The Complexity of Developing Properly Trained Education Professionals for African American Children: Exploring an African Indigenous Socialization Process

Abstract

African centered educationists view the problems that Black children are facing in schools as a part of the disenfranchisement and disorganization of the Black community at large. In that vein, they do not believe that the problems which Black children are experiencing in America’s public (and many private) schools are solvable by taking them out of a holistic community context. This article presents the perspectives and work of African centered educationists who are dedicated to community development through a cultural experience called African Centered Training Institute (ACTI), which is an African indigenous socialization process. ACTI is a transformative experience which is offered to community members annually and many (sometimes most) of the participants in ACTI are classroom teachers. As participants matriculate through ACTI via phase attainment, “self” as well as cultural knowledge increases. This article provides an ethnographic account of the experience of the author as researcher-participant in ACTI. The ACTI experience offers insights into how critical deep knowledge of pre-Colonial African cultural cosmology and cosmogony are for anyone who works with Black children.