“When I was a little girl about five or six years
old, I used to sit on the garret, the front porch. In the Mississippi Delta the front porch is called the
garret. I listened to my Papa
Dallas. He was blind and had these
ugly scars around his eyes. One
day, I asked Papa Dallas what happened to his eyes.
“Well Daughter,” he answered, “when I was mighty
young, just about your age. I used
to steal away under a big oak tree and I tried to learn my alphabets so that I
could learn to read my Bible. But
one day the overseer caught me and he drug me out on the plantation and he
called out for all the field hands.
And he turned to ‘em and said, ‘Let this be a lesson to all of you
darkies. You ain’t got no right to
learn to read!’ And then daughter,
he whooped me, and he whooped me, and he whooped me. And daughter, as if that wasn’t enough, he turned around and
he burned my eyes out!”
At that instant, I began to cry. The tears were streaming down my
cheeks, meeting under my chin. But
he cautioned, “Don’t you cry for me now, daughter. Now you listen to me.
I want you to promise me one thing. Promise me that you gonna pick up
every book you can and you gonna read it form cover to cover. You see, today daughter, ain’t nobody gonna whip
you or burn your eyes out because you want to learn to read. Promise me that you gonna go all the
way through school, as far as you can.”
Another poignant reflection on education comes from Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s classic book The Miseducation of the Negro. Dr. Woodson, known as the father of Black History Month originally published this book in 1933. Just as relevant today as when first written, Dr. Woodson offers the premise that under the current system of education African Americans are trained rather than educated in schools. Dr. Woodson’s research asserts that the system of mis-education uses internal controls to teach inherent dependency, indoctrination and inferiority. According to Dr. Woodson, training produces self-inculcated attitudes, behaviors and actions that are in direct contradiction to higher-level thinking and are more appropriate to lower level learning and social obedience. Dr. Woodson states that,
"When you effectively
control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not
have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place'
and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go
without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his
special benefit. His education makes it necessary.” Woodson, 1933
Afrikan Centered Education is the cultural counter-measure against
mis-education and the remedy for those who missed education. Afrikan Centered
Education repairs the historical wounds and cultural ruptures known as Maafa.
To initate healing from the Maafa requires Sankofa practices vital to cultural
self-knowledge. In Part Two of, Education, Mis-Education, Missed Education, a self-study reading guide is recommended in
assisting with the re-connection and re-storation of Afrikan Centered psycho-social
educational foundations.
