The Maroon Within Us by Asa G. Hilliard III

Author:Asa G. Hilliard III [Hilliard III, Asa G.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Classic Books
Published: 2013-08-14T04:00:00+00:00

It is well known to historians of philosophy that Plato was said to have spent 12 years as a student under African teachers in the Kemetic Mystery System. Plato took some of the virtues and left others. He took numbers one and two and called them justice. He took the number three and called it fortitude. He took the number four and called it temperance. He took numbers five and six and called them prudence. These are Plato’s four Cardinal Virtues. What he left behind is as significant as what he decided to keep.

The design of African education was not confined to the northeast corner of the African continent. Before and after the decline of Kemetic civilization, in the face of many invasions and migrations, Africans elsewhere on the continent preserved the forms of ancient classical Africa, adding their own unique creativities as they built new classical civilizations in other places. For this reason, we do have available to us today the real essence of ancient African systems of education reflected in the traditional cultures of Africa. It is not because they are African, or even because they are ancient that we have reason to give serious consideration to these systems. It is because they were and are good and useful. Even a brief look at what our ancestors have said will show the wisdom of what these systems were about and their meaning for us at this very moment, in this very place.

Today, we can tap this ancient tradition by closely examining living Africans. Piere Erny in Childhood and Cosmos, Jordon K. Ngubane in Conflict of Minds, Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlin in Conversations with Ogotemnli, and in their second book, The Pale Fox, have given in-depth views of the remarkable ways that Africans organized education and socialization in diverse parts of Africa. African people in the Caribbean and in the United States still, in our most traditional institutions, retain some of the approaches to socialization that we see today in traditional African society. This retention of culture can be seen in the aims, methods, and contents of independently designed education and socialization. Particular forms and contents that we see in Africa do not matter as much as the principles that they reflect.

It is possible to identify the common principles of African systems of education and socialization that can serve as a guide for the design of our own modern system. These basic principles may be listed as follows:

Separation - The beginning stages of education and socialization are marked by a clear separation of the child from the routine of daily life. It is understood that the separation has a deep meaning.

Observing nature - The child is placed in an environment designed for a maximum exposure to nature. Nature itself is regarded as a teacher.

Peership - Age mates are the important peers. The education and socialization process is above all a social process. Children are expected to master all requirements together. They begin and end the process together.

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