ABSTRACT
As career outreach education coordinator of one of the premier African Studies centers in the United States, Michigan State University, John Metzler has led many summer tours for teachers to Africa, and directed myriad workshops in his home state and around the nation. The comparative educational policies and methods he has used in his K-12, secondary and college level education, especially HBCU institutions, have served as models for national African and other area study programs. The chapter recounts the pivotal influence his TAP experience at Chipembi Girls School in Zambia had in shaping his career in education. Even earlier, his growing up years in Jamaica in a community descended from African slaves, and his exposure to social justice and peace-making concerns in college and beyond, instilled the values that guided his career in public education about Africa.
