African Children’s Songs: A Legendary Teaching Tool

This paper presents a multicultural perspective of the historical and legendary analysis of African American children’s songs highlighting the important interpersonal familial relationships that have been noted teaching tools for African American children. The data includes multiple songs that have been used for generations to teach children values, history and cultural experiences with life enhancing strength and determination.These diverse experiences are characterized by historical practices that called for African American families to find multimodal means of teaching their children when it was against the law for African Americans to learn to read or to become educated.This research reveals that at various stages in the lives of African American children, parents and extended family members found ways to culturally educate their children. This was done through use of historical and generational African American songs and games. They have been instrumental in providing hope of a better life for those who were oppressed and often denied some of life’s inalienable rights.Teachers at all grade levels including ESL and Special Education could enhance children’s learning through use of multimodal thinking and learning activities

Learning Form and Function by Dance-Dramatizing Cultural Legends to Drum Rhythms Wearing Student-Made Animal Masks

This study examined the self-efficacy in science, art, dance, and music; attitudes concerning contributions of people of various ethnic/cultural groups; and science learning of students involved in an after-school arts-integrated science enrichment project. Students dramatized three traditional animal legends from African, Native American, and Mexican cultures to drum beats while wearing student-made papier-mâché helmet crest masks of the animal characters. They learned the structure and functions of the featured animals through slide shows, embedded explanations in the play scripts, and hands-on form and function analogy materials that related the form and function of animal body parts to manufactured items. Although at least 40 students participated at times in the after-school program, matching pretest and posttest data were only available for 13 students. Results showed positive changes in students’ art self-efficacy with a medium effect size, improvements in knowledge of animal form and function with a large effect size, and a trend toward greater appreciation of the cultural contributions of different ethnic groups. Photographs of student-made masks and the animal legend scripts with added form-and-function content are provided

African Mask-Making Workshop: Professional Development Experiences of Diverse Participants

Diverse education professionals learned about African cultures in a workshop experience by making African masks using authentic symbolism.  Analysis of reflections to evaluate the workshop for applicability to participants with and without African heritage showed that both groups expanded their cultural knowledge of traditional African ethnic groups. Those participants with African heritage noted valuing of women while those without African heritage expressed appreciation for African culture, self-evaluation of work, and the desire to investigate their own heritages