Teaching children from backgrounds of chronic deprivation and neglect is extremely difficult. At 42 percent of the city’s 700 elementary schools in 2011, one in five students missed a month or more of school (link below).
The race or gender of the teacher is the least of the hurdles these students face. Parental incarceration and drug involvement, foster care, shelter housing, and overworked single parent households are challenges that interfere with everything from vocabulary development to frustration tolerance when they DO attend, and contribute to chronic absenteeism as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/nyregion/city-reduces-chronic-absentee...
The race or gender of the teacher is the least of the hurdles these students face. Parental incarceration and drug involvement, foster care, shelter housing, and overworked single parent households are challenges that interfere with everything from vocabulary development to frustration tolerance when they DO attend, and contribute to chronic absenteeism as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/nyregion/city-reduces-chronic-absentee...
52
"Schools are failing black male students, and it’s not because of the race of their teachers. "
Really? How are schools failing them? Could it be that over 70% of black children are born into fatherless homes? Could it be the high illiteracy and drop out rate? The propensity for gangs and violence to flourish in black communities?
And what exactly is the "criminalization of young black men?" Is that when young black men commit crimes and are arrested and convicted of said crimes?
Really? How are schools failing them? Could it be that over 70% of black children are born into fatherless homes? Could it be the high illiteracy and drop out rate? The propensity for gangs and violence to flourish in black communities?
And what exactly is the "criminalization of young black men?" Is that when young black men commit crimes and are arrested and convicted of said crimes?
136
Teaching and education may be the most important topic in this election season. Sure, "it's the economy, stoopid." Sure, "it's ISIS." But we can't solve any issue properly if we are disunited, disagreeing and squabbling.
Education is a life-long adventure, with schooling as the training period for the marathon of life. But education is trashed in America. Forty percent of Americans believe in creationism--denying the science of evolution. East Asia has been hit by a series of typhoons recently and Indiana has had an outbreak of tornados very much out of season. Glaciers are retreating; agriculture has come to Greenland; and ancient bones and carcasses are uncovered in the tundra weekly. (One old carcass brought an outbreak of anthrax to northern Russia recently). But no, that has nothing to do with global warming.
Americans have become disconnected from the real world because they ignore history, they ignore what life around the world, and they ignore the facts of nature all around them. As if young blacks are the problem in education!
Education is a life-long adventure, with schooling as the training period for the marathon of life. But education is trashed in America. Forty percent of Americans believe in creationism--denying the science of evolution. East Asia has been hit by a series of typhoons recently and Indiana has had an outbreak of tornados very much out of season. Glaciers are retreating; agriculture has come to Greenland; and ancient bones and carcasses are uncovered in the tundra weekly. (One old carcass brought an outbreak of anthrax to northern Russia recently). But no, that has nothing to do with global warming.
Americans have become disconnected from the real world because they ignore history, they ignore what life around the world, and they ignore the facts of nature all around them. As if young blacks are the problem in education!
11
When will the Times that recently asked me to sign up for Race/Race Related article notifications present its first ever article explaining to all its authors that black and white sre colors not "races". Then it can explain that there are at least 3 ethnicities in the US under the black umbrella.
1. African American - Michelle Obama
2. Caribbean American - maybe Dorothy Roberts
3. African immigrant American (2d generation) Barack Obama
Which of the 3 are represented in this article?
Only- NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
American birth certificate Color (NOT race)-white
1. African American - Michelle Obama
2. Caribbean American - maybe Dorothy Roberts
3. African immigrant American (2d generation) Barack Obama
Which of the 3 are represented in this article?
Only- NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
American birth certificate Color (NOT race)-white
10
I had white and black teachers the white ones seem to get all the respect than the black teachers when black kids see that why would they want to be teachers. Also when it came to teaching the world all the black teachers would teach what white people did and only in black history month they taught the same boring stuff on black history you can see on tv. I thought about being a teacher once but going through high school I said I would not work in a place where the pay and respect is not there.
3
Here's a radical idea - Avoid getting pregnant until you're at least 21 and in a committed long term relationship (preferably married). Then raise your kids to go to class, behave themselves, pay attention, do their homework, and study.
64
Tough love, it's empathy. It's knowing each student as a person. It's shrewdly observing each student, knowing when to praise and knowing how to praise. It's knowing how to define a student's responsibilities and communicating that definition to each student. It's setting goals for each student and monitoring each student's performance. It's creating an environment in which each student can succeed, refusing to accept a student's failure and recognizing that when you get it just right each student not only wants to succeed but actually stays on task and succeeds.
Not every teacher can do it. But I surely admire those who can.
Not every teacher can do it. But I surely admire those who can.
9
Interesting to claim that schools are failing our black male students, and then to list three factors over which schools and educators have no control.
(" Schools are failing black male students, and it’s not because of the race of their teachers. These students are often struggling with the adverse effects of poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources across communities and the criminalization of black men inside and outside of schools. ") Our society as a whole is failing our children and the blame on schools and teachers needs to stop. This blame is a major reason that teachers of all races leave the profession.
(" Schools are failing black male students, and it’s not because of the race of their teachers. These students are often struggling with the adverse effects of poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources across communities and the criminalization of black men inside and outside of schools. ") Our society as a whole is failing our children and the blame on schools and teachers needs to stop. This blame is a major reason that teachers of all races leave the profession.
42
Ridiculously large class sizes, abysmally low compensation, and, frequently, administrators who don't have a clue how psychologically and emotionally intensive is the process of engaging active minds to stimulate interest in topics that those minds view as irrelevant to their lives. Who DOES have the stamina to persist in that type of self-flagellatory experience for years on end? Sure there are those high moments when a few students tell you you've made their lives better. But in the end, the disappointments far outweigh the triumphs. When we speak of the poor state of education in the U.S., it becomes clear that this country is complicit in its own demise, by virtue of its society's lack of respect for a profession that is the essential driver of its soul. So very sad.
24
Public education should be a local community enterprise; the whole community needs to become more involved in shaping its young successors. Businesses and other community can contribute mightily to making education seem and actually be pertinent to the youngsters. A model for community involvement could readily be based on STEM-CAN Supporters (stem-can.org) which works to form Community Action Networks "For 100% graduation of caring students."
7
I sub taught in an urban school. I had taught in their white rich schools too, but had to be removed for not suffering the gun snapping and the arrogant filing of nails. I had been a white HS dropout and worked while getting the BS and the rich kids weren't any less obnoxious 30 years later. So I loved the urban school.The black kids sat together near the back, the fewer white kids sat up front (fear in their eyes) and I walked the aisles, snapping my fingers loud near an errant conversation without singling out anyone. And I kept it interesting. Here are questions from the black students: "If I go to jail for a crime I didn't do, when I get out, can I commit a crime and not go to jail?" ("No.") "Can I write this assignment in Ebonics?" ("No.") "I hear you make a penny an hour in jail." ("You can make more in fast food if you stay out of jail.") "Can we call you by your first name?" ("No.") "Mister Early, have you ever had a woman in your bed?" ("Young lady, those are matters best spoken of after you graduate High School. Let's spend a few moments discussing basic manners. Who knows what the term 'social mores' means? No one? Good! I like being the smartest guy in the room.") //I probably had a point. Running a bit long.
42
Black men quit? Who says they're required to deal with the dysfunction most would avoid. Everyone quits, okay only 50%. The lifespan of many new teachers is about as long as a local restaurant--5 years tops then it's burnout and good-bye. Check the figures. On the other hand, who cares as long as your kid's teacher doesn't quit, right?
16
I learned from inspiring teachers who were Indian, Korean, Black - you name it. it never occurred to me a teacher should be a role model simply because their race should be identical. How did we get to this narrow place in our society and progressive media, where everything is all about skin color or sexual orientation?
59
what do we make of the great public school system we had in the 1950s and 1960s -- the sputnik years that produced high school kids competent in math, physics and chemistry -- and the instant decline of public support after integration?
I make it that state and national white supremacist policies threw out the baby with the bath water. We know how to fix this.
I make it that state and national white supremacist policies threw out the baby with the bath water. We know how to fix this.
16
My career in public education was in suburban schools. I do not pretend to grasp the workings of urban schools or the students who attend them except insofar as schools everywhere have, ostensibly, similar goals and human beings do hold some characteristics in common. As a young teacher, I was frustrated by the fact that some students were not compliant (with me; with the system). I learned early that suburban, well-funded districts, had response mechanisms for these students. At first, I viewed this web of counselors, social workers, psychologists as coddling to the "poor babies." In some cases it was. However, over time, I am concluding that the support mechanism common in those wealthy districts was (a) actually a real change agent for many students, and (b) missing in many urban schools. I support the notion of training teams of supportive staff and subject-area teachers to negotiate with resisting students (and their families). When working with such students, the central question is always: what do you want to have happen next? It is a profoundly respectful questions that some educators do not even want to ask. Where we could get an answer to this question that was near what a school might help with, we worked from the premise that educationally sound practice must be administratively possible. So....what's next?
26
I taught in inner city schools for over twenty years and this article couldn't be further from the reality. Students were not punished for "minor infractions" and for a very good reason. If you taught in those schools you had to be a strong teacher and being a strong teacher meant having discipline in your classroom. There is no way a teacher would sent a child out, or send him to an administrator for discipline unless the child was so disruptive and out of control they were making it impossible to conduct class or have any semblance of a learning environment. An administrator would get rid of you in two seconds if you bombarded him/her with kids who committed minor infractions. Not only that, other teachers would talk about you and you would be labeled "weak" by your peers. You were expected to handle discipline yourself. If you sent a kid out, it had better be for something major. In fact, I had a principal once that said if you sent a kid for discipline, you were going to be in trouble, and your classroom management techniques would be called into question. The reason these boys are out of control is that they come from single mother households and there is no discipline in the home. They are not expected to behave at home, the mothers can't control them, and there is no father in sight. They haven't been taught to behave at home. We used to call that "kids with no home training", and as soon as you met the mother you knew why the kid was the way he was.
149
I do not think that the problem is "too many black male teachers are quitting teaching" or that those who do quit are doing so because they can't handle dishing out "tough love". I think the problem --- if indeed there is a problem re: black male teachers --- is that not enough black males become teachers to start with. Any teacher, regardless of race or gender, also serves as a role model, like it or not. So we need teachers of all races and genders---so long as they are good teachers. As for the rest of this article, it is a mess, most especially because it fails to assign responsibility for education where it belongs: across the board, including individual students, their families, communities, school administrations, state and federal education bureaucrats, and the politicians who pass bills funding the whole system. Poor education is not a small or narrow problem; if it was, we'd have solved it by now.
52
I worked as a teacher in a upper middle-class mostly-white community high school. What I saw was not what the author describes as "tougher treatment of black students". If anything, the level of disrespectful, disruptive behaviour tolerated by the administration was outrageous. There was one boy in particular, who had moved from an inner city 4-5 years prior. He was infamously famous throughout the school. Students, teachers, administrators, they all knew whatever class he was in, there was not much teaching done. To make things worse, his classes were all lower level where kids needed the most from the teacher who was too busy managing this kid's behaviour while giving him a failing grade was discouraged. Whenever I tried to talk to the kid, he would say "he was being singled out" because he was black. Whenever I called the mother, her answer was denial and or shifting of responsibility for her son's behaviour to me, the teacher therefore no need for a parent-teacher meeting. I learned she did the same with all other teachers when her older daughter's also disruptive behaviour was broghut up. The strongest consequence this kid faced most times was "a time out" with a supervisor, not even the principal, then onto his next class for very likely another time out with another supervisor once the next teacher had it. So no matter what kind of teacher or school or softer love you put in place, parents are still the most important element in a child's education.
116
It's a tough job trying to manage and teach young males who were raised by girls and grandmothers. Very few of them have the skills and self control to do well in school. And I see no end of the crazy cycle of single girls raising babies.
75
Perhaps part of the problem is we expect teachers to solve a world of ills in schools where too many students are trying to handle outside trauma. Most Title 1 schools have huge numbers of students dealing with poverty, homelessness, hunger and violence. It is clearly unreasonable to expect a teacher to solve these problems while also teaching the curriculum. Especially at the middle and high school level when teachers see students for only 50 minutes a day. We need to get real about adding considerable funding to these schools to pay for counseling and support programs. The money spent would be saved on future costs to things like welfare and prison.
42
I teach in community college and although we are good at doing outreach to the African American community getting students through school or a program is a challenge. The opinion editorial clearly states "and it’s not because of the race of their teachers. These students are often struggling with the adverse effects of poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources across communities and the criminalization of black men inside and outside of schools." Clearly, legislative policy must be changed now to remove draconian drug laws, and provide excellent housing, healthy food, clean (non-toxic, non-polluting) environments to live, work and study that put the focuse on good health for these young black men, no? Seems simple to me. And give these folks some assets so they don't have to worry every minute about the future.
2
This is an excellent thought-provoking piece by Dr. Emdin.
How all teachers are trained, irrespective of race or gender, should be our paramount focus in transforming education from a fact-based, cognitive-centered approach to one that prepares teachers to teach the whole child.
Social-emotional learning in Massachusetts has now been included in new professional standards as an indicator of a teacher's readiness to go into service. This educational process looks to what makes people successful and active citizens. It teaches empathy, a quality now seen in our national debate as crucial to a thriving, inclusive society. It teaches emotional awareness and how to manage those emotions, a key to behavioral changes. It teaches how to build long-lasting relationships and connectivity to schools and community, a skill that actively decreases absenteeism.
Social-emotional learning thrives in safe and supportive environments where children do not live in fear of failure or are diminished in front of others. Unless school climate changes, we cannot expect different results.
