The African Academy Incentive

One might have hoped that, in this fine Obama hour, the notion of an educational environment designed for the elevation of Black youths would be hastily snatched up into the arms and minds of the prevailing climate. Yet, the very union of the words ‘black’ and ‘education’ seemed to send last Monday’s ‘More 4 News’ reporters into a deplorable state of hysteria. The auto cued presenter wailed ‘segregation’ ‘reverse racism’ and ‘apartheid’ while audiences blathered inanely and responsively about the need for ‘unity’ and ‘one love’. The cause? The cause is Mr Lee Jasper’s timely and remedial proposal for a ‘mixed private school with a catered afro-centric curriculum, and a preponderance of black teachers’.

We live in an environment where parents and youth of all ethnicities are let down by the modern educational system. Specifically, we are reminded almost every month of the pitiable underachievement of black children in schools. Our only hope lies that in the in the modern, progressive country we call home, we have the right to voice our concerns and action change. Social mobility (which has not improved in 30 years) has become such a concern that the government has once more upgraded the existing monetary enticement (the brazenly entitled and dramatically increased £10,000 ‘golden hello’) for teachers to educate our children in increasingly dire schools. Our children currently grace schools in such an unfortunate condition that in 2007 Channel 4 launched a Freedom of Information probe of more than 90 education authorities in England and the results of which exposed racist tensions so high that over 100,000 incidents were documented. According to experts, these figures are merely the tip of a very sizeable and hostile iceberg.

Let us, for a moment, do our children justice and peruse Mr Jasper’s (let us not forget that this indomitable man has been, for 25 years, considered a leading expert on race relations) proposal coolly, steadily, and firstly on the suggestion of an Afro-centric curriculum. Our country is witnessing an average increase of 61 per cent in the number of parents (Black, white, Asian, Chinese) so dissatisfied, that they are eagerly snatching their broods from the clammy palms of the schooling system and educating them at home (with pinnacle reasons ranging from ideological objections to the curriculum, special educational needs, and bullying). With the curriculum being nominated as a core raison d’etat other parents seek refuge for their children in the huge amount of British faith schools. Faith schools which have long relied on the spiritual permeation of the national curriculum to better the students’ educational experience. For the sizeable amount of Catholic schools examples of this permeation include teaching science in the context of the Catholic view on stewardship, incorporating the Church’s teachings on social justice into social studies, and drawing out Catholic values in the study of literature. Our growing number of Islamic schools openly aim to foster a healthy self-identity of being Islamic in the British setting. Faith schools aside, private schools have continuously claimed that an improvement on the curriculum makes them more academically rigorous than state schools. The basic schematic is that these schools focus on not simply meeting the requirements of the National Curriculum; but rather they aim to exceed, surpass, and go beyond it.

At a time when we have bathed in the political dawning of Obama and now stand before an icon who is symbolic of progression, why does the very mention of a school with an afro centrically infused curriculum cause such a commotion? Black children are falling radically wide of the mark, and still the media, (even Channel 4. self proclaimed defender of the community) would rather saturate us in a sea of crocodile tears (patronisingly spurting statistics about our poor, underachieving black children) than hear curative ideas that might actually bring about change. Darcus Howe would rather gush insipidly that ‘educational certificates are not the be-all and end-all of success’ and lull us into paralysis with tragic tales of his children’s inexorable characters (which lead them to tread paths of underage pregnancy, attempted rape, handling stolen passports and shoplifting) than consider talk of affirmative action.


The reality is that this is not a notion borne of some racially prejudiced harebrained agenda and neither is it a new one, this is a tried and tested notion borne of desperate need. This is a proposal to finally maximise potential through education. This is a holistic approach that welcomes children of all backgrounds, remains loyal to the current national curriculum and utilises well-tested curricula and environment based methods to give black youths a much needed chance. In America, this need was met by The Rochester City School District, one of the worst in the New York State. Grappling with how best to solve their escalating problems of exclusion and underachievement, they announced a new curriculum. The new curriculum was to include black history in every subject. In Toronto, and after a year of sensationalist reactions, the Toronto District School Board has finally approved plans to create their first afro centric school. Vital pro-active organisations such as the African Canadian Heritage Association breathed sighs of relief after years of campaigning to tackle the problem of high dropout rates was finally realised. Hundreds of American schools have prevailed through African focused curricula. Schools, which range from junior kindergarten to university graduation, have holistically, organically, rejuvenated the lives of the children left by the wayside of mainstream education.

