Culture is knowledge
Akan histories, oral traditions, symbols, design practices, values, and ways of communicating are studied with context and respect—not used as decoration.
Four guiding commitments
Presume competence
Neurodivergent students are treated as capable thinkers. Communication, sensory, reading, writing, attention, or processing differences do not reduce intellectual dignity.
Access is individualized
Teachers implement each IEP and adjust materials, pacing, response formats, technology, grouping, and instruction according to documented student needs.
Learning is connected
Students read, speak, calculate, model, design, listen, create, and reflect across subjects instead of experiencing knowledge as isolated fragments.
Documented people, objects, and designs
See the cultural evidence behind the lessons
These images are not generic “African” decoration. Each one has a documented connection to Akan material culture or to a specific Bono-region community. Captions separate what the source establishes from the new academic lesson Aberewa builds around it.
Akan gold weight: mathematics through measurement
Akan merchants and rulers used standardized brass weights to measure gold dust. In class, students investigate balance, equivalence, units, combinations, geometric form, and the role standard measurement plays in fair exchange.
Image: Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Historical context: The Met, Akan Gold Weights.
Adinkra cloth: mathematics and visual language
The documented cloth uses stamped motifs organized across a surface. Mathematics students can map repetition, frequency, symmetry, translation, rotation, grids, and proportion. English students can study how a named symbol, its cultural context, and a proverb or idea work together as visual rhetoric.
Image: public-domain photograph of an Adinkra mourning cloth collected in Kumasi in 1817, via Wikimedia Commons. Process information: British Museum.
Techiman community: Bono place, voice, and evidence
The source identifies the people pictured as residents of Diasempa, a suburb of Techiman in Bono East—not as representatives of every Bono person. English lessons can use responsibly obtained oral history and place-based description. Mathematics can study locally sourced population, agriculture, distance, or market data without inventing “traditional” numbers.
Photo: Milanba 90, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Regional context: Ghana National Commission on Culture.Two subjects · One cultural foundation
What Akan-rooted integration looks like
English Language Arts
- Oral tradition: Students listen to, retell, compare, and create stories while studying audience, sequence, character, theme, and memory.
- Akan proverbs: Students interpret figurative language, explain multiple meanings, connect a proverb to evidence, and write modern applications.
- Ananse traditions: Teacher-vetted stories support analysis of cleverness, consequence, community values, perspective, and the responsibilities of a storyteller.
- Adinkra as visual text: Students study a symbol’s documented meaning and context, then explain how image, language, and cultural memory communicate together.
- Diaspora and New Orleans: Students compare Akan-rooted ideas with African diasporic literature, local oral history, family narratives, and contemporary expression.
- Student voice: Learners may demonstrate understanding through writing, AAC, speech, illustration, performance, audio, video, or supported presentation.
Mathematics
- Kente-inspired pattern study: Students investigate repetition, sequence, ratio, transformation, symmetry, and rule-based design while learning the cultural context of the patterns.
- Adinkra geometry: Students identify lines, angles, reflections, rotations, translations, congruence, and scale in carefully selected symbolic designs.
- Markets and exchange: Realistic scenarios support operations, unit rates, proportional reasoning, budgeting, estimation, and financial decision-making.
- Architecture and measurement: Students use perimeter, area, scale, spatial reasoning, and accessible design to investigate or create community spaces.
- Rhythm and number: Call-and-response, beat patterns, and Abrafi Mathematics routines support counting, facts, sequences, vocabulary, and repeated retrieval.
- Mathematical explanation: Students show reasoning through objects, drawings, tables, graphs, equations, gestures, AAC, recorded explanation, or teacher-supported demonstration.
Respectful use: Teachers identify sources, provide historical and cultural context, distinguish Akan traditions from other African cultures, and avoid presenting any symbol, story, or design as having one universal meaning.
Teacher-ready examples
Six concrete connections—not general references
Gold-weight balance investigation
- Study a museum object record and identify material, date range, origin, dimensions, and use.
- Use classroom replicas or virtual balance pieces with values clearly labeled as a simulation—not claimed historical masses.
- Find equivalent combinations, compare ratios, and explain why standardized units support exchange.
- Write a mathematical claim supported by a balance model, table, and equation.
Adinkra as visual rhetoric
- Select one symbol from a teacher-vetted museum or scholarly source.
- Record its Akan name, documented meaning, source, and context rather than relying on commercial symbol charts.
- Analyze how shape, repetition, placement, and associated language communicate an idea.
- Produce an explanatory paragraph, AAC presentation, audio response, or visual essay with source credit.
Transformation map of Adinkra cloth
- Overlay a coordinate grid on a reproduced cloth detail.
- Locate repeated motifs and describe translations, reflections, rotations, spacing, and frequency.
- Calculate the fraction or percentage of sections containing a selected motif.
- Create a new rule-based pattern and distinguish the student design from an authentic historical symbol.
Akan proverb, claim, and context
- Use a proverb from a scholarly or community-validated source such as documented work on Akan proverb rhetoric.
- Identify speaker, audience, situation, figurative meaning, and possible interpretations.
- Write a claim about the proverb’s purpose and support it with language from the source and contextual research.
- Compare interpretation respectfully; do not treat a translated proverb as having only one fixed meaning.
Bono/Brong trade and data inquiry
- Locate Techiman and historical Bono centers such as Bono Manso or Begho using credible maps and historical sources.
