Highlights from the Milton Schools' Africa Odyssey, April 10, 2006

In 2005 the Milton School District launched the African Odyssey program as one of many new initiatives to foster peace and harmony in diversity town by promoting a deeper understanding of one another and of peoples' histories and cultures. This year the Milton School District in cooperation with Primary Source continued its commitment to bring diverse people together from across the community through the African Odyssey 2006. Mary Gormley, assistant superintendent, reports "Community within each school and between schools was built and every student was impacted."

In the month leading up to April 10, Dozi (xylophonist), Oscar Mokeme (mask presenter) and Joh Camara (drummer) talked with students and performed in the schools. Joh taught that in all the kingdoms and cultures of Africa there was art and music and song and among the many sacred instruments that played for kings and queens and the common man alike there was the DRUM!

Every elementary school student read or was read Africa is Not a Country. Margy Burns Knight and Anne Sibley O'Brien, the book's author and the illustrator, visited the schools. Furthermore, every family with a child in elementary school was given a copy of the book, thanks to a grant from the Milton Foundation for Education. Students learned "Africa is a continent made up of 54 independent nations. Africa is the second largest continent in the world."

Numerous Milton teachers like Ludmila Nivoroshkin infused African content into their lessons during this month. In middle school French classes, the students wrote stories based on African tales and then visited elementary school to read their stories to the third grade French immersion classes. All art classes, including the pre-school, were involved in creating African-related projects that were displayed in an "African Museum" at Milton High School In preparation for the evening presentation and performance, the high school dance and jazz groups worked with their director Rebecca Croce and with Joh Camara, drummer and dance instructor, and Emmett Price, a music professor from Northeastern University, to develop African inspired material.

On April 10 the whole district was abuzz with African related activities--See the slide show above. After school on April 10 Milton teachers attended workshops. One workshop focused on teaching a new Boston Science Museum curriculum Engineering is Elementary and in particular the lesson on sound called Kwame's Sound. The teachers were also treated to an African dinner prepared by Cesaria Restaurant and several Milton families of African descent. Even before the evening performances started, hundreds of elementary students flooded the high school to have their books signed by the author and illustrator and to see the "African Museum" in the library that displayed work from every school in the district. During the evening, the emcee Yolanda Beech wove educational narrative about Africa and the African Diaspora around cultural presentations from the fifth grade chorus of Tucker School, Milton High Schools dance and jazz groups, Boston Community Chorus and the keynote speaker Elizabeth Siwo-Okundi from Kenya who was provided by the African Outreach Center at Boston University. "Slavery existed in all of the American Colonies up to the Revolutionary War. Slaves used African rhythm to set a work pace as a way to move in unison in the fields to avoid the overseers' whip. By now African captives had been taught to be Christians but they saw the church as an institution of liberation and the minister became an important leader in the captive community." Then Dennis Slaughter, a Milton resident, led singers of the Boston Community Chorus some of the 700 audience members an South African and an African American song.