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Good News and Bad News: African Studies in American Schools, 1955–1975

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Evelyn Jones Rich
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Extract

The letter above capsules the problems and opportunities of African studies in the mid-1970s. It suggests that American education about Africa is pitifully inadequate, and that it has a long way to go to achieve the objective of a citizenry informed about Africa and one which accepts and appreciates Africa as well as the range of cultures which comprise our modern global society.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 6 , Issue 2-3 , Summer/Fall 1976 , pp. 33 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1976 

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References

Notes

1. John Stansbury, Letter to School Services Division, African-American Institute, February, 1974.

2. The term “intercultural” is used in lieu of “non-Western.” Although “non-Western” enjoys a wide usage in US educational circles, the term is provincial and ethnocentric.

3. For a discussion of the “myths” of African studies, see Thomas OToole and Daniel Schafer, “Clearing the Jungle Out of African Studies,” African Studies Review 17 (April 1974). See also E. Jefferson Murphy, The African Mythology: Old and New (New York: African-American Institute, n.d.). For a discussion of the language of African studies which derives from these myths, see E.J. Rich, “Mind Your Language,” Africa Report. September 1974.

4. These films include King Solomon’s Mines, The African Queen, and Mogambo among others.

5. Elementary and secondary school teachers often enrolled in summer programs in African studies offered in NDEA-funded institutes. These teachers received fellowships under Title IV. Many initiated African studies courses in the secondary schools as a result of these experiences. See Lyman H. Legters, “The National Defense Education Act and African Studies,” African Studies Bulletin. October 1964.

7. Relevant here are those provisions of Fulbright-Hays which support group projects abroad and the Foreign Curriculum Consultant Program.

8. US Congress, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, International Education Act, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Education on S.2874, 89th Cong., 2d sess., 1966.

US Congress, House Committee on Education and Labor, International Education: Past, Present, Problems and Prospects. Selected Readings to Supplement H.R. 14643, by Task Force on International Education (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1966).

9. See the report of the Diffusion Task Force Committee of the American Council on Education. Related reports are also available from the Association of Colleges of Teacher Education.

10. Funding for international/intercultural programs under NDEA and Fulbright-Hays was $14 million in FY ‘75, $16 million in FY ‘76. For FY ‘77 funding, see International Action 3 (1975); Bulletin of the International Education Project, American Council on Education.

11. A Survey of U.S. Non-Profit Organizations Concerned with African Development or African-American Relations (New York: African-American Institute, 1974).

12. African-American Institute, Board of Trustees Meeting, 59-111, 9 February 1959.

13. See, for example, E.R. Kolevzon and John A. Heine, Our World and Its Peoples (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1957).

14. Sponsored by the Bureau of Cooperative Research of the US Office of Education (Project No. 7-0724) and the Department of History, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh). Directors: Dr. Barry K. Beyer (Carnegie-Mellon) and Dr. E. Perry Hicks (State University of New York, Buffalo). Project Africa’s objectives were to develop and test instructional materials, teaching guides, and content units on the history and culture of sub-Saharan Africa for use at selected grade levels in American secondary schools. Its products were Africa South of the Sahara: A Resource and Curriculum Guide (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1969; Supplement—Carnegie Mellon University, 1970) and Africa Inquiry Maps, 1971-73 (Pound Ridge, NY: Sunburst Communications). Copies of the complete project report and all other project materials now in the public domain may be obtained from ERIC, Boulder, Colorado.

15. Hicks, E. Perry and Beyer, Barry K., “Images of Africa,” Social Education 32:8 (1968).Google Scholar

16. Carter, Gwendolen M., “African Studies in the United States, African Studies Bulletin 10:3 (December 1967).Google Scholar See also Cowan, L. Gray, “Ten Years of African Studies,” African Studies Bulletin 12,1 (April 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. Beryl Banfield, John Henrik Clarke, Graham Irwin, Immanuel Wallerstein among others.

18. Jacqz, Jane W., Informing Americans about Africa: Report of the findings from a study conducted by the African-American Institute with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation (New York: African-American Institute, 1967).Google Scholar

19. School Services actually came into existence in March 1969 and began working primarily at the secondary level.

20. “Teacher aids” provided information on climatic factors, extended family systems, precolonial history, etc. “Resource memos” directed teachers to annotated texts which were contemporary and included African interpretations of historical and social events.

21. The wall posters pictured African heads of state. The teaching kits included items for teacher background or classroom use. The pamphlets included Beryl Banfield’s excellent Africa in the Curriculum: A Teacher’s Guide (New York: Blyden Press, 1968).

22. Institutes were designed to improve skills of elementary and secondary school teachers of Afro-American students by investigating their ethnic origins in Africa.

23. The conference actually was held in May 1970 in Washington, DC, in cooperation with COTA of ASA.

24. Are You Going to Teach about Africa? School Services Division, African-American Institute (New York: African-American Institute, 1970).

25. School Services’ staff spent considerable time there. A foundation grant provided some scholarship funds for North Carolina teachers to join the Educators to Africa program in west Africa in 1970.

