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African American Students Need to learn the Five rs
By Bruce Poinsette
of The Skanner News
T
oo often African American students lose interest in
school because the curriculum is irrelevant to their
lives. That was the thrust of the Teaching with
Purpose Conference, hosted by Portland Public Schools
teacher Karanja Crews and the Journey to Freedom
Foundation.
Held at PCC’s Cascade Campus, last Friday, Oct. 14, the
conference aimed to help educators reduce the achievement
gap, and build support for culturally relevant education,
specifically for African American students.
Educators, parents, community members and even a
politician attended the event, yet they amounted to just a
dozen or so people, fewer than organizers had hoped to see.
“As a parent I’m disappointed more people aren’t here,”
commented one attendee.
The conference was separated into two parts. First was a
presentation on the Journey to Freedom Project. After that,
nationally renowned educator Augusta Mann, demonstrated
her strategy of “Dancing Definitions.” Mann is the former
program manager for San Francisco State University’s
Center for Applied Cultural Studies and Educational
Achievement, which specializes in culturally-centered edu-
cation for African Americans.
Crews, the founder of Journey to Freedom and a teacher
at Vernon Elementary School, spoke about his experiences
teaching in two very different school districts. He revealed
that before coming to Portland Public Schools, he worked in
Beaverton for four years.
“I was there for a reason,” said Crews. “They needed to
see diversity.”
Only one parent gave him grief for exposing his students
to extensive African American history, Crews said. And stu-
dents from his Beaverton classes still keep in touch with
him and offer to volunteer with current educational projects.
Yet, when Crews transitioned to the Young Men’s
Academy at Jefferson High School, he found little parental
support and fewer motivated students. In response he devel-
oped and copyrighted the game “Journey to Freedom: The
Power to Read and Write,” to expose the students to Black
history.
The game has the students play the role of enslaved
Africans who can only win their freedom through mastering
reading skills. At the young men’s academy, Crews says he
even took away students’ desks and supplies and had them
eat grits to make the simulation more real.
To play Journey to Freedom, students draw cards that
pose questions about Black history. Designed like the ques-
tions on the state reading test, they also teach phonics and
phonetic awareness.
The game doesn’t end once a student masters reading
personally. Students can only win once they go back and
teach others to read, which is a concept borrowed from the
Underground Railroad.
Crews goals for the game were:
To change students’ perspectives on education,
Ritual, rhythm, recitation,
repetition and relationships are
vital for Black students
To inspire students to be great,
To expand students’ reading skills, and
To prepare students to pass reading tests.
In order to simulate the game for conference attendees,
Crews had them first read passages from “The Eagles That
Thought They Were Chickens, ” and from “Nightjohn”, a
novel about a slave who returned to slavery in order to
teach others like himself to read.
Crews also emphasized the need for students to learn
about ancient African kingdoms, which are routinely
ignored by traditional history lessons.
Augusta Mann’s session showed how getting physical can
help students learn. She used what she identified as the five
African and African American teaching and learning pat-
terns, which are ritual, rhythm, recitation, repetition and
relationships, to cement the text in attendees minds.
Mann would recite phrases rhythmically, emphasizing
certain words and even making sound effects for punctua-
tion.
“You don’t learn stiff,” said Mann. “Every time you turn
on a TV, you see black people performing. The basis of our
culture is spirit.”
Organizing the audience like a class, she divided them
into two groups which each perfored skits of the story of
Henry Box Brown, a man who literally shipped himself in
a box to escape slavery.
Mann demonstrated her concept of “Dancing
Definitions,” by getting the group to memorize parts of the
US Constitution, using the five learning patterns.
Like Crews, Mann emphasized that before she introduces
US history she teaches what happened before slavery,
specifically ancient African kingdoms.
“It’s 2011 and many students’ parents still don’t know,”
said Mann.
Many of the attendees pledged to make sure there would
be more participants next year, saying they felt the confer-
ence had been very valuable.
One teacher noted that it would be particularly helpful for
the cultural competency aspect of teacher evaluations.
“I feel really prepared for my teacher evaluation next
year now,” she said.
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Thursday 7:30 pm
Friday&Sat 8:00pm
Sunday matinees 3pm
october 19, 2011 The Portland Skanner Page 7