Starting with the front door and getting to the center is not only logical and practical; it is theoretically the proper way to make a difference in the classroom.
MOLEFI KETE ASANTE
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Michael Gary, Jr., David L. Heiber, Sr. and Ivory A. Toldson’s One Door at a Time: The Story of Concentric and How Putting Students at the Center of Education Works is a veritable theoretical manual of a radical pedagogy that centers the student in the lessons. What a marvelous metaphor for the thrill of discovery! They have unlocked the secret to the pedagogical room that holds the keys to victory for students.
I remember the first time I visited the great Cairo Museum to see the ancient creations of the early Nile Valley Africans. The excitement peaked when I was shown the coffins that held the corpse of young King Tutankhamen. Howard Carter, supported by the gifts of Lord Carnarvon, had established a search team near the ancient city of Waset, now called Luxor, once called Thebes by the Greeks. In 1922, Carter’s team discovered the coffins of Tutankhamen. When Carter examined the coffins, he noticed that the sarcophagus (a stone container shaped like a rectangular box) held three coffins. The two outer coffins were made of wood ornamented with gold and other precious stones like lapis lazuli and turquoise. The third and last coffin, the innermost one, was made of solid gold.
When I read this book, it occurred to me that the authors had paid close attention to how to open the doors to education for students by seeking to place them in the center of the discourse. In doing this, these authors have struck gold. They have deciphered the educational process in such a manner that it appears relatively easy for teachers to follow.
I have often argued that it is not merely the materials we need for teaching that make the difference for students. It is not time constraints that we must follow that give us excellence. It is not the robust nature of our examples, illustrations, and demonstrations that make the difference in education. It is whether we see the student as the center of the curriculum. In one sense, everything in the environment is curriculum and the student must be at the center of instruction.
Afrocentric educators have always argued that placing children at the center of the subject provides them with a “buy-in” that holds their attention and their interest. Without attention and interest it is difficult to reach students with instruction. In this book, the authors have demonstrated the necessity of concentricity in approaching, for African children, and others, the centrality of African origin, culture, and history in the process of knowledge production.
Gary, Heiber and Toldson are among the best scholars that we have in the field of education and their opening to an Afrocentric pedagogy stands at the forefront of many of the works that are now being produced by scholars seeking to probe the best models for transforming education, especially in the urban setting. My thought, however, is that from what I read in this book it has relevance for teachers in all regions of the country. Starting with the front door and getting to the center is not only logical and practical; it is theoretically the proper way to make a difference in the classroom. Little by little, like Howard Carter, the teacher chips away until she reaches the ultimate position where the student is centered, that is education in a positive and progressive manner.