In this, Dr. Emdin is spot-on when he says, "Instead of fixating on black male teachers, we need to examine how teachers are trained, their beliefs about young minority men, and how they engage their students."
How all teachers are trained, irrespective of race or gender, should be our paramount focus in transforming education from a fact-based, cognitive-centered approach to one that prepares teachers to teach the whole child.
Social-emotional learning in Massachusetts has now been included in new professional standards as an indicator of a teacher's readiness to go into service. This educational process looks to what makes people successful and active citizens. It teaches empathy, a quality now seen in our national debate as crucial to a thriving, inclusive society. It teaches emotional awareness and how to manage those emotions, a key to behavioral changes. It teaches how to build long-lasting relationships and connectivity to schools and community, a skill that actively decreases absenteeism.
Social-emotional learning thrives in safe and supportive environments where children do not live in fear of failure or are diminished in front of others. Unless school climate changes, we cannot expect different results.
In this, Dr. Emdin is spot-on when he says, "Instead of fixating on black male teachers, we need to examine how teachers are trained, their beliefs about young minority men, and how they engage their students."
4
How timely! Being part of a conversation just this week with the Michigan department of education, we were discussing the need to improve equity in high needs schools. The issue arose about hiring more minorities, specifically men, as a way to develop equity. The greater picture in education is a shortage of teachers, despite their ethnicity. We could debate the underlying reasons for this shortage, but lack of financial incentives is one reason. Why would college students pursue teaching in lieu of the pay and conditions? Very insightful perspective!
4
Where is the data that black male teachers quit because they are forced to be disciplinarians? This sounds like anecdote rather than actual evidence. Amazing that a professor is allowed to get away with publishing a completely unsupported thesis that is really a subjective political opinion as if it were fact.
32
Looking at that picture, it doesn't exactly look as if those students are being browbeaten or experiencing very strict discipline.
14
First we have to grant the dysfunction of all of our traditional educational systems, in which poverty, racism, and the very structure of 'schooling' itself are defeating our children. Next, we have to move away from the notion that all children are to be taught in the same way -- they are individuals, not just a big group with a single identity. Then, and this is the most radically important and frustrating step: a re-formation of education from the ground up, with each child and his/her unique learning put first -- and the abandonment of crazy ideas like common curriculum, standardized testing, and other fads. Learning is what children do best -- and that, unfortunately, is not always what our schools are currently doing well, especially with young boys of color.
4
"No student learns best under conditions that make him feel uncared for".
Students quickly discern which teachers are fair, which teachers set high standards for themselves and their students and it has nothing to do with color. If your student comes to you below grade level, can you quietly address those problems allowing the student to "save face" with his peers. A student who acts out usually has something going on in their life. In my experience as an inner city high school math teacher, students are looking for someone that can communicate that their success matters, that their absence is noted. This is a new school year. Students are looking with hope that you will have the ability to help them master the subject at hand. You do not have to be black, you simply have to care. And keep your standards high....they will meet them.
Students quickly discern which teachers are fair, which teachers set high standards for themselves and their students and it has nothing to do with color. If your student comes to you below grade level, can you quietly address those problems allowing the student to "save face" with his peers. A student who acts out usually has something going on in their life. In my experience as an inner city high school math teacher, students are looking for someone that can communicate that their success matters, that their absence is noted. This is a new school year. Students are looking with hope that you will have the ability to help them master the subject at hand. You do not have to be black, you simply have to care. And keep your standards high....they will meet them.
16
A black grandmother once told me that black actually did well during segregation . They had black doctors ," teachers", and so on. I wish I had her contact so I could discuss this farther with her. Of course she was not idolizing segregation but the ideas of black succeed by having black people like them as mentors .
I didn't know what to say then but after reading this article , I saw her point.
I didn't know what to say then but after reading this article , I saw her point.
8
My father went to college on the GI Bill after WWII, started teaching in 1951. He loved cars and would have preferred to work at one of the Big 3, but they didn't hire Blacks in professional positions then. So he taught school. He was a great teacher; it suited him but it wasn't his dream. Many years later, he told me that he thought my brother would make a good teacher, but that he didn't seem interested. He wasn't. Everybody we knew who graduated college, with a few exceptions, taught school. Just about all Blacks and frankly most women of any race who finished college prior to the 1970s, had no other real choice. When I started high school in the early 70s, I was told to go to college so I could be a teacher or a social worker. Nothing else was really deemed possible.
Of course, a lot has changed since then. After spending 20 years in another profession my brother became a college professor. He loves it. But he took a long road to get there. I didn't become either (I'm female) and to this day, cringe at the thought of teaching or social work (both necessary; neither good for me).
My dad was a great teacher who made a positive difference in the lives of many of his students, but it was by default. If he had a choice, he would have done something different. He didn't have a choice.
I know this is a bit off-topic, but it going to take more than the changes the author wants to get Black men (and lots of other groups) to choose teaching again.
Of course, a lot has changed since then. After spending 20 years in another profession my brother became a college professor. He loves it. But he took a long road to get there. I didn't become either (I'm female) and to this day, cringe at the thought of teaching or social work (both necessary; neither good for me).
My dad was a great teacher who made a positive difference in the lives of many of his students, but it was by default. If he had a choice, he would have done something different. He didn't have a choice.
I know this is a bit off-topic, but it going to take more than the changes the author wants to get Black men (and lots of other groups) to choose teaching again.
29
It would be laughable, if it weren't so tragic: When I started teaching as an idealistic twenty one year old almost sixty years ago (!!) I heard the same stuff about meeting the individual needs of the child. I soon learned that what was really wanted was order and conformity.
16
The article ends up blaming teachers and recruitment in the end, when it clearly is POVERTY, racism and trauma that impacts students lives and want/willingness to learn in a system that perpetuates racism and classism.
9
Based on many years of experience, but little hard evidence, it seems to me that young black males in the South have more stable lives than Northerners. They are more likely to have a relationship with their fathers, to be grounded by the church, to live in smaller communities where folks look out for each other, and to have conservative family values. Tough love isn't such a big deal for these kids because many have their own support systems. Ironically, these are the kids who end up in historically black colleges, so that Duncan chose to address black males who are among the least likely to see teaching as a mission to save young boys. When it comes to racial disparity in imprisonment, which I take as evidence of stable lives, the states with the least problem include Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. So the issues that gave rise to the notion of tough love are disproportionately a product of Northern slum lifer. So iIt's Northern blacks who are most likely to identify with the call to teaching.
1
Hey! What about all the Black female teachers who use tough love?
The operative word here is love, and not tough. Many good Black women teachers discipline misbehavior. When I had to get tough, more often than not I got a lot of apologies from kids for making me "go there."
On the other hand, I have seen men strut in wearing the suit and tie as Mr. Role Model, who were "done" by lunchtime. A few of them actually asked me how these little, old ladies did it, who weren't namby-pamby either, and they couldn't.
You have to like what you do and whom you teach. Those kids have to mean and they something to you. The author is correct here.
In the spirit of fairness, I have seen Black men who "had it", whatever "it" that was needed, to get one's knowledge from them to the kids.
The biggest hurdle I felt was from those in administration and school reform programs meant to deprive teachers of their autonomy and uniqueness. Love is not a standard or a formula, it happens when it happens. It takes that individual's personal magic to get under the skin of another, and we all do not feel or perceive things in the same way.
The operative word here is love, and not tough. Many good Black women teachers discipline misbehavior. When I had to get tough, more often than not I got a lot of apologies from kids for making me "go there."
On the other hand, I have seen men strut in wearing the suit and tie as Mr. Role Model, who were "done" by lunchtime. A few of them actually asked me how these little, old ladies did it, who weren't namby-pamby either, and they couldn't.
You have to like what you do and whom you teach. Those kids have to mean and they something to you. The author is correct here.
In the spirit of fairness, I have seen Black men who "had it", whatever "it" that was needed, to get one's knowledge from them to the kids.
The biggest hurdle I felt was from those in administration and school reform programs meant to deprive teachers of their autonomy and uniqueness. Love is not a standard or a formula, it happens when it happens. It takes that individual's personal magic to get under the skin of another, and we all do not feel or perceive things in the same way.
6
I'm an older white guy. I did teach for two years in a Catholic K-8 local parish school, which did not require Teacher's Certification at the time. I taught 7th end 8th grade Math and Science. First, it was one of the best experiences of my life; the kids were a joy, and ran the gamut from the children of working class White and African-American families through the numerous children of a very Catholic millionaire.
Almost the forst thing I learned in the classroom is that you can teach, or you can discipline -- but you cannot do both at once. I learned a few "coping" mechanisms to obviate the need to reconcile these two functions, but the most effective of these still took time away from teaching, but resulted in the class self-disciplining. I was lucky, I suspect that the teach--discipline dichotomy would have been much more difficult in a public school setting.
Oh, one more thing: Those two years were the hardest I ever worked for the least amount of money I ever made on an annualized basis. My respect for those for whom teaching (at any level) is their true calling knows no bounds. " ... beat on against the tide..."
Almost the forst thing I learned in the classroom is that you can teach, or you can discipline -- but you cannot do both at once. I learned a few "coping" mechanisms to obviate the need to reconcile these two functions, but the most effective of these still took time away from teaching, but resulted in the class self-disciplining. I was lucky, I suspect that the teach--discipline dichotomy would have been much more difficult in a public school setting.
Oh, one more thing: Those two years were the hardest I ever worked for the least amount of money I ever made on an annualized basis. My respect for those for whom teaching (at any level) is their true calling knows no bounds. " ... beat on against the tide..."
13
What were the coping mechanisms you employed?
3
"They should be prepared to teach to each student’s unique needs..."
Seriously Mr, Emndin?
Seriously Mr, Emndin?
20
This article is a whining complaint that puts all the blame on a "white educational system" and economic and social problems within the Black Community. Mr. Emdin is making an argument that the loss of Black male teachers in the class is the fault of the educational system and teacher training (of which he is a part). Apparently he is not training black male teachers correctly.
I think Black male teachers feel compelled to dispense "tough love" to black male students because they have very little patience and cannot tolerate adolescent behavior which these male teachers assume is a sign of disrespect not them as teachers but to the black men that they are.
As a white teacher, I seldom "threw" any student (White, Black, or Hispanic) out of class. I gained respect by showing respect.
Maybe instead of blaming the system, Mr. Emdin should look into the attitudes and biases that Black male teachers have as they enter the classroom.
I think Black male teachers feel compelled to dispense "tough love" to black male students because they have very little patience and cannot tolerate adolescent behavior which these male teachers assume is a sign of disrespect not them as teachers but to the black men that they are.
As a white teacher, I seldom "threw" any student (White, Black, or Hispanic) out of class. I gained respect by showing respect.
Maybe instead of blaming the system, Mr. Emdin should look into the attitudes and biases that Black male teachers have as they enter the classroom.
12
I worked in the poorest neighborhood of Ventura County California. I grew up living across the street from the school that I worked at from 2000-2014.
Many parents of my students had little or no education,yet they saw the value of their children's teachers maintaining a high expectation level. With the parents help this continued.
Sadly my service there ended when district policy changed and parents were not valued in the equation.
Many parents of my students had little or no education,yet they saw the value of their children's teachers maintaining a high expectation level. With the parents help this continued.
Sadly my service there ended when district policy changed and parents were not valued in the equation.
3
Article doesn't mention low teacher pay, a disincentive for going in for it. Teaching doesn't pay well. So why go in for it?
8
I use to teach at a junior college and prefer it to teaching high school. Why? Students in college are motivated to succeed while high school students are there merely to pass time. What I found is that the need to pay for their education will motivate students to do a better job of getting an education. Then too, there's a different sort of student to deal with nowadays.
3
Mr. Emdin, you speak of 'copping out' and then present:
"poverty...inequitable distribution...criminalization"
We should all know by now what every study has shown: Disproportionate black violence--and a myriad of lesser dysfunctional behaviors--and society's natural reaction to those, is not explained simply by poverty, which is as much a symptom as a cause of the damaged culture those of us who live in black neighborhoods see every day. There is no solution without recognizing this.
You use the above cop-out to describe the primary cause of your whole article: Hostile, aggressive behavior by poorly performing black students, and the desperate measures well-meaning schools take to respond to it.
Of course they need black teachers. These problems seem to be beyond the reach of white culture. Except that as you rightly suggest, they defeat black culture too. Nobody seems to know how to address a visibly severe lack of discipline with anything but the application of severe discipline--a widespread solution in black homes, as you must know. If "tough love" is not the right solution, then you need to do what you haven't so far, which is describe the right one--and describe it first to parents, not schools.
But to save you some trouble, we do know the answer. It's the War on Ghettoization: Sharing a neighborhood with the worst behaving members of your society will cause that behavior to rub off on you. Time to move, if you value your children's lives.
"poverty...inequitable distribution...criminalization"
We should all know by now what every study has shown: Disproportionate black violence--and a myriad of lesser dysfunctional behaviors--and society's natural reaction to those, is not explained simply by poverty, which is as much a symptom as a cause of the damaged culture those of us who live in black neighborhoods see every day. There is no solution without recognizing this.
You use the above cop-out to describe the primary cause of your whole article: Hostile, aggressive behavior by poorly performing black students, and the desperate measures well-meaning schools take to respond to it.
Of course they need black teachers. These problems seem to be beyond the reach of white culture. Except that as you rightly suggest, they defeat black culture too. Nobody seems to know how to address a visibly severe lack of discipline with anything but the application of severe discipline--a widespread solution in black homes, as you must know. If "tough love" is not the right solution, then you need to do what you haven't so far, which is describe the right one--and describe it first to parents, not schools.
