ABSTRACT
This chapter contends a particular view of schooling and education in North American and African contexts. It engages African proverbs as a form of epistemology; an Indigenous knowledge and knowing grounded on 'long-term occupancy of a place' and derived from experiential learning and the inter-relationships of society, culture and nature. The aim in discussing the specific Ghanaian and Kenyan proverbs is to affirm such local cultural knowing as part of an Indigenous African philosophy whose teachings rests on clear associations with the land or Mother Earth and the relations of culture, society and nature. The central argument is African knowledge and traditional teaching stress the imparting of values that make for good character, as well as knowledge and education that focuses on furthering understanding of our worlds. The chapter makes a contrast between the community values of African cultures that highlight the interests in the collectivity and those of the West that privilege individual self-interest.
