Send Them Where They Want to Go...Give them Choice-Creating Warrior Scholars

Liberation Kamali Family,

One thing I have always hated about the public fool system is that it rarely gives the student a choice in their learning. Can you imagine going to a restaurant that reserves the right to not only choose what you eat, but also monitors your digestion and forces you to eat the same meal even if it does not suit your taste?

This happens everyday in schools and homeschools around the world. 

To counter that dynamic, I have long been an advocate of parents and teachers providing a menu for their young warriors and allowing them to choose what they wanted to eat.

That idea is cool, but the teacher or parent is still in control because they get to choose what going to be on the menu in the first place. So, it is like we are giving our young warriors the illusion of choice. 

If I am honest, I would just put the same “core” subjects on the menu and allow them to choose which “core” subject they wanted to do first and in what order. I even let them eat their dessert first at times, but they still had to eat what I, or the eurocentric or Afrikan-centered curriculum, wanted them eat eventually. 

This state of affairs bothered me to no end. Sure, my students enjoyed that morsel of choice, because they usually came from environments that offered none at all. They even enjoyed learning about themselves in every subject. But I knew I could do more. 

So, I took my lead from one of my favorite Afrikan proverbs, “if you want to know how fast a child can go, send them where they want to go.”

Armed with this proverb, I began going to my young warrior scholars and asking them what they wanted to learn. Instead of giving them a menu of choices, I asked, “if you could build a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?”

I went beyond just inviting input from them to giving them the ultimate control of being a designer of their own education, which is a scary proposition for students and parents alike. Yet, if we want our children to be confident designers of their own purpose-driven lives, why not give them some practice before they get out into the “real world?”

Listen. I get it. You are wondering, “but there are important things the child should learn at certain times. They need to keep up with their peers. They must be able to compete globally. What if they are not interested in learning the important things needed for a successful life?”

Those are valid concerns. But I would ask, who says that every child should learn the same things around the same time depending on their date of birth? Who created the standards and “core” classes we all took in school and why? Do we want our young warriors to follow the dictates of an outdated curriculum created over a hundred years ago or be proactive in designing their own education which would prepare them for the unpredictability of the future?

There are ways to incorporate “core” subjects into anything your child desires to know. Don’t worry. 

But if their interests do not lead them learning the periodic table or the quadratic equation, don’t despair. Maybe they would need it for their purpose in life. 

Start with their interests and questions. Send them where they want to go and you will be surprised at what they discover.

Revolutionary love,

Baba Dr. Brotha Samori Camara