But to save you some trouble, we do know the answer. It's the War on Ghettoization: Sharing a neighborhood with the worst behaving members of your society will cause that behavior to rub off on you. Time to move, if you value your children's lives.
19
I have been an educator for over 25 years and am the author of The Missing Link: Teaching and Learning Critical Success Skills.
I wrote this book in part because my experiences in schools showed me that school personnel have totally misunderstood the concept of Loco Parentis as a license to discipline, and to sometimes discipline harshly.
In fact what Loco Parentis offers educators is the opportunity and the responsibility to act in a parental way which ought to be not just disciplining kids but rather lovingly, and persistently, teaching and training kids to discpine themselves.
While this absolutely requires parents and educators to enforce consequences, it also involves second chances, third chances and even four thousand more chances. Our children need to feel at the end of the school day, or at the end of the actual day, that they are still decent human beings and there is hope for a better day tomorrow.
Black educators, whille educators, and educators and parents of all colors and ethnicities need to learrn this first before they can be effectively teach anything else.
I wrote this book in part because my experiences in schools showed me that school personnel have totally misunderstood the concept of Loco Parentis as a license to discipline, and to sometimes discipline harshly.
In fact what Loco Parentis offers educators is the opportunity and the responsibility to act in a parental way which ought to be not just disciplining kids but rather lovingly, and persistently, teaching and training kids to discpine themselves.
While this absolutely requires parents and educators to enforce consequences, it also involves second chances, third chances and even four thousand more chances. Our children need to feel at the end of the school day, or at the end of the actual day, that they are still decent human beings and there is hope for a better day tomorrow.
Black educators, whille educators, and educators and parents of all colors and ethnicities need to learrn this first before they can be effectively teach anything else.
6
Without question, public education is a machine driven more by unions than curricula and methodology, but, nevertheless, not sure about the thesis--better teacher training as silver bullet for "tough schools".
My father, the son of Italian immigrants, once told me that when he was in elementary school in Akron, Ohio, during the Depression, his classes often had as many as forty pupils and five languages going on at once with just one teacher, a female, to manage it all. Somehow, he and his friends made it through high school and many continued to college, as he did.
Poverty, especially in the immigrant ghettos, was far worse during that period, no question. So what's changed, the family structure, perhaps? Might want to start there rather than blasting teachers--white or black--for "inherent inability" or lack of training to deal with the students in "tough schools".
My father, the son of Italian immigrants, once told me that when he was in elementary school in Akron, Ohio, during the Depression, his classes often had as many as forty pupils and five languages going on at once with just one teacher, a female, to manage it all. Somehow, he and his friends made it through high school and many continued to college, as he did.
Poverty, especially in the immigrant ghettos, was far worse during that period, no question. So what's changed, the family structure, perhaps? Might want to start there rather than blasting teachers--white or black--for "inherent inability" or lack of training to deal with the students in "tough schools".
27
"These students are often struggling with the adverse effects of poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources across communities and the criminalization of black men inside and outside of schools."
The author sounds like a good Democrat. But the District of Columbia spends nearly $30,000 per year per student and 83% of students are not proficient in reading. https://www.google.com/#q=district+of+columbia+school+expense+per+student
The author sounds like a good Democrat. But the District of Columbia spends nearly $30,000 per year per student and 83% of students are not proficient in reading. https://www.google.com/#q=district+of+columbia+school+expense+per+student
23
The picture that accompanies this piece: students slouching against the wall, sitting on chair backs, slumping in their seats, and facing in at least three different directions, explains at least part of the under-performance in many schools.
Students who have no intention of gaining an education disrupt, distract, and put peer pressure on others to 'man up,' and not submit to authority. Students like that, whatever their race and socioeconomic standing, aren't going to learn anything in a regular school, so they should be moved to separate schools, where they can have more intensive and personalized instruction . . . or just be left to do their own thing if that's what they prefer.
The students remaining in the regular schools, no longer distracted or pressured to constantly demonstrate their testosteronic prepotency, would stand a far better chance of profiting from their school years.
Students who have no intention of gaining an education disrupt, distract, and put peer pressure on others to 'man up,' and not submit to authority. Students like that, whatever their race and socioeconomic standing, aren't going to learn anything in a regular school, so they should be moved to separate schools, where they can have more intensive and personalized instruction . . . or just be left to do their own thing if that's what they prefer.
The students remaining in the regular schools, no longer distracted or pressured to constantly demonstrate their testosteronic prepotency, would stand a far better chance of profiting from their school years.
23
I've now read hundreds of comments and they were very instructive.
I feel like teachers are getting a bum rap and that schools are being used as political patsies, scapegoated for failing socioeconomic policies.
Administrators appear to be complicit, however.
Race is irrelevant to what I'm going to say here, by the way.
Students who fail to meet certain basic social standards need to be ejected from classrooms, not coddled and enabled. Teachers need to be able to get disruptive students out of their classrooms. Period.
The above is just basic psychology. Without such discipline, nothing will work.
High schools should not be graduating illiterate and innumerate students.
People who fail to learn should get failing grades. If they fail repeatedly, they need to be expelled.
Watering down down material to make it easy enough that all can pass is unethical. It hurts everyone. It destroys the value of merit in the society.
What happens after kids fail is another discussion, one that needs to take place. However, the kid who will not sit down, shut up and get to work needs to be gone from the classroom before said discussion can begin.
Just my additional two cents...
I feel like teachers are getting a bum rap and that schools are being used as political patsies, scapegoated for failing socioeconomic policies.
Administrators appear to be complicit, however.
Race is irrelevant to what I'm going to say here, by the way.
Students who fail to meet certain basic social standards need to be ejected from classrooms, not coddled and enabled. Teachers need to be able to get disruptive students out of their classrooms. Period.
The above is just basic psychology. Without such discipline, nothing will work.
High schools should not be graduating illiterate and innumerate students.
People who fail to learn should get failing grades. If they fail repeatedly, they need to be expelled.
Watering down down material to make it easy enough that all can pass is unethical. It hurts everyone. It destroys the value of merit in the society.
What happens after kids fail is another discussion, one that needs to take place. However, the kid who will not sit down, shut up and get to work needs to be gone from the classroom before said discussion can begin.
Just my additional two cents...
31
Young people learn their inter-personal and self-management skills at home through the direct example of their parents and not at school from teachers. That's the real deal, so deal with it.
Here we see the blame game in full swing again: this time, black male teachers are failing their black male students. But a boy who comes from a dysfunctional home barely has a chance of succeeding in college much less any aspect of life. And the true issue is not "poverty" of income, but poverty of attitude.
Any educational proposal that gives parents (or the single parent, alas) a free pass in this process of raising young people is evading the most critical factor in personal development. Until parents are put front and center into the educational process from Day One, with their responsibilities clearly outlined in relation to school (starting at first grade), any discussion about education is not in the least serious or dealing with reality.
This applies as much to white boys from dysfunctional homes in Appalachia as as it does to black boys in the ghetto, so let's get off of the race factor as the all-purpose punching bag.
Here we see the blame game in full swing again: this time, black male teachers are failing their black male students. But a boy who comes from a dysfunctional home barely has a chance of succeeding in college much less any aspect of life. And the true issue is not "poverty" of income, but poverty of attitude.
Any educational proposal that gives parents (or the single parent, alas) a free pass in this process of raising young people is evading the most critical factor in personal development. Until parents are put front and center into the educational process from Day One, with their responsibilities clearly outlined in relation to school (starting at first grade), any discussion about education is not in the least serious or dealing with reality.
This applies as much to white boys from dysfunctional homes in Appalachia as as it does to black boys in the ghetto, so let's get off of the race factor as the all-purpose punching bag.
60
Well said.
8
Have you seen the Verizon television commercial featuring LeBron James? The one with the black high school student who is not interested in doing any school work. Why? Because the student is more interested in watching his smartphone videos of LeBron James dunking a basketball. Is this commercial confirming a stereotype or a social reallity??? I am disappointed that LeBron James did not have the social awareness to refuse to do this commercial. Verizon commercials must pay well. The black male teachers don't have a shot.
20
Black students are "robbed of the opportunity to learn" by failing to follow the rules? That's not going to happen in the real world. right?
34
No chance that black boys misbehave and impede others' learning more often than whites?
43
This is so much nonsense. You should ask the question of all teachers if we should have black teachers for blacks and white teachers for whites?
11
I’m curious, what do the kids say they need to learn, advance and graduate? Has anyone ever asked them?
6
Are these teachers not fathers or get tough advise and love from their fathers? ? Herein lies one root of the problem right there. Take the pacifier out.
3
Why school at all?
Put kids in a sterile room, force them to stay at their desks, and have them focus on one person, whose major job is class room management, a job that few apparently know anything about when they start out. Doesn't sound like a optimal learning environment to me.
Kids learn by watching and doing, not by being told the one right way to do a thing.
We started putting kids in schools when we didn't need them around to help out (and automatically learn, which is their natural predisposition) with the tasks that adults had to carry out. Got to be back on the farm for the summer and fall growing and harvest season.
Perhaps we should start by realizing what learning is all about:
https://smile.amazon.com/Gardener-Carpenter-Development-Relationship-Chi...
Put kids in a sterile room, force them to stay at their desks, and have them focus on one person, whose major job is class room management, a job that few apparently know anything about when they start out. Doesn't sound like a optimal learning environment to me.
Kids learn by watching and doing, not by being told the one right way to do a thing.
We started putting kids in schools when we didn't need them around to help out (and automatically learn, which is their natural predisposition) with the tasks that adults had to carry out. Got to be back on the farm for the summer and fall growing and harvest season.
Perhaps we should start by realizing what learning is all about:
https://smile.amazon.com/Gardener-Carpenter-Development-Relationship-Chi...
2
Getting children to learn is more about parents than teachers.
16
Reality--black teachers give appropriate discipline whereas white teachers fear doing so because of accusations would of racism. In my kid's fourth grade class, one black girl was disruptive for weeks until a black sub told her to get out of the room.
34
Children's long term memories start at around age four. Therefore, a 12 year old black student today has ONLY seen a black first family, the penultimate role model.Based on the false over importance of that variable, all black kids should aspire to the presidency. Let's acknowledge the complexity of the issue. Let's not act as if we can solve the stratification of the classes with unidimentional solutions, that no industrialized society has ever been able to eradicate.
2
Teachers are not their students parents. They were not there during those critical years of nurturing every child requires before they enter a classroom. It is unfair and unreasonable to hold them responsible for years of neglect and in some cases inappropriate and harmful discipline.
The good teachers I worked with in an inner city high school in Washington knew how to control a classroom, and were fair and considerate in the way they did. Yet they all regretted the cost in time and academic teaching they had to spend in managing behavior.
Teachers, black or white, male or female, cannot compensate for years of deprivation many young children experience in a society that has neglected its responsibilities to care for every child.
Universal, accessible, professional day care and preschool is desperately needed.
The good teachers I worked with in an inner city high school in Washington knew how to control a classroom, and were fair and considerate in the way they did. Yet they all regretted the cost in time and academic teaching they had to spend in managing behavior.
Teachers, black or white, male or female, cannot compensate for years of deprivation many young children experience in a society that has neglected its responsibilities to care for every child.
Universal, accessible, professional day care and preschool is desperately needed.
20
Is the answer: "Low pay & long hours?"
Or maybe the answer is in that teaching is not considered a macho image in the black community?
Or maybe the answer is in that teaching is not considered a macho image in the black community?
9
Jimmy: tell us a community in which teaching has a macho image?
4
Sure, why hire teachers who are knowledgeable and who can teach, when you can simply blame "society" for kids failure to learn?
10
Until theses children are loved and cared for in their FAMILIES, and I mean early in childhood, nothing will be of much help at schools. Especially when the parents are blaming others for their failures.
31
I am just curious if the good professor has spent any time teaching in inner[city schools?
The photo of the Baltimore classroom says it all.
The photo of the Baltimore classroom says it all.
17
Booker T Washington is rolling in his grave.
9
I wish this writer would describe and enumerate the effective ways to teach black male students.
20
Here you go----and I am a retired white female teacher:
1) Instill a culture of cooperation by letting students work in groups with their friends--min 2, max 4 in each group.
2) Use "my turn" "your turn" cues for listening to the teacher's instruction, then speaking with each other for cooperative learning.
3) Show utmost respect by keeping a calm, professional demeanor during back-talk (if any) or disruptions (if any.)
4) Use the vernacular when introducing unfamiliar vocabulary, then drill the students on the vocabulary by having them repeat the words aloud. This works especially well in mathematics and science; i.e., "Ya butt hole is called the anus, gentlemen. Let's say it all together until we can stop laughing, OK?" "Human excrement is eliminated through the anus."
5) Every question is legitimate, and answer it in a straightforward manner, even if you suspect it's a trick from a prankster. Then laugh about satisfying his curiosity--"Betcha didn't expect that, didja?"
6) Teach the kids, not the subject. If the student senses that you're there for them, they will find the subject useful for life. I told my special ed class (did this for two years), "You have to learn to read because you need to be able to read until you're 99 years old." You should have seen their eyes pop out of their heads......many urban kids who live in a culture of violence and death have no sense of what the good life beyond age 18 is.
1) Instill a culture of cooperation by letting students work in groups with their friends--min 2, max 4 in each group.
2) Use "my turn" "your turn" cues for listening to the teacher's instruction, then speaking with each other for cooperative learning.
3) Show utmost respect by keeping a calm, professional demeanor during back-talk (if any) or disruptions (if any.)
4) Use the vernacular when introducing unfamiliar vocabulary, then drill the students on the vocabulary by having them repeat the words aloud. This works especially well in mathematics and science; i.e., "Ya butt hole is called the anus, gentlemen. Let's say it all together until we can stop laughing, OK?" "Human excrement is eliminated through the anus."
