Educators teaching about Africa and other foreign areas cannot ignore the demands in American education for the basics—reading, writing, and arithmetic. These are important societal skills not merely because they result in writing grammatical sentences, spelling correctly, multiplying, and adding but more importantly because they play a central role, or should play a central role, in developing critical thinking abilities. In this respect, the critical thinking that is fostered by reading, writing, and arithmetic is essential for any relevant study about Africa today. Both African methods in education and content about Africa can be utilized in the K-12 curriculum to enhance these basic skills.