 1619 Project (Hannah-Jones, 2021) was a watershed reframing of American history, this presentation’s significance lies in starting the clock much earlier for a historicization that links African Americans to a wider African history. Linking the curriculum with aspects of African culture and knowledge not only promotes global education and enables historically marginalized student groups to become visible in a curriculum that affirms their backgrounds and identities and promotes learning. It is an antidote to anti-Blackness.

Author

• Elsa Wiehe, Boston University