5) Every question is legitimate, and answer it in a straightforward manner, even if you suspect it's a trick from a prankster. Then laugh about satisfying his curiosity--"Betcha didn't expect that, didja?"
6) Teach the kids, not the subject. If the student senses that you're there for them, they will find the subject useful for life. I told my special ed class (did this for two years), "You have to learn to read because you need to be able to read until you're 99 years old." You should have seen their eyes pop out of their heads......many urban kids who live in a culture of violence and death have no sense of what the good life beyond age 18 is.
7
Pop culture loves the "cop" teacher -black or white.
To have effective black male teachers , the black male student must see a purpose in school. Look at the Vo-Tech schools in New Castle Co,Delaware. The programs train for real jobs or tech schools or college, a reason for attendence of black teacher and black student.
To have effective black male teachers , the black male student must see a purpose in school. Look at the Vo-Tech schools in New Castle Co,Delaware. The programs train for real jobs or tech schools or college, a reason for attendence of black teacher and black student.
8
What claptrap! Heartfelt, no doubt, but entirely anecdotal.
As a call to action at the federal, state, or even local level, this opinion piece is completely ineffective.
Certainly The Times knows better. Makes one wonder what the real reason was for publishing this.
As a call to action at the federal, state, or even local level, this opinion piece is completely ineffective.
Certainly The Times knows better. Makes one wonder what the real reason was for publishing this.
29
The author lists external problems facing young black males but ignores the fact that most grow up without fathers. He wants to blame society for failing these young men. But their mothers bear blame for bringing them into the world without the resources to raise them. By the time the schools get to them the die is already cast.
39
Years ago, I interviewed African-American mothers in Camden, NJ, who had engaged in local politics to save their sons, and other mothers' sons, from being wounded or killed by bullets ... bullets shot by local men, also black. These women spoke about trying to save the boys from a kind of maelstrom that convinced the teenagers they had no future and might as well live high, "on the edge," while they had time. A local surgeon told me that many of the young men he'd met (and repaired) didn't expect to survive much past their twenties.
This is the other great current that (I suspect) makes it difficult for many young black men to buckle down in school. They justifiably don't believe school will profit them, or lead them to a good life and career, they don't invest much hope in education, and those who live in urban neighborhoods are threatened and coerced and tempted by a network of gangs engaged in drug deals.
How to fix that ... if "that" is still a key problem (apparently it is ... see Chicago), I don't know.
This is the other great current that (I suspect) makes it difficult for many young black men to buckle down in school. They justifiably don't believe school will profit them, or lead them to a good life and career, they don't invest much hope in education, and those who live in urban neighborhoods are threatened and coerced and tempted by a network of gangs engaged in drug deals.
How to fix that ... if "that" is still a key problem (apparently it is ... see Chicago), I don't know.
12
Why should anyone expect a teacher to literally raise the children they teach? That is the job of the parent. The job of a teacher is to teach. The teacher is with his or her students for one school year -- and then the students move on. It is unrealistic to expect a teacher to do the job of a parent -- the teacher simply cannot do this without compromising his duty to the other students in the classroom. What is the problem with demanding that the parent do THEIR job for a change? Just look at how successful Chinese immigrant students are -- and these people have come from extreme poverty.
50
All good teachers do the following, whether black, white or brown, male or female, gay straight: "This tax is paid in the extra disciplinary and relationship-building work that black teachers do beyond teaching. "
4
As usual its the teachers fault, its the systems fault. As David Brooks said "an addition to victimhood".
Will no one ever discuss back families? How many kids are born with no father around? Dysfunctional environments at home with the lack of role models and kids don't have a chance.
Its like I want to eat what I want, smoke, drink, never exercise...fix me doc! its all on you. Always someone else fault. Politicians won't put it back on voters to step up, just blame the professionals for your kids failings.
Will no one ever discuss back families? How many kids are born with no father around? Dysfunctional environments at home with the lack of role models and kids don't have a chance.
Its like I want to eat what I want, smoke, drink, never exercise...fix me doc! its all on you. Always someone else fault. Politicians won't put it back on voters to step up, just blame the professionals for your kids failings.
37
Am totally buing your book as I ised to teach in the 'hood. Sometimes had boisterous classes and would feel embarrassed when a young black male teacher would come into yell at them even though it was to try to respect me, because it meant I wasn't keeping order or being as tough as I should.
My mother thought I could've used more teacher training. Most of my training was programmatic. I was good at that and had believed it was enough. But one does need an orderly class. I was too young to get, "Kids want boundaries." We learned though and had lots of fun!
Just want to add in this case that my issue was in "trying to be the students' friend." There's a good book, "You're the Teacher" on owning the role
but am eager now to read yours!
My mother thought I could've used more teacher training. Most of my training was programmatic. I was good at that and had believed it was enough. But one does need an orderly class. I was too young to get, "Kids want boundaries." We learned though and had lots of fun!
Just want to add in this case that my issue was in "trying to be the students' friend." There's a good book, "You're the Teacher" on owning the role
but am eager now to read yours!
6
A major point that's not mentioned in the article is that in many Black communities being a male and a teacher is seen as being soft - not a masculine profession such as sports or more hard labor jobs - and are not respected and promoted. I've literally been told that being a teacher is gay. Imagine telling your boys (grown men you grew up with) that you're a 3rd grade teacher. Unfortunately, it's not a good look to their peers and definitely not to a lot of women. But being a coach or principal - now that's more masculine, therefore, more excepting. This factor plays a huge role in the lack of black teachers and the attitudes they have. The writer must not be black because this factor plays a huge role in the lack of the black male teachers. After all, being smart is still not seen as being a cool or masculine thing by many black males. It's seen as gay. For the writer to overlook this aspect is well.......
37
Which really just sounds like another excuse. One's race being successful should override presumptions of masculinity when it comes to teaching. I'm not sure we are ready to give black WOMEN such leeway when they have success issues.
3
so black male teachers can be ineffective and white middle class teachers can be ineffective. If, as suggested, the entire educational structure is biased against black males, then isn't it preferable to have some black males represented in that structure? Unless the writer is suggesting that a greater proportion of black males are ineffective teachers, which perhaps he is, I'm really not sure, given how poorly thought out and inconclusive this piece is.
35
Perhaps the mostly absurdly detached article to be published by the New York Times. No sir, you would be wrong. These kids need more rules and need to have far more stringent consequences to their behavior. Since you have no idea what you're talking about (thanks NYTimes for this), I'll give you a 2nd hand experience. A sibling is a teacher in a mostly Black school and on some days she says its worse than the Bronx zoo. Kids without any guidance or self respect. It's is quit literally absolutely bedlam. What a sad state of affairs that these are the stories we read these days in the Times.
32
But when Trump says the black community is in trouble, he is dissed by the very readers of the NY Times. So which will it be? Or is it just not ok if it comes out of the mouth of Trump?
15
The "criminalization of black men." In other words, someone else makes them into criminals? I don't think it's that one dimensional.
25
We just need more maie teachers in all levels of public schools=at least, male teachers who are good at connecting with kids of all colors and genders. Kids need all kinds of role models in a school, and if there are enough teachers, they'll usually find one with whom they can connect.
3
This article places the entire burden of the failure of black men on poor teachers and poor teacher training. Complete rubbish. The author is afraid to explore the extent of the role of self-imposed cultural impediments and bad/absentee parenting. Any "study" that ignores those factors and doesn't even admit their possibility is a priori incomplete, possibly even dishonest.
22
I suspect something else is also at work here... Rather than an "invisible tax" I would like to know what the opportunity cost of teaching for black men is. Talented qualified black men may demand a premium in the marketplace and oftentimes I bet that teacher pay just does not cut it.
5
How refreshing to read an essay by a genuine education professional; and, oh yes, very nuanced, like teaching.
1
Of all the obstacles that kids of color, and particularly African-American kids face, the most pernicious is that they do not see a way forward to a decent life by playing by the same rules as the other kids in their class.
I don't think African-American teachers needs to go above and beyond to save their students. Just by presenting themselves as a person who worked their way thru school and is now making a decent living, they are showing one way to move forward. That will turn to gold in the minds of some students who like school and can see themselves having that job someday.
I don't think African-American teachers needs to go above and beyond to save their students. Just by presenting themselves as a person who worked their way thru school and is now making a decent living, they are showing one way to move forward. That will turn to gold in the minds of some students who like school and can see themselves having that job someday.
5
The article states that black males are not succeeding because of poverty, lack of resources, and their criminalization. But the author completely ignores the effects of a culture that does not value education, is against learning,....is against being thought of as of white. The author demands nothing of the students.....instead, it must be that the teachers are not sufficiently trained.
A more holistic approach recognizes that only a subset of such students can be reached by any teacher. Remember, they are teachers, not magicians.
A more holistic approach recognizes that only a subset of such students can be reached by any teacher. Remember, they are teachers, not magicians.
22
Perhaps black male teachers need a "critical mass" within a given school in order to be both effective and to have a "team solution" for both the student and themselves. It is helpful to be able to compare notes, commiserate and "gang tackle" kids that need extra attention when you have a team pulling in the same direction.
Good luck and good speed to all the teachers out there.
Good luck and good speed to all the teachers out there.
5
I'm sorry, but at the end of the day, with only 2% of the nation's teachers being African American men, we DO need more of them. So many of our public schools have African American children that they NEED to look up to someone who looks like them. That should be African Americans, particularly African American MEN. That's because teaching is a heavily gendered profession, with the vast majority of teachers being white women. These heroic women, however, increasingly teach minority children, particularly Black children, and we need to increase the diversity of the teaching profession as a result. That Black male teacher is a college graduate, and he can be a real impetus for more Black young men going to college and emerging with a degree. So, of course this won't solve every problem, but it's definitely a start.
6
These children don't need black male teachers. They need two parents in their homes.
32
Exactly. Two GOOD parents at home. As a black woman, I get tired of seeing such a strange dynamic of black women getting up everyday to go to work and the men...basically just get up to go sit down in the streets. I don't understand how the women are expected to work, provide AND raise the kids but the men are expected to do nothing,be nothing and aspire to nothing ...yet still aren't blamed for their own inactions. As a black woman, no one lets me blame white supremacy for whatever I may fail at, so I don't get how with black men...it's always someone else's fault.
As if Asian or Latino men could do the same. Not as much. Which tells me that Asian and Latina WOMEN are appreciated. Where as black WOMEN are not. No one finds it odd that the black race has no really effectual men because they don't think the women deserve in in the first place.
As if Asian or Latino men could do the same. Not as much. Which tells me that Asian and Latina WOMEN are appreciated. Where as black WOMEN are not. No one finds it odd that the black race has no really effectual men because they don't think the women deserve in in the first place.
13
"The new crop of black male teachers being herded into schools this fall as saviors of the same black children that schools have failed..."
Who exactly are the "schools?" This is the core of the problem - let's blame the system, the institution, etc. That narrative and path leads absolutely nowhere. A school is the sum of the people that make it up, as is the system. If black male teachers are not the hero's, then no one will be. Despite the qualifier that "this is not a call for white teachers" and not a call for black male teachers, then what is it? Surrender? Please, directly, unambiguously, state exactly what is needed - then let's get to work. And blaming an anonymous school or system, is not a plan or even an attack, it's nothing. Obviously, we don't need nothing.
Who exactly are the "schools?" This is the core of the problem - let's blame the system, the institution, etc. That narrative and path leads absolutely nowhere. A school is the sum of the people that make it up, as is the system. If black male teachers are not the hero's, then no one will be. Despite the qualifier that "this is not a call for white teachers" and not a call for black male teachers, then what is it? Surrender? Please, directly, unambiguously, state exactly what is needed - then let's get to work. And blaming an anonymous school or system, is not a plan or even an attack, it's nothing. Obviously, we don't need nothing.
5
This is a thought provoking op ed. Question....why are many ‘rough schools’ in minority areas? Aren’t there white ‘rough schools’? Why not? Like why are there so many drug arrests of racial minorities when whites use them as much or more?
Whether it’s a black teacher or the 1st Black President, positive role models are great. But not enough. Motive, means, opportunity needed.
The US has to change our economy and politics to get secure, well paying jobs back into our towns and cities. After years of job offshoring, anti govt politics and budget cutting, we need enough tax revenue to pay for education and vocational training.
Unions are almost gone, apprenticeships way down, college means big debt. Where is the path that young people see? How can ‘tough love’ make up for negative trends that pull the rug out from under?
And peer role models are just as important as teachers. Older peers make up a culture that boys identify with, and look up to—leading to either shrinking or expanded horizons. If kids see concrete evidence of good jobs, they’ll be incentivized for school and training.
If young people don't see their peers able to earn a decent living, or their families with job security, they won't be inspired to look ahead into the future---to see beyond immediate needs, to plan and have a goal. Perceived means and opportunity leads to fewer ‘behavior problems’ and more social stability, as happens with any racial or ethnic group in society.
Whether it’s a black teacher or the 1st Black President, positive role models are great. But not enough. Motive, means, opportunity needed.
The US has to change our economy and politics to get secure, well paying jobs back into our towns and cities. After years of job offshoring, anti govt politics and budget cutting, we need enough tax revenue to pay for education and vocational training.
Unions are almost gone, apprenticeships way down, college means big debt. Where is the path that young people see? How can ‘tough love’ make up for negative trends that pull the rug out from under?
And peer role models are just as important as teachers. Older peers make up a culture that boys identify with, and look up to—leading to either shrinking or expanded horizons. If kids see concrete evidence of good jobs, they’ll be incentivized for school and training.
