Alchemy of the Soul

Contents: The Dream Within a Dream - Roots of an African-Centered Educational Model - Defining an African-Centered Educational Model - Locating the Caravan to Egypt - Locating the Treasure - Gleaning the Mines for Treasure - Holding the Treasure to the Light - Blemishes in the Treasure! - Back at the Sycamore Tree.

Joyce Piert is the CEO and founder of I AM Institute for Learning (IAMIL). Piert earned her doctorate from Michigan State University in educational administration (K-12). She is an educator who has taught in both secondary and higher education. Her current research is on African-centered education; spirituality and education; and school leadership. Her areas of interest include urban education, school leadership, ethnocentric education, mathematics education, and social justice. She is the author of publications in journals such as The Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, The Urban Review, and The Negro Educational Review.

«Alchemy of the Soul is an essential addition to the evolving body of African-centered education literature. Joyce Piert effectively elucidates the essence of African education; the illumination of the human spirit. Through her work Piert serves as facilitator of agency for the students, the most essential element of the educational process. This work is a must-read for parents, scholars, educators, and other students, for it is through the voice of the students that we are provided standards and means to assess existing and prospective African-centered educational models.»
(Kefentse Chike, Adjunct Professor, Africana Studies Department, Wayne State University)
«Alchemy of the Soul offers a rich and intimate portrait of an African-centered educational institution. Joyce Piert explores the conceptual, political, and relational dynamics that enlivened and sustained this school community over the course of decades, and in so doing moves us beyond theoretical and philosophical reflections about the idea of an African-centered pedagogy, but takes us into the complex web of social relations where these ideas gain expression... Piert offers us a view of a grassroots, liberatory, culturally rich institution and reminds us of the power and potential of communities to struggle for freedom, purposefully socialize our youth, and seize the future.»
(Kamau Rashid, Educational Foundations and Inquiry, National-Louis University)