26. Harry Stein, “African Views of America,” Social Education 25 (February 1971): 2.

27. These included the conference of NDEA and EPDA institute directors et al. (May 1970) as well as sharing of personnel for short-term training conferences. Barry Beyer, Project Africa’s director, played a major role in assisting AAI’s School Services evaluate EPDA institutes. Cooperation was also close with the Center of International Programs and Cooperative Serivces of the New York State Education Department and the Center’s sponsored project on Africa.

28. African studies centers at Columbia and Michigan State have worked closely with precollegiate teachers and AAI’s School Services. The centers at Wisconsin, Northwestern, and UCLA have active outreach programs.

29. “Teaching Africa Today: A Reassessment,” jointly sponsored by AAl’s School Services and Teachers’ College, Columbia University, was held 27 April 1973.

30. Africa appears in the official ninth grade New York State syllabus in area studies courses under the broad rubric of geography. It is treated in elementary grade 3 as an example of “desert communities” and in grade 6 as part of the “Middle East.”

31. Beyer, Barry K., Inquiry in the Social Studeis Classroom: A Strategy for Teaching (Columbus: Charles E.|Merrill, 1971).Google Scholar

32. The workshops involved 50 percent of the school systems and reached 747 educators, including librarians.

33. The social studies supervisor in Indiana coordinated the effort, which lasted a week. Both Tennessee and Indiana in-service programs derived, in part, from a visit which social studies supervisors in key states paid to “North-Carolina” in 1971.

34. Among those states and/or cities with Afro-Americans in leadership are California, Michigan, New York City, Baltimore.

35. The Division is led by an Afro-American, and its staff is female.

36. For an interesting presentation of one African family, see Mary J. Shindelus and Mary С Durkin, People in Families, The Taba Program in Social Sciences (Menlo Park: Addison-Wesley, 1972).

37. Billings, Charles E., “The Challenge of Africa in the Curriculum,” Social Education 35, 2 (February 1971).Google Scholar

38. Jean Fair, Fannie R. Shaftel, eds., Effective Thinking in the Social Studies, 38th yearbook. National Council for the Social Studies, 1967.

39. The two best treatments of Africa in this context are Marvin Perry et al., Man’s Unfinished Journey (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971) and Leften Stavrianos et al., A Global History of Man (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970).

40. The “church-related” or parochial schools have four million students. The “non-church-related” or independent schools have almost one million. This has been a neglected audience. The need for improved education about Africa is urgent here, especially in the parochial schools.

41. James A. Banks, “Ethnic Studies as a Process of Curriculum Reform,” Social Education 40, 2 (February 1976).

42. The integrative/humanistic approach deals with Africa as part of a larger concern with global cultures. Though different techniques are possible, the more traditional ones are chronological and topical. The more innovative ones are thematic, cross- and inter-disciplinary, relying heavily on “inquiry” teaching and learning.

43. Scholars of Africa have produced some interesting materials. Many of them need revision in light of recent scholarship. The materials published in the 1970s seem most effective. See, for example:

44. Examples include especially the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (CU) of the Department of State and other federal and quasifederal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

John Willmer, ed. Africa: Teaching Perspectives and Approaches (Tualatin, Oregon: National Council for Geographic Education, 1975).

Frank E. Bernard and Bob J. Walter, Africa: A Thematic Geography (Washington, Project No. OE-IIS No. 2-2058. Institute of International Studies, Office of Education, US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1973).

Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origins of Civilization: Myth or Reality, edited and translated by Mercer Cook (New York: Laurence Hill, 1974.

Joseph E. Harris, Africans and Their History (New York: Mentor, 1972).

Fred Burke, ed., Africa and Africa: Selected Readings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969).

Leon Clark, ed.. Through African Eyes: Cultures in Change (New York: Praeger, 1969).

Philip Foster, Africa South of the Sahara (New York: Macmillan, 1969).

Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin, Africa and Africans (Garden City: Doubleday-Anchor, 1972).

Philip Curtin, Africa South of the Sahara (Morristown: Silver Burdette, 1970).

E.J. Rich and I. Wallerstein, Africa: Tradition and Change (New York: Random House, 1972).

Chancellor Williams, The Destruction of Black Civilization (Chicago: Third World Press, 1974).

Philip Curtin, African History (Service Center for Teachers of History, American Historical Association, 1964).

Philip Curtin, Precolonial African History (Service Center for Teachers of History, 1975).

George E. Brooks, Jr., Themes in African and World History (African Studies Program, Indiana University, 1973).

All of the above were written especially for teachers and/or students, with the exceptions of the Bohannan-Curtin book and those by Cheikh Anta Diop, Harris, and Williams. Nancy Schmidt at the University of Illinois has done pioneer work in reviewing and evaluating children’s books on Africa. For evaluations of some of the above, see the School Services pamphlet. Are You Going to Teach About Africa? as well as the paper, “There is Good Stuff Around” in the report of the conference “Teaching Africa Today: A Reassessment.”

45. AAI’s School Services is presently evaluating its own materials to determine the extent to which they assist teachers/supervisors to enrich the curriculum. Funding for this effort, out of the Division’s program monies, is unfortunately limited.

45. AAI’s School Services is presently evaluating its own materials to determine the extent to which they assist teachers/supervisors to enrich the curriculum. Funding for this effort, out of the Division’s program monies, is unfortunately limited.