If young people don't see their peers able to earn a decent living, or their families with job security, they won't be inspired to look ahead into the future---to see beyond immediate needs, to plan and have a goal. Perceived means and opportunity leads to fewer ‘behavior problems’ and more social stability, as happens with any racial or ethnic group in society.
4
There are white rough schools. They just don't get discussed. When a white man fails, it's his fault he didn't use all the privilege. It doesn't matter that his parents neglected or abused him. His white privilege can overcome anything.
17
My mother, who was an ed-psych professor, always said that if you wanted to know how a student was doing in school – look at the parents. In case you haven't noticed, the “solutions” offered up here are just variations of themes that have been tried for decades and failed – failed abysmally. Perhaps one fine day we’ll wake up and realize that if students don't arrive on the first day of school properly “prepared”, no amount of teacher-shuffling or race-mixing or self-esteem raising or new-age/all-the-rage teaching method can succeed. And that preparation must be done primarily by mom and dad – “dad” being a key word.
24
The number of angry, self-righteous commenters is astonishing. Many commenters repeat points that the article itself has made. Have these angry people actually read the article? The author is calling for improved recruitment, preparation and retention across the board. Are the commenters then calling for laxer recruitment and less preparation?
3
DA "Are the commenters then calling for laxer recruitment and less preparation?"
No, but I am saying that "improved recruitment, preparation and retention" will only have small effects if the students coming into class are not motivated to learn in the first place. The responsibility for that motivation is on the parents, and if you are really concerned about Black children you will focus on means to improve parenting, which is at least 85% of the problem. I will challenge you and others to name a program that has substantially improved the performance of Black students over Age 8 (I will agree that Headstart has has had some positive effects) from dysfunctional families. Pretty much spending money on programs aimed at unmotivated students (who are the responsibility of their parents) is a feel good "solution" that provides virtually no real world benefits unless the underlying motivation of the students is changed.
JD
No, but I am saying that "improved recruitment, preparation and retention" will only have small effects if the students coming into class are not motivated to learn in the first place. The responsibility for that motivation is on the parents, and if you are really concerned about Black children you will focus on means to improve parenting, which is at least 85% of the problem. I will challenge you and others to name a program that has substantially improved the performance of Black students over Age 8 (I will agree that Headstart has has had some positive effects) from dysfunctional families. Pretty much spending money on programs aimed at unmotivated students (who are the responsibility of their parents) is a feel good "solution" that provides virtually no real world benefits unless the underlying motivation of the students is changed.
JD
11
Does anyone else remember the lead character of the old (early 70s?) TV show called "Room 222"? He was an inspiring and dedicated young black male teacher, teaching a diverse group of students. Watching that lovely show when I was a (white, lower-middle class) kid, I felt confident that negative racial attitudes would quickly become a thing of the past.
Ha.
It's 2016, and we live in a world where, e.g., black comedian Leslie Jones is targeted constantly online in the ugliest possible way; Michelle Obama is regularly referred to as "Sasquatch" on conservative comment boards; and a majority of Republicans believe that our first black president was born in Kenya.
To me, it's profoundly dispiriting. If I were black, it would probably be profoundly enraging.
Ha.
It's 2016, and we live in a world where, e.g., black comedian Leslie Jones is targeted constantly online in the ugliest possible way; Michelle Obama is regularly referred to as "Sasquatch" on conservative comment boards; and a majority of Republicans believe that our first black president was born in Kenya.
To me, it's profoundly dispiriting. If I were black, it would probably be profoundly enraging.
14
Articles that declare why large groups of people of a certain race act as they tend to make gross over-generalizations. This article is no exception.
10
Learning needs to be respected by the students as a process of self improvement - yes teachers must subscribe to that too - most too but many students do not - it is not the color of any one.
5
Investigate what was done in Durham S.C.. Limit schools to 30% or fewer pupils on free lunch (the only method of quickly calculating poverty) so that peers with aspirations are the majority of the student body.
A fellow teacher trainee told me that if his school hadn't been knocked down so that he was forced to a more working class with aspirations school, he would never have gone to university.
A fellow teacher trainee told me that if his school hadn't been knocked down so that he was forced to a more working class with aspirations school, he would never have gone to university.
1
Teachers are not miracle makers. Good teaching is no substitute for good parenting. Teachers can do only so much if the home is not an environment where a child can thrive. We need "whole family" schools. Regardless of the teacher's or student's race, most of the responsibility over educating that child is still on the parents and their family after all.
There is only so much the teacher can do for a few hours a day for a few months over a year when the kid goes home to a dysfunctional community and family environment. Educate the child while also educating the parents and the community. As a teacher, when you have only one family out of 30 showing up for back to school night or PT conferences, you know.
There is only so much the teacher can do for a few hours a day for a few months over a year when the kid goes home to a dysfunctional community and family environment. Educate the child while also educating the parents and the community. As a teacher, when you have only one family out of 30 showing up for back to school night or PT conferences, you know.
14
There are many people working to fix the problem. I'm a community college developmental education teacher. Our attrition rate for our African American male students is quite high. We have multiple supports in place to help our students succeed . But I still deal with certain students being disruptive and constantly trying to incite chaos. Sometimes I'm just so sad and at a loss how to handle this, because it's affecting the class climate, and the ability of others to learn.
7
Sorry, but this is the most convoluted, weak piece of opinion writing about education I've ever seen in the NYT. I've been teaching in an urban high school for over 30 years and can tell you from experience that what the author writes is simply poppycock. I've seen no pressure whatsoever placed on black teachers to be extra tough on black students, teachers are extremely aware of the high rates of suspension and expulsion that occurs with black students and it is not that black students are targeted more. We put up with a lot more misbehavior and unacceptable behavior mainly from students of color who are poor. Middle class black kids behave appropriately and are not problematic. It is precisely the students who have no male role model at home who are typically the worst behaved and at least in my experience, it's not been black boys, but girls who tend to act very aggressively, and disrespectfully towards teachers and other students. Again, teachers are hyper aware and sensitive to claims that black students are treated differently, but just as with crime statistics, black impoverished students are guilty of disrupting the educational environment with greater frequency and must be dealt with in order for other students to be able to learn. That Mr. Emdin cannot handle the role of disciplinarian is understandable, but to blame it on whatever other tripe he's trying to blame it on is ludicrous.
39
One thing that I believe would help is for our society to realize that being a good teacher is an extremely difficult thing to do. Heck, even being a mediocre teacher is hard work. If you don't have a lot of warmth and respect inside for kids, it can make you toxic in the classroom. I think a lot of people believe that just about anyone could walk into a school and be an adequate teacher. That is just so wrong it is laughable.
10
Great topic to talk about I enjoy it .
There is a lot of ... blah blah blah in this piece by Mr. Emdin. When a black male teacher exclaims "“I can’t look those black boys in the face and make them feel like I felt in school anymore. I have to quit” Mr. Emdin does not explain what the teacher is voicing. To me it sounds like frustration - being asked to teach students who, unlike the black teacher, are just not interested in learning.
Instead Mr. Emdin posits an accusation at the quitting teachers: "They should be prepared to teach to each student’s unique needs, and to recognize that no student learns best under conditions that make him feel uncared for." Really? Is this a logical argument? Were you taught to your "unique" needs? Laughable. That's why I call this a blah blah blah column. Nothing meaningful here. Just more liberal based hooey.
Instead Mr. Emdin posits an accusation at the quitting teachers: "They should be prepared to teach to each student’s unique needs, and to recognize that no student learns best under conditions that make him feel uncared for." Really? Is this a logical argument? Were you taught to your "unique" needs? Laughable. That's why I call this a blah blah blah column. Nothing meaningful here. Just more liberal based hooey.
12
This is so on point. The problem is that ed policy makers are always looking for a solution that won't cost money, and that won't threaten the current social hierarchy.
1
Systemic issues require Systemic fixes. There is no silver bullet to creating true equality in America. we need to look at this problem with a nuanced perspective on the multitude of reasons why blacks are struggling in America. Racism is part of the picture. However, the entire picture is bigger than just racism from whites against blacks.
That's the problem with Today's America....no one can seem to attack the problems wholisticly.
That's the problem with Today's America....no one can seem to attack the problems wholisticly.
2
Alas, most of the educational game is over - or at least prefigured - in the first 2 or 3 years of childhood, in terms of rearing young minds to be open to classroom learning. Generally, middle and high schools cannot hope to connect meaningfully with most youngsters from broken or impoverished homes. Economics matters. We need earlier interventions.
3
The writer indicts society, but disorderly classrooms waste precious dollars intended for twelve years of education. True, black or white troublemakers reflect poverty, family chaos, and racism, but cannot be tolerated during the time allotted to learning. Rather than singling out black males, teachers more often back off confrontation precisely because of accusations such as in this column.
9
We know which students are college bound by 4th grade. And then we do nothing about it to improve or change the path they seem to be on, or even to discuss that path with the student and their family.
There are no paths in US schools. We don't coach or prepare our students for life "after"
There should be college, trade or the military. We don't do that but we should
There are no paths in US schools. We don't coach or prepare our students for life "after"
There should be college, trade or the military. We don't do that but we should
4
JDavid Shapiro “The argument may be well intentioned, but it is a cop-out.
“It is a call for a more thoughtful approach to teacher recruitment and retention, and a renewed focus on teacher preparation. The argument may be well intentioned, but it is a cop-out.”
Emdin could not have said it better. He follows the footsteps of Ron Edmonds, (1935-1983), who famously wrote: (a) We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us; (b) We already know more than we need to do that; and (c) Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”
“It is a call for a more thoughtful approach to teacher recruitment and retention, and a renewed focus on teacher preparation. The argument may be well intentioned, but it is a cop-out.”
Emdin could not have said it better. He follows the footsteps of Ron Edmonds, (1935-1983), who famously wrote: (a) We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us; (b) We already know more than we need to do that; and (c) Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”
1
"...hurtful practices such as not giving black students the second chances that others receive…suspending students for breaking minor rules that others are not punished for, or yelling at students for being playful or asking too many questions."
When and where is this happening? How can one make such powerful charges of blatant, ugly discrimination without providing a single instance? The majority of African-American students in this country attend majority, often overwhelmingly, African-American schools, which have African-American administrators as well as teachers. If they’re treating their students differently than other schools do, is this due to “bias”?
The author’s “solution,” that teachers examine their biases, has little to do with his defined problem, that students are struggling with the dire impact of poverty.
We need more psychologists and social workers in the schools; we need holistic approaches in which schools work closely with students’ families. We need more equitable education funding. What we don’t need are inflammatory charges of racism, which impede and obscure useful examination of best practices and ideas that might generate real change.
When and where is this happening? How can one make such powerful charges of blatant, ugly discrimination without providing a single instance? The majority of African-American students in this country attend majority, often overwhelmingly, African-American schools, which have African-American administrators as well as teachers. If they’re treating their students differently than other schools do, is this due to “bias”?
The author’s “solution,” that teachers examine their biases, has little to do with his defined problem, that students are struggling with the dire impact of poverty.
We need more psychologists and social workers in the schools; we need holistic approaches in which schools work closely with students’ families. We need more equitable education funding. What we don’t need are inflammatory charges of racism, which impede and obscure useful examination of best practices and ideas that might generate real change.
14
In my mostly black neighborhood on Detroit's west side, it is true that black men aren't school teachers, but it has little to do with what the author posits are their victimization and unwarranted criminalization by the hateful white society around them. They don't become school teachers for the same reason they don't become scientists or doctors or novelists: A) it's not cool to be educated in the black community and B) it takes too long for the payoff. I've lived here for twelve years, and although I routinely sit out on my porch on a lovely afternoon reading books or magazines, I've never seen my neighbors do that. Oh they come out to sit, but they just stare into their cell phones or chat amongst themselves. As a local landlord here, I clean out apartments for departing tenants, and of all the tons of stuff left behind, it is rare to ever find a book. Secondly, and perhaps most important, the lottery line here is viewed as a better bet in terms of a good payday then any investment of time and money in education. Just try to get a ticket on a big payout day! it's tough. But that's why drug dealing is still popular here; it's why the latest scheme in this area is opening medical marijuana shops because they are viewed as quasi-legal and imbued with large chances for a quick payday. Devoting time and money toward a degree in education or a teaching certificate is not viewed by black men as worth it.
12
The this article is spot on. Those who argue people can succeed only when taught or mentored by those like them (race, gender) are essentially arguing against diversity and affirmative action.
As an example of applying this theory in an un-PC way, how can a white male have a black female teacher, leader, or boss then? It's absurd.
I suspect people who advocate for these policies do so because the macro issues of poverty and culture are intractable. As we've also seen in NJ, money also doesn't solve the problems at home.
The Asbury Park NJ school district spends $33k per student per year. This is nearly double the state average and yet their school performance is in the bottom 20%. It doesn't matter what you do in school if the kids are not able to learn or reliably attend classes.
As an example of applying this theory in an un-PC way, how can a white male have a black female teacher, leader, or boss then? It's absurd.
I suspect people who advocate for these policies do so because the macro issues of poverty and culture are intractable. As we've also seen in NJ, money also doesn't solve the problems at home.
The Asbury Park NJ school district spends $33k per student per year. This is nearly double the state average and yet their school performance is in the bottom 20%. It doesn't matter what you do in school if the kids are not able to learn or reliably attend classes.
4
Are we supposed to believe this piece is accurate because it has a sensational title? This seems to be so since Mr. Emdin does not make his case. He does not go into detail as to why Black men do not enter or remain in education. There are reasons. He fails to list them. Among those reasons are not, as he states, that they see that the system is tilted away from African American students. I learned this during almost 30 years as a professional educator. Black male students miss instructional time, but it is not because they are being singled out or being unfairly punished for minor infractions. In many cases, they receive lesser or no consequences for infractions, which eventually does cause them and their classmates to miss quantity instruction time. In summary, America needs more male Black educators, and there is a discrepancy in education between Blacks and those of other races, but Mr. Emdin does not being to list the causes.
