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Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College
Columbia University
Center for African Education
Center for African Education

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Teacher Education

Activities and teacher tips that could enhance curriculum for teachers and offer other learning opportunities for TC students in general.

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Teaching Africa Series: Volume 1, West Africa

CAE is currently working on a monograph and teacher training course.

Our Aim:

Our key aim is to provide substantive information, in jargon-free language to teachers and students in order to show the West African sub-region in a new light beyond the mainstream media and other portrayals, affirm the peoples, their cultures, their achievements and their challenges. It will serve as a guide for educators by:

-'ó Providing them with general, didactic information on the socio-cultural, political and economic contexts of their West African students ;

-'ó Offering them the tools and the means to build upon the cultural heritage and educational background of these students;

-'ó Enabling them to address the some of the challenges and barriers that prevent this relatively new group of immigrant students from gaining access to a quality education.

Thus teachers will be helped to teach and write about West Africa and the students of West African heritage differently. Each chapter must strive to link the past with the present, showing continuity and change, domination and resistance, challenges but also successes. Contributions should also endeavor to show the sub-region in its complexity: that it has not been static, had vibrancy before colonialism, imperialism and contemporary globalization, has been profoundly affected by them and continues to change.

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Suzanna McNamara is a teacher at Bronx International High School. She teaches SIFE students, students with interrupted formal education primarily from Africa, and has developed activites and curriculum tailored to SIFE students.

Suzanna McNamara was a presenter at International Symposium on African and Diasporic Languages and Education at Teachers College in 2006. Her attached power point presentation offers a wealth of information and tips on teaching SIFE students in the United States.

symposium lecture Suzanna McNamara's presentation, Fall 2006