Afrikan Centered Curriculum Mapping

In true Afrikan Centered educational traditions, it always appropriate and necessary to acknowledge the roadmap that has been laid before us, by those whose shoulders we truly sit and stand upon. It is in this tradition that we further discuss a framework for remembering. To remember is nothing more than to re-conceptualize the wholeness of our First World beginnings. To remember is to re-member. The re-membering process is “returning back to the source” or Sep Tepy of being centered once again.

As we use a Sankofa lens to collectively look back over our work this school year, we should become mindful of the process for re-membering. Central to re-membering is the stated objectives of, “How do I remember if I don’t know what to re-member?” “Where is the starting point for re-membering?” and “Where does re-membering begin?” These core objectives become fundamental questions in constructing a foundation and orientation for beginning-ness. As we authenticate content-based learning with the validity of intent-based knowing, we can establish a curriculum map based upon Afrikan Centered benchmarks. Afrikan Centered intent and content knowledge should be triangulated through three cultural benchmarks that provide a framework for Afrikan Centered curriculum design, MAAT, MAAFA and SANKOFA. An Afrikan Centered curriculum must incorporate critical thinking, speaking, reading and writing skills that are constructed through schematic signals, concept catalogues, mental mapping and semantic encoding using these curriculum benchmarks. The cultural sequencing for an Afrikan Centered curriculum map begins with the initial First World instructional foundations of “Our-story” opposed to the from slavery to freedom instructional guidelines found in “His-story.”  The organizational planning and curriculum design is then established with MAAT as the central benchmark or capstone for curriculum development. MAAT provides context, proper order and fluidity in human origins, development and expansion. MAAT provides the appropriate orientation within Afrikan time, location, birth-space and earth-space. The second benchmark, Maafa represents the oppositional antithesis in MAAT orientations. Maafa is the separation in location from cultural continuity and the stigma of being torn, rather than born in Afrikan time and space. The Maafa benchmark is the epic cultural term or era that replaces MAAT’s sacred space with re-location, dissonance and cultural dis-unity. Maafa is that period in “His-story” that centralizes hegemony over harmony; cultural chaos over cultural congruency; and relegates Afrika’s First World beginningness to Third World status. The Maafa benchmark is the time, space and location where the lessons of life and living must be mastered. The Maafa era contains the perpetuation of power through the ideology and control of the pen (written his-story), oppressive pedagogy and industrialized education that systematically re-enforces institutionalized control. The final benchmark, Sankofa is the re-awakening period that articulates mastery in essential epistemology of the lessons that had to be learned. The Sankofa process pushes through the painful processes of the past in Maafa and reach back and beyond to retrieve MAAT stand(ards). The Sankofa benchmark liberates the mind from the remnants of Maafa’s cognitive imprints and repairs and re-stores mental health and cultural wholeness. Sankofa deconstructs and reconstructs educational schema through the mental mapping and semantic encodes that re-stabilize our Afrikan Akasha record in consciousness back into full cultural memory. The Sankofa benchmark provides the rhythm and vibrations in harmonious healing that re-activates conceptual catalogues in human experiences going back into the first occasion of cosmic cycles in Afrikan beingness from antiquity to the present. The Sankofa process will assure that the cycles of past, present and future are symbiotically connected into an ontology that solidifies Afrikan Centered for re-membering:

Afrikan Centered Education Curriculum Mapping

I. Why Afrikan Centered Education? (Where We Are Now) His-story vs. Our-story The relationship of Afrikan Our-Story to human history The relationship of Afrikan people throughout the Diaspora.	II. Afrika and the Origins of Humanity (1.2 mil. -50,000 BC) Afrika as the birthplace for human development Afrika and the beginning of organized societies and civilizations. Early migration patterns inside & outside of Afrika.	III. Afrikan Contributions& Global Societies (10,000 - 4000 BC) Southern & Central Afrikan origins and the relationship to Classical Civilizations. Nubian and Ethiopian foundations to Kemetic Civilizations. Afrikan connections to early world culture.	IV. Kemet, Cradle of Nile Valley Civilization (4000 - 1000 BC) Old Kingdom period & the Pyramid age. Middle Kingdom & the Literacy / Coffin text age. New Kingdom & the Temple building age.	V. Afrika & Cultural Disruption (1000 – 700 BC) Foreign invaders & invasions. The closing of the Scribal Seba / Per Ankh schools. The beginning of the stolen legacy of Afrika.
VI. Afrika, Mother to the Major Western Religions The rise of Judaism The rise of Christianity The rise of Islam	VII. Afrikan Transformations & Cultural Unity (1000 – 1400 AD) Formation of ancient Ghana Development of the Malian Empires Great Universities of West Afrika	VIII. Afrikan Roots & American Fruits (1400 – 1600 AD) Afrikan Impact Before Columbus and the Mayflower Afrikan contributions to the Americas Afrikans & relationships with the indigenous people of America.	IX. America & the Struggle for Independence (1600 – 1800 AD) The colonies and American founding fathers The American revolution The Civil War	X. From Slavery to Freedom (1800 – 1900 AD) The Abolitionist movement & Freedom fighters. The Emancipation Proclamation The Constitution and Amendments Racism, Jim crow & segregation-based systems. Reconstruction & 100 years of lynching.
XI. The Quest for Human & Civil Rights (1900 – 1960’s) Different approaches – Integrationist, Nationalist & Pan-Afrikanist Modes of literacy expression The Civil Rights Era	XII. The Sankofa Process (1960’s – 2000) The rising tide of cultural consciousness and expression. Multi-cultural response to the Afrikan Centeredness. The Development of an Afri-centric theory Cultural Restoration through Afrikan Centered Education.

We must always be mindful in the constant practice and art of re-membering. Just as the sands of time rapidly shift into the blowing winds of his-story, we lose our-story grounding and forget the cognitive prints from the path well traveled. As such, using an Afrikan Centered curriculum map embedded with MAAT, Maafa and Sankofa benchmarks, provide the necessary instructional compassing and cultural signposts that assure proper orientation and authentic evidence in Afrikan time, space and location.