4
Perhaps a starting point for acquiring better teachers is to treat teachers better? As a society we place many demands on our teachers, yet pay them relatively little in return, allow them less and less control over their curriculum, and almost no job security.
Upwards of half a million teachers lost their jobs during the Great Recession, and they are often the first to go (as well as school funding) during bad times. If we want better outcomes, then I suggest we adjust our priorities.
Upwards of half a million teachers lost their jobs during the Great Recession, and they are often the first to go (as well as school funding) during bad times. If we want better outcomes, then I suggest we adjust our priorities.
4
There are so many ways in which our generation is failing those who follow us.
We are uncomfortable with authority, even when that authority is administered in a spirit of gentle love that prefers the present rebuke to a lifetime of hurt.
We seem to be incapable of sustaining permanent bonds with each other, and the divorce rate is explained away and rationalized without an honest discussion about what it teaches the children of divorce.
We have become opposed to physical pain and suffering, seeing it not as a character-forming process to endure but as a science experiment to be mastered and removed from our presence.
We are accountable mostly to ourselves, removing each other, community, mankind, and (dare it be said) God (for those who still choose, in freedom, to turn their lives to a mysterious force beyond "Big Bang" and cell division and the simple reductionism of natural selection).
There is not a single human being alive today in America who is not, on a relative basis, living at a higher than any person alive in the year 1800. We live longer. We receive an education. We have electricity, indoor plumbing, vehicles to move us vast distances. None of this was within the purview of even the wealthiest.
We need to ask deeper questions of ourselves. Now that a sliver of the population has gotten what it wants economically, and held up belief systems that dehumanize us, what is the Plan B for everyone else?
How about, for starters, honesty about character?
We are uncomfortable with authority, even when that authority is administered in a spirit of gentle love that prefers the present rebuke to a lifetime of hurt.
We seem to be incapable of sustaining permanent bonds with each other, and the divorce rate is explained away and rationalized without an honest discussion about what it teaches the children of divorce.
We have become opposed to physical pain and suffering, seeing it not as a character-forming process to endure but as a science experiment to be mastered and removed from our presence.
We are accountable mostly to ourselves, removing each other, community, mankind, and (dare it be said) God (for those who still choose, in freedom, to turn their lives to a mysterious force beyond "Big Bang" and cell division and the simple reductionism of natural selection).
There is not a single human being alive today in America who is not, on a relative basis, living at a higher than any person alive in the year 1800. We live longer. We receive an education. We have electricity, indoor plumbing, vehicles to move us vast distances. None of this was within the purview of even the wealthiest.
We need to ask deeper questions of ourselves. Now that a sliver of the population has gotten what it wants economically, and held up belief systems that dehumanize us, what is the Plan B for everyone else?
How about, for starters, honesty about character?
7
This article presents a very important point, one that long has been unrecognized. The work of addressing lack of student engagement in public inner city schools is extremely difficult, and I feel this is due to several factors including the student's "outside the classroom" experience. However, there is work that schools can do regarding the teaching pool to help improve outcomes for students, and like the article says, it shouldn't be about the teacher's race.
I'm very familiar with the practice by institutions (not just schools) of hiring Black males in order to "keep the kids in line" or "relate to them better" in order to improve outcomes. The article's point that this robs Black teachers of the opportunity to teach is interesting, but I do feel that Black male teachers can be strong enough to do both. I think White male and female teachers are let off the hook though, as too often they lack the sensitivity and training to connect well with students, and this leads to negative spirals where some teachers grow less and less invested in the collective student body and only focus on "the good ones". Not only do I feel that Black teachers can and should do both, I feel that it is just as important that White teachers do both.
General sensitivity and awareness of the struggles inner city students face is important for teachers to "reach and teach," and it should be a sensitivity mandated of the entire institution, not just some of it's teachers.
I'm very familiar with the practice by institutions (not just schools) of hiring Black males in order to "keep the kids in line" or "relate to them better" in order to improve outcomes. The article's point that this robs Black teachers of the opportunity to teach is interesting, but I do feel that Black male teachers can be strong enough to do both. I think White male and female teachers are let off the hook though, as too often they lack the sensitivity and training to connect well with students, and this leads to negative spirals where some teachers grow less and less invested in the collective student body and only focus on "the good ones". Not only do I feel that Black teachers can and should do both, I feel that it is just as important that White teachers do both.
General sensitivity and awareness of the struggles inner city students face is important for teachers to "reach and teach," and it should be a sensitivity mandated of the entire institution, not just some of it's teachers.
2
Some of my hardest working students are black. Some of the most respected teachers in my school are black. Somehow they are all from Caribbean immigrant families. Unfortunately, many of the students with poor GPA in the school are black too. From my observation, the difference is the culture of the community.
The true leaders of black community should work to change the defeatist attitude of young black men. We cannot wait for a fair world before saving ourselves. The world has never been fair, and will not be fair for a long time. That should not be an excuse to act irresponsibly to ourselves and to our families.
The true leaders of black community should work to change the defeatist attitude of young black men. We cannot wait for a fair world before saving ourselves. The world has never been fair, and will not be fair for a long time. That should not be an excuse to act irresponsibly to ourselves and to our families.
16
I Hate To Be A Pessimist
Out of college in 1960, and with no training in Education, I became a high school mathematics teacher and coach. I made a few minor mistakes, but I was mathematically competent, enjoyed helping students learn, and was quite successful (as measured by students' scores and their inclination to take more math courses.
There was always a good bit of levity in my classes, but when it was time to work, we changed modes and focused on the subject matter. Discipline was never an issue ... underline that.
I taught high school students for 3 years, then went on to get a Ph.D. in multivariate probability models and became a life-long academic. While in grad school, I spent two semesters supervising secondary school teachers, mainly in the Roanoke, VA area ... hardly the epicenter of troubled students (I still had no formal training in Education). I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
The discipline in the classrooms was such a major issue, I don't know how any teacher could have been even a mediocre teacher, let alone an effective one. My weekly seminar for student teachers, which was supposed to be a discussion of mathematics content, became a seminar in class management.
I had no answers for these prospective teachers, so I invited friends from the College of Education to help out. Believe me, they had no answers either.
As long as parents are not an integral part of their children's learning it's a losing battle. Indeed, it is probably lost already.
Out of college in 1960, and with no training in Education, I became a high school mathematics teacher and coach. I made a few minor mistakes, but I was mathematically competent, enjoyed helping students learn, and was quite successful (as measured by students' scores and their inclination to take more math courses.
There was always a good bit of levity in my classes, but when it was time to work, we changed modes and focused on the subject matter. Discipline was never an issue ... underline that.
I taught high school students for 3 years, then went on to get a Ph.D. in multivariate probability models and became a life-long academic. While in grad school, I spent two semesters supervising secondary school teachers, mainly in the Roanoke, VA area ... hardly the epicenter of troubled students (I still had no formal training in Education). I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
The discipline in the classrooms was such a major issue, I don't know how any teacher could have been even a mediocre teacher, let alone an effective one. My weekly seminar for student teachers, which was supposed to be a discussion of mathematics content, became a seminar in class management.
I had no answers for these prospective teachers, so I invited friends from the College of Education to help out. Believe me, they had no answers either.
As long as parents are not an integral part of their children's learning it's a losing battle. Indeed, it is probably lost already.
24
Mr. Emdin this is an excellent article. I couldn't agree more with your analysis. Tough love if applied incorrectly is a very simplistic approach to dealing with discipline problems. Too often tough love gives caregivers a easy justifcation for venting their anger and frustration resulting in resentment and more resistance from children. Teachers and others dealing with youth need to focus on developing a respectful and caring relationship with those in their care. And yes poverty is often the underlying problem which is a broader problem that needs to be addressed in our country. Sadly our political leaders don't even mention it much less try to develop creative solutions.
I am a white female teacher and worked in a city school with a 100% African American student body (all boys) and 100% black male administration. I was immediately met with skepticism and resistance from some black teachers who believed that I had no place in that school because of my race. The quality of my teaching and my genuine care for the students eventually changed their minds, but not the minds of the administrators. I learned from my experience in this particular school that you can be white, you can be female, and you can be outspoken, but you can't be all three.
10
In looking at the photograph of students that accompanies this article, a couple fragments of words imply the class is studying Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, "The Handmaid's Tale" (1985). It's a very bleak, semi-science fiction book, containing a lot of violent sex against women that's part of a story about an imagined Christian fundamentalist takeover of North America (one that to some of us seems strangely prescient). It's very popular in high school curriculums.
With young people, the transformative potential of great books is enormous. With such a vast amount of world literature that could be inspiring for young black men in particular--books that could reach them so deeply that they see their lives with a different sense of purpose than they had before--why have them study "The Handmaid's Tale"?
Moreover, while Atwood is a great author, and this book is fascinating, its heavy feminist emphasis is a bizarre choice for black teenagers (or white teenagers, for that matter).
It's a different topic, but I would like to hear from the author his ideas about what content, in English classes, would best help black high school males.
With young people, the transformative potential of great books is enormous. With such a vast amount of world literature that could be inspiring for young black men in particular--books that could reach them so deeply that they see their lives with a different sense of purpose than they had before--why have them study "The Handmaid's Tale"?
Moreover, while Atwood is a great author, and this book is fascinating, its heavy feminist emphasis is a bizarre choice for black teenagers (or white teenagers, for that matter).
It's a different topic, but I would like to hear from the author his ideas about what content, in English classes, would best help black high school males.
5
Not a bizarre choice. 1)misogyny is just as common and destructive as racism,
2) misogyny exists within all races.
2) misogyny exists within all races.
7
I started second grade in a newly opened parish school. It happened within our first week. The teacher (nun) stomped past my desk and swatted one of the kids, presumably for "talking." We were literally terrorized. I did not see another instance of corporal punishment in the following seven years in that school.
In ninth grade I went to a Catholic prep school. The same scenario evolved.
Only twice in eleven years of catholic schooling did I see this application of terror. That's all it took.
In ninth grade I went to a Catholic prep school. The same scenario evolved.
Only twice in eleven years of catholic schooling did I see this application of terror. That's all it took.
9
The most important qualification for this type of school environment is for the teacher, white or black, to have experienced some parental neglect in their childhood. For me, this provided a profound basis of understanding and empathy for my high school student in Bedford Stuyvesant. It enabled me to truly understand how much I had to be that "second chance" for my acting out boys. Standards? Yes, clear and consistent, but always with an undercoating of identification with these kids struggles toward adulthood while dragging the anchor of childhood disappointments.
6
This viewpoint is rather one sided. I know of no courses preparing teachers for school systems in which metal detectors are required to prevent guns and other weapons to come into the building. No teacher, black or white, can teach proficiently under those circumstances.
To simply say it's poverty or this or that is extremely naive. Kids learn when the following are in place:
1) Education is a emphasized in the home
2) there is a mother and father who both believe in its importance. My first wife and I were divorced, but both of us were sure our child's nose was to the grind stone.
3) The school building has teachers with knowledge of the curriculum.
4) the teachers have good classroom room management (translation- teachers have to and and are responsible to teach 20 or more students and NOT spent most of their time controlling the few or individual student(s) that are making a ruckus).
5) Building principals that support the teachers to discipline those students who only want (for whatever reason) disrupt the educational flow of the class and/or school building).
6) The school building provides an atmosphere of learning.
The societal issues the author cites is not teacher's domain. The teacher's domain is to teach those students who want to be taught.
To simply say it's poverty or this or that is extremely naive. Kids learn when the following are in place:
1) Education is a emphasized in the home
2) there is a mother and father who both believe in its importance. My first wife and I were divorced, but both of us were sure our child's nose was to the grind stone.
3) The school building has teachers with knowledge of the curriculum.
4) the teachers have good classroom room management (translation- teachers have to and and are responsible to teach 20 or more students and NOT spent most of their time controlling the few or individual student(s) that are making a ruckus).
5) Building principals that support the teachers to discipline those students who only want (for whatever reason) disrupt the educational flow of the class and/or school building).
6) The school building provides an atmosphere of learning.
The societal issues the author cites is not teacher's domain. The teacher's domain is to teach those students who want to be taught.
50
If educators, white & black, had the balls to throw disruptive students out---period---we wouldn't have a problem. These disrupters are incorrigible---for whatever reason---give the 75% of students the education they want and need.
4
"If educators, white & black, had the balls to throw disruptive students out---period---we wouldn't have a problem."
Then what do you do with those you've thrown out?
We need to stop wasting tax dollars on kids who are not, and might never be, ready for academic work. We used to teach shop and mechanical training in our public schools. We should have a program like the CCC so that young men with excess energy could use it to maintain our parks and wilderness paths. We could train the more able to be arborists and stewards of marshlands. We'd be spending money, yes, but not as much as keeping aggressive young men in settings designed to send kids along to college.
Not everyone is capable of college work. And if, in time, such young men decide they are ready for the hard, long work of learning mathematics or physics, then they can hit the books, catch up, and try again.
Then what do you do with those you've thrown out?
We need to stop wasting tax dollars on kids who are not, and might never be, ready for academic work. We used to teach shop and mechanical training in our public schools. We should have a program like the CCC so that young men with excess energy could use it to maintain our parks and wilderness paths. We could train the more able to be arborists and stewards of marshlands. We'd be spending money, yes, but not as much as keeping aggressive young men in settings designed to send kids along to college.
