AFRICAN TALES: Technology And Learning in Every School

AFRICAN TALES: Technology And Learning in Every School

At Ampia Ajumako, a curriculum model is being developed for schools. The curriculum model is designed out of our Ananse stories. The model is called African TALES. The purpose of African TALES (Technology And Learning in Every School) is to design and implement an exemplary model for professional development in which teachers become more thoughtful, innovative learners infusing multimedia technology into the school curriculum.

African TALES (Technology and Learning in Every School) seeks to help teachers infuse multimedia technology into the school curriculum. At the heart of TALES is a professional development model that utilizes new ways of storytelling to equip pre-service and in-service teachers with the latest technology and trains them to use it effectively in their classrooms. African TALES utilizes the digital format as a new medium for the age-old practice of storytelling in a model that is humanistic, culturally rich, and globally relevant. African TALES explores the connections among storytelling, imagery, symbols and symbolism and examines how teachers can use art objects with storytelling activities in the classroom.

Participating with faculty, pre-service and in-service teachers, parents, and community members, the model helps participants to acquire language, mathematics, science, technology, social studies, and literacy skills while designing interdisciplinary multimedia learning experiences built around the traditions, customs, beliefs, and legends that the Ananse stories encode.

Storytelling is one of the oldest, if not the oldest method of communicating ideas and images. Story performance honed our mythologies long before they were written and edited by scribes, poets, or scholars. Storytelling, as it is defined here, is a linguistic activity that is educative because it allows individuals to share their personal understanding with others, thereby creating negotiated transactions. Without this interactive narrative experience humans could not express their knowledge or thought. Storytelling is part of how humans translate their individual private experience of understanding into a public culturally negotiated form.

Storytelling is also a performance art, one that has been revitalized in recent years and which has developed into a neo-tradition throughout the U. S. A. Today, the modern storyteller performs texts that (for most) have been learned from books. However, the art of storytelling still remains connected to its ancient roots in that it remains an activity where a tale is told aloud, to an audience, without the use of memorized scripts or other literary texts. It is the closest thing we have, in modern contexts, to the orality of our preliterate ancestors. Modern storytellers, therefore, like their ancient counterparts, continue to rely on their manipulation of language in order to relate an anecdote and often make use of dramatic skills such as characterization, narration, vocalization, and mimetic action.

Ever since ancient times, storytelling in African culture has been a way of passing on the traditions and beliefs of a particular society from one generation to the next. It has also been used as a means of passing on traditions and codes of behavior, as well as maintaining social order. African tales are told and retold under the shade of a tree or around a village campfire, passing on the history, philosophy, and moral laws of the people.

Although alphabetic writing had not been developed in ancient Africa, there were still existing means for Africans to record their thoughts, beliefs and feelings. These means included various forms of African art such as artifacts, myths and ceremonies. The adinkra cloth symbols constitute one art form in which the Akan of Ghana encoded several stories. In this section below a symbol and the story it encodes are illustrative of the power of storytelling among the Akan of Ghana.

ADEPA BƐBA DA BI - ƆBANYANSAFOƆ NA ODI KOSUA A ƆBƆ DOMPE MU

SOMETHING GOOD WILL BE FORTHCOMING - IT IS THE WISE CHILD WHO CRACKS INTO A BONE AS S/HE EATS AN EGG

The wise child is the o¬ne who cracks into a bone even when s/he is eating an egg. There o¬nce lived a man who had three children (boys) with his wife. They lived in a small town. They were happily married and the children had been raised very well. o¬ne day, the man called his sons together and told them that he was going o¬n a journey and that he would be gone for some time.

On the eve of his journey he called the sons together again in the presence of his wife. The man then gave an egg each to his three sons and urged them to help their mother in his absence. The next day he set out o¬n his journey. Immediately the father left, the two older boys cooked and ate their eggs. The youngest boy gave his egg to his mother to put under her hen that was about to hatch her eggs. Very soon, the boy’s egg was hatched and he had a hen so he decided to keep her in order for her to have more chicken for him. And in no time, he had several chicken.

One day the father returned home. They had a big feast to welcome him back. When they sat down to eat, the oldest son reached out for a chicken drumstick. The youngest son snatched the drumstick from his brother. He said to his senior brother, "The wise child is the o¬ne who cracks into a bone even when s/he is eating an egg." The father was taken aback o¬n hearing that statement. He asked for an explanation. The youngest then explained how his two older brothers had eaten their eggs soon after he the father set out o¬n his journey. He, the youngest son was the one who had his egg hatched that yielded the chicken that were used for the food they were about to eat. If the older boys wanted to crack into bone, they would have not eaten their eggs.

This story teaches the moral of delayed gratification.