African Traditional And Oral Literature As Pedagogical Tools In Content Area Classrooms

For a long time, many American educators and educational stakeholders have drawn their ideas for educational reforms from ideas generated in Europe and Asia for the changing demographics of America’s diverse classrooms. This book is therefore motivated by a bold attempt at advocating for the revision of existing pedagogic fora and the creation and addition of new fora that would provide for the inclusion of thoughts, perspectives and practices of African traditional oral literature in the pedagogical tools of content area classrooms especially in North America. The articles that are presented in this book provide theoretical frameworks for using African traditional oral literature and its various tenets as teaching tools. They bring together new voices of how African literature could be used as helpful tool in classrooms. Rationale for agitating for its use as ideal for pedagogic tool is the recurrent theme throughout the various articles presented. The book explores how educators, literacy educators, learners, activists, policy makers, and curriculum developers can utilize the powerful, yet untapped gem of African oral literature as pedagogical tools in content area classrooms to help expand educators repertoire of understanding beyond the ‘conventional wisdom’ of their pedagogic creed. It is a comprehensive work of experienced and diverse scholars, academicians, and educators who have expertise in multicultural education, traditional oral literature, urban education, children’s literature and culturally responsive pedagogy that have become the focus of U.S. discourses in public education and teacher preparation. This anthology serves as part of the quest for multiple views about our ‘global village’, emphasizing the importance of linking the idea of diverse knowledge with realities of global trends and development. Consequently, the goal and the basic thrust of this anthology is to negotiate for space for non-mainstream epistemology to share the pedagogical floor with the mainstream template, to foster alternative vision of reality for other knowledge production in the academic domain. The uniqueness of this collection is the idea of bringing the content and the pedagogy of most of the genres of African oral arts under one umbrella and thereby offering a practical acquaintance and appreciation with different African cultures. It therefore introduces the world of African mind and thoughts to the readers. In summary, this anthology presents an academic area which is now gaining its long overdue recognition in the academia.

This book, the second in the series, is a distinct exploration of how educational policy makers, curriculum developers, educators, learners and social activists can utilize the hitherto untapped rich resource of African traditional oral literature and visual cultures. These are epistemological reservoirs and invaluable pedagogical tools in the delivery of content in the classrooms of the present global village, most of whom contain diverse student populations from varying backgrounds. The content of the book is thus designed to help expand educators’ repertoire of understanding beyond the hitherto “conventional wisdom”, most of which are either outdated or are colonial impositions on former colonial entities. Our motivation for pulling together this anthology was due to the fact scholars, educators and educational policy makers have hitherto paid little attention to the epistemological and pedagogical value of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge systems (TIKS). Our objective has been largely achieved by this anthology in the sense that the research perspectives of the contributors to this effort have enhanced the hitherto limited exposure and knowledge about traditional oral literature and visual cultures in Africa. The torch that has been lighted from this endeavor heightens the epistemological and pedagogical implications of TIKS. In launching this book, we are extending a clarion call to researchers and disciples of Indigenous Knowledge systems in Africa and elsewhere to seize this opportunity and interest generated by this endeavor to undertake more studies in this area. Our current efforts were focused mainly on Africa TIKS systems, but we strongly believe that there are similar and equally powerful and important TIKS systems in other parts of the world, Asia, the Far East, Central and Southern America as well as the Caribbean that are longing for exploration and exposition. It is therefore our fervent hope that exploration and dissemination of knowledge in this field will continue with the flame lighted from this endeavor. We believe that these efforts will greatly enhance awareness an otherwise neglected and almost forgotten, but important aspects of knowledge creation and dissemination, especially about traditional and hitherto unwritten histories and knowledge systems around the world. These undertakings will help to broaden the conceptualization of what constitutes global knowledge within the current reality of globalization.

The Palgrave Handbook of African Traditional Religion interrogates and presents robust and comprehensive contributions from interdisciplinary experts and scholars. Offering a range of perspectives and opinions through the prism of understanding the past about African Traditional religions and, more importantly, capturing their dynamics in the present and projecting their sustainability and relevance for the future, this volume is an essential resource for knowledge and understanding of African Traditional religions in the global space of religious traditions.

The Thousand and One Nights, composed in Arabic from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries, is one of the world's most widely circulated and influential collections of stories. To help instructors introduce the tales to students, this volume provides historical context and discusses the many transformations of the stories in a variety of cultures. Among the topics covered are the numerous translations and their impact on the tales' reception; various genres represented by the tales; gender, race, and slavery; and adaptations of the stories in films, graphic novels, and other media across the world and under conditions of both imperialism and postcolonialism. The essays serve instructors in subjects such as medieval literature, world literature, and Middle and Near Eastern studies and make a case for teaching the Thousand and One Nights in courses on identity and race.

Moving beyond the content integration approach of multicultural education, this text powerfully advocates for the importance of curriculum built upon authentic knowledge construction informed by the Black intellectual tradition and an African episteme. By retrieving, examining, and reconnecting the continuity of African Diasporan heritage with school knowledge, this volume aims to repair the rupture that has silenced this cultural memory in standard historiography in general and in PK-12 curriculum content and pedagogy in particular. This ethically informed curriculum approach not only allows students of African ancestry to understand where they fit in the world but also makes the accomplishments and teachings of our collective ancestors available for the benefit of all. King and Swartz provide readers with a process for making overt and explicit the values, actions, thoughts, and behaviors reflected in an African episteme that serves as the foundation for African Diasporan sociohistorical phenomenon/events. With such knowledge, teachers can conceptualize curriculum and shape instruction that locates people in all cultures as subjects with agency whose actions embody their ongoing cultural legacy.

This handbook explores the evolution of African education in historical perspectives as well as the development within its three systems–Indigenous, Islamic, and Western education models—and how African societies have maintained and changed their approaches to education within and across these systems. African education continues to find itself at once preserving its knowledge, while integrating Islamic and Western aspects in order to compete within this global reality. Contributors take up issues and themes of the positioning, resistance, accommodation, and transformations of indigenous education in relationship to the introduction of Islamic and later Western education. Issues and themes raised acknowledge the contemporary development and positioning of indigenous education within African societies and provide understanding of how indigenous education works within individual societies and national frameworks as an essential part of African contemporary society.

This book is the first to offer an interdisciplinary and comprehensive reference work on the often-marginalised languages of southern Africa. The authors analyse a range of different concepts and questions, including language and sociality, social and political history, multilingual government, and educational policies. In doing so, they present significant original research, ensuring that the work will remain a key reference point for the subject. This ambitious and wide-ranging edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of southern African languages, sociolinguistics, history and politics.

A vital resource for educators, this collection offers refl ections on and samples of units and lessons with an anti-racism orientation that promote inclusive educational practices for today’s increasingly diverse K–12 classrooms. Engaging with multicentric cultural knowledges and stories, the contributors—consisting of classroom teachers, community workers, and adult educators—present units and lesson plans that challenge the Eurocentricity of curriculum design while also having practical applicability within various North American curricular models. These curriculum designs make space for students’ lived experiences inside the classroom and amplify critical social values, such as community building, social justice, equity, fairness, resistance, and collective responsibility, thereby addressing the issue of youth disengagement and promoting productive inclusion. Rich with sample units and lessons that are grounded in African oral traditions, this ground-breaking resource features critical guiding questions, suggestions for ongoing and culminating classroom activities, templates and resources, and notes to the teacher. Centering African Proverbs, Indigenous Folktales, and Cultural Stories in Curriculum is an essential tool for practising teachers, professional learning providers, and students in education and teaching programs across Canada and the United States.