Not everyone is capable of college work. And if, in time, such young men decide they are ready for the hard, long work of learning mathematics or physics, then they can hit the books, catch up, and try again.
11
"What ineffable twaddle!" The type of "tough love" Mr. Emdin refers to in the article seems directed at black teachers rather than black students. Education reform as practiced by such as John King has only eroded the supports that teachers need to maintain vital classrooms. The empowerment of principals and single minded dedication to statistics has produced tyrants instead of leaders. As an ATR in NYC, I have had the opportunity to witness how little valued black teachers are by many school administrations. The teachers I've met have little problem with having high standards and clear expectations, but they do have a problem with being viciously undercut by unsupportive administrations. It is hard on all teachers, but especially those who are expected by dint of their race to better relate to students unburdened byconsequences for their actions.
9
"Single-minded dedication to statistics has produced tyrants instead of leaders." How true. Statistics are usually marshaled by administrators who have read only In the discipline (education) in which those statistics make sense. Better administrators recognize this, and appreciate the complex multi- disciplinary, multicultural rhetorical occasion in which statistics are only a splinter in the larger edifice of EDUCATION (as opposed to the hackneyed intransitive usage of "learning.")
2
The reality is that teachers are expected to cure the effects of poverty. When we get past this delusional idea, we will be able to have an adult conversation about public education in America.
6
"Education Reform" will continue to fail until we appreciate that mental fitness is like physical fitness: No one else can do it for you. The growth comes from YOUR WORK.
There is no other way to learn, except to work. A great teacher can better guide your work, but many teachers who could be great have left education because the wild barbarians run the classroom. (They were great educators, but not great lion-tamers, and they should not have to be.)
The current (lack of) discipline strategies let the disruptive children (most families have them) ruin the education for the would-be studious children (of the same families). Discipline needs to be tenacious. No student should leave school (or in-school detention) each day until that day's work is done, and done well.
There needs to be a focus on work -- student work! Teachers are getting blamed for student misbehavior and sloth.
Also, if we do not demand RETAINED knowledge, then the teacher at the "next grade level" cannot actually teach to that level. The attack on memorization, starting in the 1950's, has been absurd. When teachers "drill" foundational facts and concepts, then "average" students catch up with those who memorize easily, and "average" students can then have complex thoughts.
DI will close by saying that I was a great teacher/lion-tamer for 20 years in public schools & colleges, but I saw private schools with mediocre teachers but strong, even savage, discipline create better overall performance.
There is no other way to learn, except to work. A great teacher can better guide your work, but many teachers who could be great have left education because the wild barbarians run the classroom. (They were great educators, but not great lion-tamers, and they should not have to be.)
The current (lack of) discipline strategies let the disruptive children (most families have them) ruin the education for the would-be studious children (of the same families). Discipline needs to be tenacious. No student should leave school (or in-school detention) each day until that day's work is done, and done well.
There needs to be a focus on work -- student work! Teachers are getting blamed for student misbehavior and sloth.
Also, if we do not demand RETAINED knowledge, then the teacher at the "next grade level" cannot actually teach to that level. The attack on memorization, starting in the 1950's, has been absurd. When teachers "drill" foundational facts and concepts, then "average" students catch up with those who memorize easily, and "average" students can then have complex thoughts.
DI will close by saying that I was a great teacher/lion-tamer for 20 years in public schools & colleges, but I saw private schools with mediocre teachers but strong, even savage, discipline create better overall performance.
9
Yet another article that skirts the primary issue of why African-American boys are not doing well in school. Until the Black community heals itself and addresses the terrible dysfunction that exists in their community then no amount of money will help improve the lives of their youth. As a teach in a low-income school I saw the administration and staff go to great lengths to help out low-income Black students. And I also saw the very limited and often hostile family and community involvement. For the sake of the children, let's address the fundamental problems within the community and then we will start seeing the youth excel.
30
This is the sort of nonsense one expects from anything coming out of Teachers College.
White or black, potentially good teachers quit their jobs for safer, saner, more lucrative employment elsewhere because young people who have not been taught manners or self-control at home, let alone some verbal fluency, make teaching a misery.
No one goes into teaching for the money. But when teachers find that the kids won't listen, work actively to disrupt the lesson, and then blame them for not teaching well, despite long nights making up lesson plans and correcting papers, and there's nothing they can do to make things better, then it's sheer masochism to stay.
I would imagine that black teachers take failure harder because they think that their color gives them clout with inner-city kids.
Do we write op-eds about white teachers in rural (or suburban) areas who can't make their white students give a hoot about history and science? Let alone reading novels or doing math?
Intellectual curiosity begins at home. Both nature -- a child's genetic make-up -- and nurture in the form of stable, loving families who prize learning for its own sake -- play their roles.
IUDs are the way to go.
White or black, potentially good teachers quit their jobs for safer, saner, more lucrative employment elsewhere because young people who have not been taught manners or self-control at home, let alone some verbal fluency, make teaching a misery.
No one goes into teaching for the money. But when teachers find that the kids won't listen, work actively to disrupt the lesson, and then blame them for not teaching well, despite long nights making up lesson plans and correcting papers, and there's nothing they can do to make things better, then it's sheer masochism to stay.
I would imagine that black teachers take failure harder because they think that their color gives them clout with inner-city kids.
Do we write op-eds about white teachers in rural (or suburban) areas who can't make their white students give a hoot about history and science? Let alone reading novels or doing math?
Intellectual curiosity begins at home. Both nature -- a child's genetic make-up -- and nurture in the form of stable, loving families who prize learning for its own sake -- play their roles.
IUDs are the way to go.
22
upward mobility is tough and involves great discomfort and personal sacrifice, every group that has made advances has had to do hard things and take real risks. At the end of the day every group has to make its own way, outsiders often do more harm than good by offering help and sending the message that such help is essential and available.
4
The only problem is "white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy" to quote bell hooks. We hate poor people, we hate poor black people more. We especially hate poor black women which is why we do nothing to help poor black children. We have all the money in the world and we do nothing. Most non-medical problems can be solved with money. We could at least give our poor a minimum standard of living.
2
If teachers have knowledge and zeal, it is not matter whether they are black or white. But we should not depend on teachers too much for disciplining children. Not only parents but also neighbors including the instructors of sports clubs should share the burden to make children have morals and hopes.
4
Japan is a very homogeneous society. America is not.
Letting the neighbors discipline our kids? Here in America? When I read that, I laughed out loud. We would see no positive results from that, but we would see a spike in murder rates.
Letting the neighbors discipline our kids? Here in America? When I read that, I laughed out loud. We would see no positive results from that, but we would see a spike in murder rates.
3
As a white substitute teacher at an urban school district, I've witnessed this dynamic first hand. I applaud Dr. Emdin's nuanced, pragmatic, and -- most of all -- empathetic observations and recommendations. To those who are derisive and dismissive of the problem and/or Emdin's suggestions, ask yourself: What if my son was an unfortunate victim of unconscious bias? And what if my brother was a teacher who was expected to discipline my son in an unfair and ineffective manner? PS: For those who think unconscious bias isn't endemic in today's schools, Google"Beverly Daniel Tatum" and think again.
1
I agree that teachers ought to "teach to each student’s unique needs, and to recognize that no student learns best under conditions that make him feel uncared for". But changing the way we train teachers is not the most effective way to "help black boys succeed in school".
There is a dysfunctional culture in the poorest regions of our country. This culture does not prepare youngsters for school, or for life in the modern world. So, the most effective way to help these poor students of all races is to alter their culture. That is best done from the inside. That is where role models for boys and girls are needed.
The young people living in cultures of poverty need to learn some basic truths: stop having children outside of marriage; study and work hard to get the best jobs; say no to drugs; improve your diet. Just the basic stuff that other groups learned generations ago, including many immigrants.
They also need to learn that no one is going to come to their rescue; they must take responsibility for their own lives. To believe otherwise will simply prolong the miseries of their lives and the lives of their descendants.
There is a dysfunctional culture in the poorest regions of our country. This culture does not prepare youngsters for school, or for life in the modern world. So, the most effective way to help these poor students of all races is to alter their culture. That is best done from the inside. That is where role models for boys and girls are needed.
The young people living in cultures of poverty need to learn some basic truths: stop having children outside of marriage; study and work hard to get the best jobs; say no to drugs; improve your diet. Just the basic stuff that other groups learned generations ago, including many immigrants.
They also need to learn that no one is going to come to their rescue; they must take responsibility for their own lives. To believe otherwise will simply prolong the miseries of their lives and the lives of their descendants.
17
This opinion piece should not have been in the news section. Firstly, lets deal with the alleged encouragement of Black male teachers to insist on Black students act appropriately in school. Discipline is a major issue in schools that draw their students from poorer district. The use of inappropriate verbal and physical violence is more widespread. So Black male teachers were not being singled out, there are so few it wouldn't matter, but being asked to do what other teachers are, keep order so people can learn. However, the larger issue if the role of Black male teachers at all. Whites have been retiring from the school system and their places have been taken by Asian-Americans and Latinos . More Black people are getting college degrees than ever before but they are not entering the teaching profession. Why should they, there is so much more money to make in any other field and you do not have to be made the scapegoat for society's failings. As the article notes the government and others have said that having Black role models in the class will enhance their chances. They are saying that the reason Blacks perform so badly is that they do not have Black role models in class. This is a lie that is deliberately being spread but people do not want to address the issues of community and the learning process. Oh yes, lets not forget that every successful Black person in the country (including Jay-z) were taught largely or exclusively by White people.
4
I read articles like this obsessively, hoping someone will have something new to say - the magic potion that will turn everything right, but of course it's always the same old thing. I am relieved, though, to read sentences such as this: "they do not need to save children, they just need to educate them." I left the teaching profession for precisely this reason. At the school I taught at, the expectation that we should be heroes was not implicit but explicit. I was exhausted, overworked and felt like a failure, because of course, I could not heroically transform my students into disciplined, hardworking scholars. I think we all know the solution is universal pre-school and also training for parents who have no idea how to raise their kids, having no good example themselves. And of course policies that help to lift people out of poverty; enable them to work just one job, so they have time for their kids; and universal, automatic healthcare for ALL children under 18 regardless of their circumstances; and maybe, just maybe we can make progress But none of this will happen because no one wants to pay for it, so sometimes I wonder, why do journalists even bother to write such articles and why do I bother to read them anymore? Sorry to sound so hopeless, but only with a radical change to how we educate and care for the neediest among us will we ever see any improvement.
15
I second SusieQ. The root causes have to addressed or no amount of teacher training will have any effect.
2
$20,000 per student would be better spent on maintenance of federal lands especially the national parks. Since the kids are not learning much in school anyway have them earn a diploma in the field performing national service. They can then apply credits earned to entering the armed services at a higher pay grade or if not law abiding they can earn time off their sentences.
No more excuses!
No more excuses!
7
What an uplifting vision!
And should we mark at birth the children to receive this treatment?
Oh, wait – – I forgot. Conveniently, they are already marked at birth.
And should we mark at birth the children to receive this treatment?
Oh, wait – – I forgot. Conveniently, they are already marked at birth.
1
"How can we help black boys succeed in school?" Just look at those black boys who do succeed. Emdin projects from his own experience, which apparently did not include some of the brilliant high achievers.
Emdin's problem may be with inner-cities. The role of racism in educational attainment must not be understated, but there is a tendency to overstate it. Cities all over the world have areas of concentrated poverty. And their poor are not African American.
We're continually beaten over the head with right-wing propaganda, from Social Darwinism to the Free Market. Learned professors adduce all sorts of arguments to disprove the advantages of laissez faire, but they tend to overlook the obvious proofs all around--cities. Mansions and slums; civic centers, financial centers, high-end retail centers, and homeless sleeping under bridges or on gratings in cardboard boxes. Many homeless are veterans of foreign wars, and veterans are part of the cost of war. We get war on the cheap by cheating our Vets. We sell lots of police equipment by cheating our inner cities.
It's not just that teachers need better training and support. Our cities need to be reimagined and reconstructed to fit the image of the shining city on the hill. Otherwise, talk about fixing poverty and its consequences is just more hypocrisy,
Emdin's problem may be with inner-cities. The role of racism in educational attainment must not be understated, but there is a tendency to overstate it. Cities all over the world have areas of concentrated poverty. And their poor are not African American.
We're continually beaten over the head with right-wing propaganda, from Social Darwinism to the Free Market. Learned professors adduce all sorts of arguments to disprove the advantages of laissez faire, but they tend to overlook the obvious proofs all around--cities. Mansions and slums; civic centers, financial centers, high-end retail centers, and homeless sleeping under bridges or on gratings in cardboard boxes. Many homeless are veterans of foreign wars, and veterans are part of the cost of war. We get war on the cheap by cheating our Vets. We sell lots of police equipment by cheating our inner cities.
It's not just that teachers need better training and support. Our cities need to be reimagined and reconstructed to fit the image of the shining city on the hill. Otherwise, talk about fixing poverty and its consequences is just more hypocrisy,
3
I disagree with those that talk about a need to boost teacher preparation.
The idea of studying education, in order to become a teacher, is, to me, a joke.
As a successful teacher who does not have any formal training in teaching but does have a BA in Political Science, an MA in Economics, and a JD in Law, I have to say our teacher crisis was born of policy-makers that refuse to admit that you can't train someone to be a teacher.
That's right. Teachers are born, not made, just like artists, actors, and musicians. That's because the number one thing you need to be a great teacher is a deep well of empathy. While nurture has a lot to do with improving one's capacity to empathize with others, I have empirically observed that nature has more to do with this particular variable.
The second thing you need in order to be a great teacher is life experience.
The third thing you need is to be curious and creative.
