Teachers drum up support for African study at ARHS

By Bob Dunn
Staff Writer

Published on December 01, 2006

Three enterprising Amherst high school teachers are culling life experience from their diverse backgrounds to demystify Africa for their students by immersing them in its language, art, culture, history and, eventually, by bringing them there.

The African Scholars Program is the brainchild of ARHS teachers Oumy Cisse, Momodu Sarr and Bruce Penniman, who, over a conversation while helping move furniture, began formulating an idea to educate their students about the literature and culture of Africa, specifically, Senegal and The Gambia, from where Cisse and Sarr hail.

"This will help us open up the continent through our own eyes and experience," Cisse said. "Africa is kind of neglected (in the standard curriculum)."

The program is in the planning stages, with a tentative start date of fall of 2008.

The program would involve classes from several different departments including world language, social studies, science, art, and English literature, all with an intensive focus on Africa.

Then, coinciding with February break, the proposed group of 20 students would travel to Senegal and The Gambia for a two-week visit.

The trip would provide field experience to reinforce what the students had been learning in the classrooms and broaden their perspectives, said Cisse.

"They'll be able to see how different Africa is from the rest of the world," Cisse said. "They'll open their eyes to things people take for granted."

Cisse said that in addition to cities and developed areas of the continent, the program plans on the students visiting economically strapped areas.

Places where "people struggle for daily meals," Cisse said.

"This looks like something that's going to be new, different, more academically oriented than a traditional exchange program," said Sarr.

The most important aspect, said Penniman, was that the travel be part of a trimester's worth of study to provide an in-depth experience.

That experience doesn't come free, however, and the program is seeking underwriting and exploring fund-raising options to provide for an initial fact-finding and logistical trip this spring as well as for the students' trip in February 2008.

The group has been in touch with the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, which made suggestions about contacts.

There is also talk of an African film festival to be held at the newly opened Amherst Cinema, according to Starr.

Penniman said that students enrolled in the program would be expected to pay as much as possible from savings from summer jobs.

"But we want this to be accessible to anyone who wants to go, regardless of income," Penniman said.

According to the group's proposal, the trip would cost between $2,000 and $2,500 per student.

Cisse said that the program would involve 20 students, at least half of whom would be students of color.

All three teachers said that the administration in general and ARHS Principal Mark Jackson in particular have been supportive of the plan from the start.

Cisse said Africa remains a mystery to a lot of her students.

"This gives me a chance to share a part of my culture with the community," she said.