What is creation if not the practice of revolution? What is revolution if not the practice of teaching? What is teaching if not the practice of creation? Revolution is the re- planting of seeds dropped from full-bloomed flowers. It is the natural recycling of ideas, necessary for the sustenance of human vitality. If we understand the act of teaching, then we know that its essential power is in its movement from creation to practice to re-creation. Success as a student within the academy is borne of success as a teacher outside the academy. Success as a teacher within the academy is nurtured by diligence as a student outside the academy. Revolutions are best fed from both ends. Fires burning bright must be heavily stoked. The kindling of ideas must be given continuously for the flame of creative thought to remain ablaze. It is this due vigilance that incites the revolutions of teaching. In so doing, learning continues. Thus, utmost reverence for the practice of traditional teaching landscapes inside classrooms and inside academies is retained as we increasingly engage with the broad open spaces of teaching outside through everyday lessons of life. From this intersection of conventions the birth of a group poem is midwifed from the broken spirits of impoverished women and their immediate joy is witnessed and inspiration sustained to know that the power to create has not left them after all. Through art and story, the white sand and blue ocean framing healthy black faces on an African island is revealed to disillusioned youth confined to concrete and this small opening to their true reflection is all it takes to find their right path. Through dramatic performance we open inside out to multi-colored audiences our fears, prejudices, beliefs and joy at life inside the dimensions of our Self for the purpose of letting them reflect their Selves back onto us; and we are duly complemented, our reward. Then, there is the greatest reward of teaching: re-uniting humans with their birth motherland, Africa. Whether reuniting is artistic, physical, intellectual, and/or spiritual, it is always healing for parties from both sides. Each lesson in this course opens a locked door and fills in a neglected space. It is revolution at its finest. The academy, we believe, is joining the revolution. The world will be rewarded from this act of creation. |
| Publisher of: NOMADS a novel of African origins What Women and Rivers Have in Common Stories & Poems How Kwanza Became Umoja a children's book e-books: How Not to be Happily Married Navigating the 3 Rivers of Life: Health, Money, Relationships TruJamaa-Cooperative Economics in Trying Times |
| EnterAfrica.net Sojourns for your Mind, Body and Spirit |
| IntraDiaspora Africa Associates Research Learning Teaching Publishing |
| TEACHING OUTSIDE offered by IntraDiaspora Africa Associates through the Kemet Foundation WInter 2011-2012 African Ways of Being: Practical Lessons in Living the Good November 1, 2011-January 1, 2012 Spring 2012 Commencement One Year Rite of Passage into Elderhood March 1, 2012 -March 31, 2013 |
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