TEACHING BLACK HISTORY IS ANTI-RACIST EDUCATION
How Capoeira from the African Content became the Beautiful Game
What can we learn from our students? Do they have lessons to teach us? Yes. Yes. The answer is a resounding yes, if only we take the time to listen to our students, our children, and acknowledge that they have so much to teach us. This is called intergenerational teaching. Children bring to the classroom, their funds of knowledge. What they have learned from their parents and grandparents at home. The cultural retentions that have been passed down to them through the wisdom traditions of cultural people coming from a long lineage of the oral tradition and storytelling. Unfortunately, very little of this wellspring of cultural capital is included in the curriculum. So, teachers who are socially and culturally conscious with their thrust towards equity, must find creative ways to bring this wonderful life sustaining source of education into the classroom. As the saying goes, When the student is ready, the teacher appears (Proverb). Sometimes, it is the student who provides us with heartfelt lessons of great significance. Here these young men emphasize through their dancing of the Capoeira, the empowering effects of the culture we have retained from the African content. These martial arts moves were carried over to Brazil (Then under Portuguese control) from the continent of Africa and centuries later, used by the great soccer player, Athlete of the Century, Pele who riveted the world’s attention at the tender age of seventeen with the Ginga, to win the 1958 FIFA World Cup and two times afterwards. This is how Brazilian soccer became known as the Beautiful Game.
How Capoeira from the African Content became the Beautiful Game
What can we learn from our students? Do they have lessons to teach us? Yes. Yes. The answer is a resounding yes, if only we take the time to listen to our students, our children, and acknowledge that they have so much to teach us. This is called intergenerational teaching. Children bring to the classroom, their funds of knowledge. What they have learned from their parents and grandparents at home. The cultural retentions that have been passed down to them through the wisdom traditions of cultural people coming from a long lineage of the oral tradition and storytelling. Unfortunately, very little of this wellspring of cultural capital is included in the curriculum. So, teachers who are socially and culturally conscious with their thrust towards equity, must find creative ways to bring this wonderful life sustaining source of education into the classroom. As the saying goes, When the student is ready, the teacher appears (Proverb). Sometimes, it is the student who provides us with heartfelt lessons of great significance. Here these young men emphasize through their dancing of the Capoeira, the empowering effects of the culture we have retained from the African content. These martial arts moves were carried over to Brazil (Then under Portuguese control) from the continent of Africa and centuries later, used by the great soccer player, Athlete of the Century, Pele who riveted the world’s attention at the tender age of seventeen with the Ginga, to win the 1958 FIFA World Cup and two times afterwards. This is how Brazilian soccer became known as the Beautiful Game.
INTERGENERATIONAL
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PELE USED GINGA, FROM THE AFRICAN MARTIAL ARTS OF CAPOEIRA TO SHARE WITH THE WORLD THE BEAUTIFUL GAME , SOCCER , WITHIN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA. |
Children bring to the classroom stories from their grandmother's kitchen, community folklore & their exuberant imaginings inspired by tales of possibilities.see The Narrative of African Caribbean People p. 39
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