To many, there is no ambivalence about the need for the centrality and importance of Afro-centricity in schools. Beyond that, there seems to be a thriving curriculum ideology that sees education as a narrow, archaic and regressive discipline that is wedged in the 1960’s. Institutionally, our country seems to foster historical amnesia and cultural unawareness. Thus, drenched by a curriculum, which makes a frail effort to nod to ‘other cultures’, while balancing on a Euro-centric foundation, our youths are quickly and almost irredeemably being turned against the learning process.

People of African origin have lived in Britain for centuries. In as early as 208 AD North African born Roman General Septimus Severus was undertaking military actions in Roman Britain. African communities were developing from as early as the 16th century when British merchants began trading with the West African states. Yet, the teaching of black culture is confined to slavery, the Wind Rush, patois poetry and ‘Black History Month’. The effect is to undervalue the major contribution of black people in Britain’s history and to ignore our innumerable achievements.

More than this, the role that self-perception and self-esteem play in education is underestimated at our own peril. In a land where you exist as a minority, realising that people who looked like you were achievers in all departments (we can no longer just be satisfied with seeing our mirror images on the football fields or MTV base) is a colossal affirmation of the self. This is possible with an Afro centric curriculum and also through Mr Jasper’s other suggestion, to prioritise the numbers of black teachers.

This is not an indictment against non-black educators, but rather an appeal to the black community to examine the possibilities in their entirety. American schools report that having a majority of black teachers acts as a mirror in which black students, can see the “angels of their better nature” reflected. A mirror which has persistently enabled significant black academic achievement in the states. The Freedom of Information probe ultimately exposed the current school system as a prejudiced, antiquated institution. With this in mind, are we not being perilously naïve in continuing to believe that this same system will suddenly, efficiently, teach black children? How can this change possibly happen without a radical educational revolution?

Academic studies by C.H Beady & S. Hansell, in ‘Teacher race and expectations for student achievement’ courageously demonstrated the significant impact of Black teachers on black students. They asserted that black teachers may ‘have higher expectations for and interact more positively with black students than other teachers thereby increasing the motivation and self-esteem black students need to take on the challenge of rigorous coursework’. They also stressed that black teachers tend to have higher expectations of black students than non-black teachers, which is paramount since teacher expectations have a strong impact on student effort. C.A Casteel also claim that studies conducted since the 1970’s find that black students also receive less positive feedback than white students. This notion is hardly complex, and is viable for a number of reasons, “One common hypothesis is that all children learn more when their home and school environments are well matched,” and same-race teachers are better able to provide black students with “cultural congruence” between home and school’ (L. Delpit in The Silenced Dialogue: Power and pedagogy in teaching other peoples children). It has also been discussed that there are significant cultural differences in oratory style, which might explain why non-black teachers have difficulty maintaining a disciplined learning environment among black students.

The question remains, what do we have to lose? In this murky state of affairs should there not at least be the option available to educate our children in an environment we deem, feasibly, better for their growth? Contrary to the media sensationalism, this is not a proposal for ‘Blacks only’ schools, which have begged crass comparisons to African apartheid. This comparison, callously uttered by boorish news presenters is beyond offensive. Need we be reminded of the monstrous regime which re-located 3.5 million people in order to divide races and slaughtered over 21,000 people in its bloody wake? Can this seriously be compared to a single afro-centric private school? Perhaps it simply follows that because white segregationist schools were born out of brutality that any mention of a pro black institution must likewise be painted with the same brush. Sadly, Mr Jasper’s judicious proposal has been served a grave, detrimental injustice with the type of journalism that thrives on clichés and conflict, and results in the moral panic approach we see on forums and hear on the buses in its wake.


This is a concept borne of elevated consciousness, a progressive and rational attempt that refuses to let our children become acclimatized to the deplorable state of things. We need not continue to writhe over gun and knife crime, gang violence, exclusion and low achievers; it has all been done to death and each report only serves to remind us that we are running out of time. If only we had the luxury of wanting to action change in the way America has done so successfully for reasons as ludicrous being ‘a bit sexy’ as Dr Tony Sewell once so unsophisticatedly put it.

Rousing change in these ferocious times is, at best, a risky business. We run the risk of marginalisation in return for endeavouring to initiate a fresh, holistic approach to the educational status of black youth. Len Folkes recently said that Obama ‘symbolises and represents the great call and urgency on the billions of people throughout the world for change. Through our conscious election of Obama we were inspired towards self-action to building new bridges of human cooperation respect and dignity’.

It is time we honoured this call for change, it is time to persist with self-action and forge an environment where black children can finally prevail. We are, after all, the parents of the Obama generation.

Daniella Maison BA (Hons) MA 2009