City Newspaper Archives - 9/2007
EDUCATION: African-American studies program approved
Published by Tim Louis Macaluso on Sep 05, 2007
US colleges have offered courses in African-American studies for more than 20 years, but it's rare to find classes taught in public elementary and high schools. Last month, the Rochester School Board approved adding the history of Africans and African Americans to its full curriculum.
The Rochester school district's student population is 64 percent African American. Critics of the traditional curriculum say it is too Eurocentric. Much of what children of color learn in school, says board member Van White - who had pushed for the change - deals with people who don't look like them. And board member Cynthia Elliott has criticized history books the district ordered that showed smiling African slaves being sold to white colonialists.
What students do learn about African Americans, says White, often focuses on two periods: slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. With the new curriculum, all teachers in the district would be given information that goes beyond that. The goal: helping African-American students find relevance in their education.
"The curriculum would focus on people students traditionally learn about, such as Frederick Douglass and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.," says Michele Hancock, the district's chief of diversity leadership training. "But they will also learn about people like Dr. Benjamin Carson, one of the country's top pediatric neurosurgeons."
The School Board approved a budget of $150,000 to initiate the new curriculum, and this fall it will hire an Instructional Director of African and African-American Studies. The curriculum won't be ready until the fall of 2008. A committee of district and community representatives is planning the program's framework.
Article Photos
School Board member Van White has pushed for the new curriculum to help students find relevance in their education. Photo by Joe Bell.
