"Root of Education" by: Ashley Alele

          Hello, My name is Ashley Alele. I would like to recap on last week's Freshman Seminar (8/31/10) Lecture. The title of the lecture was Learnning, Wisdom, and African World Experience and the speaker was Dr. Gregory Carr. This lesson basically discussed how education started in Africa and how we are miseducated about our African heritage. We learned that Africans were the earliest writers which can be proof that it is indeed where education started.

         Three interesting facts I learned from the lecture were: 1.) Egyptians created Astrology, 2.) Ebonics is really the languages that influenced the learned English during slavery, and 3.) The Howard University says "Truth and Service" in Latin (Veritas et Utilitas). There were also a couple quotes that caught my eye: 1.) "The most serious threat to African dignity is the domain of intellectual ability" and 2.) "What is the fundamental orientation of a people?" both by Jacob Carruthers. Dr. Carr asked us "How do we access the Texts that link us to the long genealogy of Afriacn deep thought?" and the answer was "By following the ground rules of intellectual work."

            Dr. Carr also taught us about the man who was thought to create words whose name was Djehuty and his wife Seshat. He then taught us some of the basic terms in Africana:

• Sedjem "listen"
• Ma'at "truth"
• Medew Nefer "good speech"
• seba/sebayt "teach/teachings"
• seai "educate"
• medew law "staff of old age"
• iwa pele "good/right character"
• sankofa "go [and] get it"

           He ended the lesson by teaching us the three authorities in the classroom which are to: 1.) Be present, 2.) Read and Write, and 3.) Do what you do well. I thought this was a great lecure and that Dr. Grgory Carr was an amazing speaker. He kept me interested and I learned a lot of things about Africa that we rarely ever run across.