Accessible Africa
(Photo: Submitted)
Todd Cleveland, a faculty member in the Department of History, recently co-authored a book published by Bloomsbury Academic titled, Accessible Africa: Teaching and Learning about an Unfamiliar Past, with Dr. Michael Panzer.
Accessible Africa is a public-facing project, in that it provides educators ranging from middle school to high school an accessible account of the major developments in African history, paired with pedagogical strategies and approaches related to teaching the continent's past. Based on decades of teaching African history at the collegiate and high school levels, it became clear to Cleveland and Panzer that most students had learned very little about Africa - beyond the Transatlantic Slave Trade - prior to arriving in their classrooms. This absence is not surprising, as educators readily admit that they do not feel comfortable teaching about Africa because they feel both unqualified and uninformed. Accessible Africa addresses these issues by providing both accessible content and associated teaching strategies related to roughly the past 5,000 years of African history, up to and including contemporary developments on the continent. Major historical themes include trade routes, slave trades, imperialism and colonialism, decolonization, and modern Africa.
Dr. Wendy Urban-Mead, associate professor of history in the Master of Arts in Teaching Program at Bard College and for the Bard Prison Initiative, summarized the importance of the book as follows: "As a teacher of African history since 1995, and a teacher of teachers, I can attest to the need for this book. Accessible Africa is invaluable for helping the time-pressed instructor know where to start. Each of the short chapters gives a clear, accessible narrative overview of the key elements of the history for that theme and time, and offers valuable starting points for discussion topics, essential questions around which to structure lessons, and go-to internet and book sources for further reading."
Cleveland is a Distinguished Professor of History whose work focuses on Lusophone African history, as well as histories of diamonds, tourism, soccer and Olympic athletes on the continent. Panzer is an adjunct professor of African history at Marist University and a full-time high school social studies teacher at Roy. C. Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls, New York.