- Use current public data or teacher-created tables explicitly labeled hypothetical to study distance, unit price, quantity, percentage, and graphing.
- Compare two routes or market choices and justify a decision mathematically.
- Keep the historical facts separate from invented practice numbers.
Bono oral history and Bono Twi
- Study a Bono-region account of place, migration, leadership, trade, festival, or community memory alongside archaeological or documentary evidence.
- Mark what is oral tradition, what is material evidence, what is interpretation, and what remains uncertain.
- Use Bono Twi only with a fluent Bono speaker or validated Bono-language source; do not silently substitute Asante Twi.
- Create a sourced oral-history profile, comparison essay, bilingual display, or recorded presentation.
Accuracy rule: “Akan” names a broad cultural and language family; Bono/Brong is a distinct Akan people and historical tradition. A lesson must name the specific community, object, dialect, place, or source whenever that information is known. Adinkra, Asante, Bono, Fante, and other Akan traditions should not be treated as interchangeable.
Interdisciplinary bridges
How mathematics and English strengthen each other
01 · Pattern
Recognize and describe structure
Students identify patterns in number sequences, designs, repeated language, story structure, rhyme, and oral performance.
Shared evidence
A student names the pattern, represents it, explains the rule, and shows where it appears.
A student names the pattern, represents it, explains the rule, and shows where it appears.
02 · Meaning
Interpret symbols and representations
Students compare how a word, proverb, diagram, table, equation, and Adinkra symbol communicate meaning differently.
Shared evidence
A student chooses a representation and explains what it communicates well and what it leaves out.
A student chooses a representation and explains what it communicates well and what it leaves out.
03 · Reasoning
Make a claim and support it
ELA claims require textual evidence; mathematical claims require examples, representations, calculations, or logical explanation.
Shared evidence
A student states a claim, provides evidence, answers a question, and revises after feedback.
A student states a claim, provides evidence, answers a question, and revises after feedback.
04 · Communication
Translate thinking for an audience
Students practice communicating the same idea through plain language, visual models, symbols, performance, and formal academic forms.
Shared evidence
A student selects an accessible format and communicates accurately to a real audience.
A student selects an accessible format and communicates accurately to a real audience.
IEP implementation
Support for neurodivergent learners
Neurodivergence includes varied ways of communicating, attending, sensing, processing, remembering, regulating, reading, writing, reasoning, and interacting. No single strategy fits every learner. The student’s IEP, current data, strengths, communication system, and family knowledge guide implementation.
Clear, explicit instruction
Teachers model the skill, think aloud, provide examples and nonexamples, check understanding, and gradually release responsibility.
Communication access
AAC, visual choices, wait time, gestures, speech, writing, and other communication forms are honored according to student needs.
Sensory and regulation support
Predictable routines, movement, breaks, reduced sensory load, flexible seating, and regulation tools are used when appropriate.
Chunking and pacing
Directions, texts, and problems are divided into meaningful steps with additional processing time and planned repetition.
Multiple representations
Students encounter ideas through concrete objects, visuals, sound, movement, language, diagrams, and symbols.
Assistive technology
Text-to-speech, speech-to-text, audiobooks, calculators, digital organizers, adapted keyboards, and other approved tools increase access.
Purposeful scaffolds
Vocabulary banks, sentence frames, worked examples, reference charts, graphic organizers, and guided notes support independence.
Choice in demonstration
When the learning goal permits, students may respond through writing, speech, AAC, drawing, models, performance, or recording.
Progress monitoring
Teachers collect manageable evidence tied to IEP and curriculum goals, adjust instruction, and share understandable progress information.
Aberewa’s promise: Accommodations provide access; specially designed instruction teaches the learner how to progress; modifications are used only when documented and appropriate. Support should increase participation, communication, confidence, and independence without treating a student’s disability as a lack of intelligence.
Example integrated unit
Pattern, Proverb & Proof
In this teacher-adaptable unit, students investigate how patterns and concise forms communicate knowledge. Instruction can be shortened, extended, or individualized according to grade-level goals and IEP needs.
Encounter
Study teacher-vetted Akan proverbs and contextualized geometric or textile patterns through audio, visuals, objects, and read-alouds.
Investigate
Analyze figurative meaning in ELA and describe sequence, symmetry, ratio, transformation, or measurement in mathematics.
Create
Develop an original pattern and a short statement or story expressing a documented community value or learning principle.
Explain
Present the rule, calculations, meaning, evidence, cultural context, and design choices through an accessible response format.
Academic evidence
- ELA interpretation and supporting evidence
- Accurate mathematical representation
- Clear explanation of pattern or rule
- Revision after feedback
Access options
- Reduced visual field or chunked materials
- AAC or recorded explanation
- Concrete pattern pieces or digital design
- Teacher scribing, extended time, or supported rehearsal as documented
Research and image sources
Sources teachers can verify
Material culture and mathematics
Adinkra and language
Bono/Brong regional context
For classroom use, teachers should add current Ghanaian and Bono-authored scholarship, local expertise, and validated Bono Twi resources whenever available.
Planning and accountability
Teachers document the academic target, cultural source and context, IEP connection, planned accommodations, communication options, assessment evidence, and next instructional step. Families and related-service professionals contribute when their knowledge is relevant to access and progress.
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