Black History Month is a celebration of seeing, hearing, touching and savoring.

Every stamp tells a story, they say.

The giant A. Philip Randolph stamp unveiled at Morningside High School last week told a story about the invigorating celebration of Black History Month in Inglewood schools this month.

This is the way school should be all the time. This is education students can see and touch, education as interaction, images that cast a spell:

A teacher dressed in the robes of a tribal chieftain from Sierra Leone explains a ritual devil mask to a student dressed in Nigerian village attire.

Drama students perform the poetry of Langston Hughes in potent riffs: “I’ve seen rivers . . . my soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

And culminating a program on A. Philip Randolph at Morningside, U.S. Postal Service representatives unveil a new commemorative stamp honoring the venerated civil rights and labor leader. In honor of the occasion last Thursday, they also set up a temporary post office at the school.

“It’s a fun way of learning,” Inglewood High School sophomore D’Tanya Rawls said of the month’s activities.

Rawls wore a Nigerian dress borrowed from a family friend at Tuesday’s Black Renaissance Fair at her school. Booths at the fair displayed African cultural artifacts, original slave documents and African-American food.

One booth was manned by David Whittaker, a math and computer literacy teacher who knows African culture first-hand; he worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in the West African country of Sierra Leone. Black History Month gave him a chance to emulate the Sierra Leone town criers who shared their country’s history with him.

“At first, some of the kids were apathetic about something they have never really been exposed to,” he said. “One of the failures of our American culture is that most black people don’t realize their heritage, how rich it is. Once the kids saw how it applies, they generally became interested.”

Whittaker wore a ronko , a garment given to him by chief Ali Mony Salifu of the Falaba chiefdom. Among the artifacts Whittaker displayed was a Mende Society devil mask used in initiation and circumcision rites and funeral celebrations.

“It’s a secret society, like the Masons,” Whittaker said. “It takes the young man or woman from childhood to adulthood. The young people are taught about their responsibility to family, tribe and country.”

Whittaker has encouraged his students to travel to Africa, and Rawls said she is eager to visit Nigeria.

Rawls said that for some of her classmates, modern cultural pursuits such as music and sports have more allure than African culture. But she said she wants to experience the real thing.

“I want to go to small villages where you can really learn, not the city. You don’t learn much in the city because things are modern. If you want to learn, you take what comes with it.”