Abstract
“Curriculum based on an African Diasporan epistemic foundation has the capacity to extricate all students and educators from the hegemonic straitjacket that controls school knowledge” (King and Swartz, 2018, p. 2).
Heritage knowledge in the curriculum: Retrieving an African episteme is a skillfully crafted text that embodies the Akan Sankofan philosophical concept of “return and fetch what was lost.” In this compelling volume, King and Swartz invite educators and researchers to uncover the forgotten episteme of African heritage knowledge. The authors powerfully advocate for students, especially Black students, to be freed from the hegemonic shackles that inhibit them from accessing an African heritage knowledge that has been either distorted, denied, or dismissed from the curriculum. These omissions and distortions perpetuate a false narrative about the value and contributions of African people. Thus, African Heritage knowledge is situated as the epicenter for reimagining a K-12 curriculum that embraces African cultural principles.
This work authentically establishes the context for the importance of remembering and restoring African Heritage knowledge. We are first introduced to African cultural concepts and an African Worldview seamlessly framed in a conversation between two Black educators as they interrogate the omission of African historical and cultural knowledge in typical curriculum and its impact throughout the world. These omissions are responsible for the lack of cultural continuity and historical consciousness for Black students. The authors affirm that in order to overcome the “cultural amnesia” imposed upon people of African descent, we must mend the “historical ruptures” of African heritage.
Heritage knowledge in the curriculum is timely in affirming the need for emancipatory practices that provide students with a more historically accurate representation of African people and their brilliant contributions to the world. The power of this book lies in its ability to relate the mental feelings once foreign and alienated to a place of understanding, liberation, and joy. A newfound agency can be derived to help replace the limited worldview cemented by the standard eurocratic school system. This work argues for establishing a cultural continuity that allows students to see themselves as belonging to a larger, continuous heritage. Additionally, this liberating work will help students locate themselves in the African Diaspora through African epistemology, allowing their Indigenous voices to be heard.
Teaching from an African episteme dismantles students’ inferior view of themselves and centers on the contributions and accomplishments of their ancestors for the benefit of all humanity. Teachers, teacher educators, administrators, researchers, and policymakers will find this a valuable book informing them of the importance of Black students learning about their own history, languages, and culture. If used to inform teachers in the early childhood years, this book can lead to teaching that will allow marginalized students to be introduced to an African worldview and African cultural concepts at an early age, so by middle school, their African epistemic foundation is solidified in their thoughts and embedded in their being. Moreover, this foundation will aid with understanding the two souls, two thoughts, two unrecognized strivings; the double consciousness that many Black students struggle to understand because of a lack of self-knowledge (DuBois, 1994). Understanding the pain and suffering that Black students face daily due to the erasure of their African Heritage is critical in our work as educators. The forced assimilation into eurocratic worldviews is disparaging and destructive to “the souls of Black folks” as they struggle to reconcile with and unify the two identities. Heritage knowledge in the curriculum provides a framework to assist teachers and teacher educators in examining and evaluating their current pedagogical practices and presents practical strategies to address the harm caused by centering eurocratic curricula and worldviews.