The fourth and final dual component is you need both a liberal arts background as well as expertise in some particular area of study or life.
Empathic, curious, creative, learned individuals = the recipe for good teaching.
Unfortunately, people with those traits want three things.
1. Much more remuneration than is given.
2. Much less bureaucracy, admin, & meddlesome input from school boards.
3. Much more freedom to do what it takes to reach each kid.
To quote Mark Twain:
"First God Created Idiots. That was Just Practice. Then he created the School boards"
The idea of studying education, in order to become a teacher, is, to me, a joke.
As a successful teacher who does not have any formal training in teaching but does have a BA in Political Science, an MA in Economics, and a JD in Law, I have to say our teacher crisis was born of policy-makers that refuse to admit that you can't train someone to be a teacher.
That's right. Teachers are born, not made, just like artists, actors, and musicians. That's because the number one thing you need to be a great teacher is a deep well of empathy. While nurture has a lot to do with improving one's capacity to empathize with others, I have empirically observed that nature has more to do with this particular variable.
The second thing you need in order to be a great teacher is life experience.
The third thing you need is to be curious and creative.
The fourth and final dual component is you need both a liberal arts background as well as expertise in some particular area of study or life.
Empathic, curious, creative, learned individuals = the recipe for good teaching.
Unfortunately, people with those traits want three things.
1. Much more remuneration than is given.
2. Much less bureaucracy, admin, & meddlesome input from school boards.
3. Much more freedom to do what it takes to reach each kid.
To quote Mark Twain:
"First God Created Idiots. That was Just Practice. Then he created the School boards"
11
For the most part, those who can't teach become administrators.
Or at least that's the way it's been for at least 25 years, when our least able college graduates began to go into teaching and our schools of education began to accommodate them. The least able, in turn, became vice-principals and deans. Like refuse on the water, inferior products rise.
Or at least that's the way it's been for at least 25 years, when our least able college graduates began to go into teaching and our schools of education began to accommodate them. The least able, in turn, became vice-principals and deans. Like refuse on the water, inferior products rise.
3
I served in the New York City Schools for over 40 years. I taught high school mathematics in the South Bronx. I am a white male. One of the things that students I taught commented about me as a teacher was that I was even handed. I explained how I would operate my classroom from the first day and I put it in writing like a contract which we all signed. There were expectations for the students and for me, as the teacher. It was an accountability system for all. We established mutual respect. My students were predominantly Latino and Black. The school was Title One eligible (high poverty). I loved teaching and I loved the students I taught. I went on to become a school administrator and district administrator before retiring. My best days were always the ones spent in schools and in classrooms supporting the educational process. We need to support our schools - the administrators, guidance counselors, social workers and teachers if we want successful students.
29
The concerned, involved and observant parent knows their local public schools are dangerous environments where warehousing is the order of the day. Naturally any decent teacher would leave this environment in short order, if not for disappointment in their ability to make a difference in this lousy environment, then for preservation of their sanity. Hence the popularity and proven successes of the charter schools movement for underserved minority pupils. Two absolutely critical aspects of this success are the dedication and involvement of a parent and the absence of monolithic, political and self-serving teacher unions. No magic, no psycho-babble, no talking points and no excuses. Omit either necessity and you have guaranteed failure, illiteracy and a non-participatory life, or a life behind bars. People lie, but statistics do not.
4
Statistics are frequently manipulated. People lie using statistics.
As an educator in public schools I have to respectfully disagree with the stereotypic characterization of public education you and many spread.
Teachers stay because of the students. Because they can and do make a difference.
There are some great charter schools, but most of the worst ones are in inner city environments. In every situation (public, private, charter or homeschool) the environment is a key factor. Poverty stricken areas have people who are focused more on survival than homework. This has nothing to do with race or gender and everything to do with the environment.
We need to stop trying to fix what isn't broken (education and teachers) and get to the root cause of the problem (poverty and violence).
As an educator in public schools I have to respectfully disagree with the stereotypic characterization of public education you and many spread.
Teachers stay because of the students. Because they can and do make a difference.
There are some great charter schools, but most of the worst ones are in inner city environments. In every situation (public, private, charter or homeschool) the environment is a key factor. Poverty stricken areas have people who are focused more on survival than homework. This has nothing to do with race or gender and everything to do with the environment.
We need to stop trying to fix what isn't broken (education and teachers) and get to the root cause of the problem (poverty and violence).
3
I think it was mark twain who coined the immortal observation that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Most black children go to schools where the the majority of staff, principals, superintendents and union presidents are black, along with the city councils and the mayors. Bottom line, place with high levels of poverty and violence have poor schools. The school is a reflection of the community.
15
"Instead of fixating on black male teachers, we need to examine how teachers are trained..."
start here, teacher training has become a form of conditioning to generate functionaries who suit a bureaucratized system that has been proven ineffective (rather limiting than nourishing potential) and costly (though still requiring far too many teachers to buy pencils and paper class).
the reform of education, the redirection of K-12 from crowd management toward learning (the connection between day-to-day school operations and the latest research in cognition and learning, being near zero) has to include both the equalizing of school opportunities and the social services that address (while we fix them) conditions that impair students' ability to focus and function, whether these be poor nutrition, health care or street life...teachers cannot, should not, be expected to take on all these extra-classroom variables.
summary: raise the quality of the teaching, give teachers control of the schools and proper assistance with (protection from) external mitigations that guarantee unequal opportunity.
start here, teacher training has become a form of conditioning to generate functionaries who suit a bureaucratized system that has been proven ineffective (rather limiting than nourishing potential) and costly (though still requiring far too many teachers to buy pencils and paper class).
the reform of education, the redirection of K-12 from crowd management toward learning (the connection between day-to-day school operations and the latest research in cognition and learning, being near zero) has to include both the equalizing of school opportunities and the social services that address (while we fix them) conditions that impair students' ability to focus and function, whether these be poor nutrition, health care or street life...teachers cannot, should not, be expected to take on all these extra-classroom variables.
summary: raise the quality of the teaching, give teachers control of the schools and proper assistance with (protection from) external mitigations that guarantee unequal opportunity.
2
I must be completely innocent or absolutely corrupt since I will say as long as I've been in education (25 years) I've never seen black or white teachers not giving black students second chances while they do so to whites or looking to suspend black students for minor violations or yelling at black students for being playful or asking too many questions.
I've seen teachers misinterpret student behaviors of blacks and believe that they were dangerous or threatening when they were not. I have seen teachers try to impose their disciplinary standards which did not fit the context. I have seen uncaring teachers who for that very fact made their work with black students much more difficult if not impossible.
But after the author says that poverty, inequitable distribution of resources and (over, my take)-criminalization of black men leads to struggling black male students and the difficulties of anyone to teach in those education contexts, he lost me. I did not see any evidence at all in his characterization of what black male teachers face and are expected to do. Maybe I missed something.
I've seen teachers misinterpret student behaviors of blacks and believe that they were dangerous or threatening when they were not. I have seen teachers try to impose their disciplinary standards which did not fit the context. I have seen uncaring teachers who for that very fact made their work with black students much more difficult if not impossible.
But after the author says that poverty, inequitable distribution of resources and (over, my take)-criminalization of black men leads to struggling black male students and the difficulties of anyone to teach in those education contexts, he lost me. I did not see any evidence at all in his characterization of what black male teachers face and are expected to do. Maybe I missed something.
8
"Houston we have a problem" .... I am not arguing for or against any solutions to resolve issues of a failing education system for African American males or any other demographic, however Christopher Emdin is reinforcing what the well hated Donald Trump has been conveying, how the liberal and left wing fringe of the Democratic party has been failing US citizens that are not financially secure.
The below passage from Mr Edmin's op-ed says it all:
"The argument may be well intentioned, but it is a cop-out. Schools are failing black male students, and it’s not because of the race of their teachers. These students are often struggling with the adverse effects of poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources across communities and the criminalization of black men inside and outside of schools."
What Donald Trump is saying is nothing new and I have held this view well before the USFL was born....
The proof has been in the pudding, yet the strongholds of the "Democratic Party" are more than just the architects of keeping as many non- WASPs outside of arms reach of a better x, y and z, and more troubling have mastered a sophisticated mechanism to counter any doubt cast upon their "democratic" caste system that any charlatan could dare to dream...
The below passage from Mr Edmin's op-ed says it all:
"The argument may be well intentioned, but it is a cop-out. Schools are failing black male students, and it’s not because of the race of their teachers. These students are often struggling with the adverse effects of poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources across communities and the criminalization of black men inside and outside of schools."
What Donald Trump is saying is nothing new and I have held this view well before the USFL was born....
The proof has been in the pudding, yet the strongholds of the "Democratic Party" are more than just the architects of keeping as many non- WASPs outside of arms reach of a better x, y and z, and more troubling have mastered a sophisticated mechanism to counter any doubt cast upon their "democratic" caste system that any charlatan could dare to dream...
6
While this article does mention the systemic racism plaguing our public school system, it also manages to perpetuate the myth that great teaching alone can fix it.
In study after study, it has been proven that desegregation is the only solution that works.
http://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-...
We have to face the de facto segregation going on in communities all across the nation. The problem is not just in the South or with Trump supporters either. New York has one of the most segregated school systems in the country.
In study after study, it has been proven that desegregation is the only solution that works.
http://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-...
We have to face the de facto segregation going on in communities all across the nation. The problem is not just in the South or with Trump supporters either. New York has one of the most segregated school systems in the country.
1
Odd the black coaches I had during school seemed to have no problem dispensing "tough love" to us black players. This is just made up nonsense.
From my experience the most popular black teachers or school staff were the ones that were very firm. The kids in our way respected that.
From my experience the most popular black teachers or school staff were the ones that were very firm. The kids in our way respected that.
96
So much of this opinion is nonsense. Has the author ever taught? I don't know where these schools are that he's discussing, but it's not the metropolitan area. In thirty plus years of teaching, I never met a colleague who distinguished black from white. All were interested in "their kids" and that was that. White teachers worked side by side with black and Hispanic or whatever.
It's such a sad and over-stated argument that schools are failing black students. Students of any color have the opportunity to help or fail themselves. Teachers, except perhaps for a few, are there to assist them succeed, and are happy to do so.
It's such a sad and over-stated argument that schools are failing black students. Students of any color have the opportunity to help or fail themselves. Teachers, except perhaps for a few, are there to assist them succeed, and are happy to do so.
13
To fund rural schools at $15000 per student and even much less, while funding inner city schools st $20,000 and higher, means that the education of Rural white children is underfunded and and as a result their chance for opportunity is lessened.
This is the result of both Black, and Democratic bigotry.
This is the result of both Black, and Democratic bigotry.
11
The problem is not "black or democrats".The problem is how American schools are funded: property taxes. Just like you feel is not fair that inner city schools get more federal/state money than rural schools because they can't collect enough property taxes to fund schools, as a suburban property owner, I do not think it would be fair for me to pay more federal/state taxes while paying exorbitant property taxes to help rural communities that can't collect enough property taxes to support their schools either. It cuts both ways.
14
RB, unfortunately you don't understand how schools are funded by local taxes in local districts. That's not bigotry, but a matter of the collectible taxes in the district you live in. I agree with you that it's not always fair, by a long shot. I have taught where the distance of a football field determined whether a child was in an affluent district or a poor district. It's heartbreakingly unfair for ALL children to be faced with that.
If you want to change it, either vote to pay more taxes for ALL children in your district or raise money for your local schools. I have often put in 30-40 hours a week fundraising and grant writing--on top of teaching--to get what's fair and right for my students and to give them experiences and technologies they wouldn't have had access to.
If you want to make a difference in your locality, get educated on the law, make a plan, get busy and stop complaining.
If you want to change it, either vote to pay more taxes for ALL children in your district or raise money for your local schools. I have often put in 30-40 hours a week fundraising and grant writing--on top of teaching--to get what's fair and right for my students and to give them experiences and technologies they wouldn't have had access to.
If you want to make a difference in your locality, get educated on the law, make a plan, get busy and stop complaining.
1
The unstated premise here is that male black students are the most disruptive in high school environs. Nothing is going to change, as far as overall results, until all students, regardless of circumstances, behave in class and come to class having learned there is only one way to act, and it ain't by 'acting up'. When we no longer hear the nonsense of 'restorative justice', then we know that the problem the author talks about is largely a thing of the past.
14
Its not just poverty that is the problem. Just look at the academic success in the Asian community and you eill find many of those students live in poverty and all kinds of disadvantaged conditions. What the black community really needs is a cultural shift, one that stresses the importance of academic success.
Ine should also point out that commisioner King was never a teacher himself nor was he succesful when he was the Education Commisioner of NY. But i guess he fits the profile.
Ine should also point out that commisioner King was never a teacher himself nor was he succesful when he was the Education Commisioner of NY. But i guess he fits the profile.
30
I agree that hiring more black male teachers, while a worthy goal in itself, is not the solution to black boys not succeeding in school. Neither is the solution better teacher and sensitivity training. Until we address the issue of family and community stability young black boys will continue to flounder in school in disproportionate numbers.
20
Why must race be interjected into every discussion? This piece cuts no new ground and tries once again to blame the educational system for the lack of willingness or readiness of students of all races to learn.
Has Mr. Emdin spent a day, or even a year, let alone ten or twenty years teaching challenging children? One could also ask why there are so few Asian teachers.
Regardless of the race or socioeconomic status of the students and teachers, teaching requires hard work and discipline on the part of the learner and teacher, along with sometimes restrained, reflective discussions. It's just like parenting. Most academic classes cannot run like a PE class.
The lack of comments on this piece speaks volumes.
Has Mr. Emdin spent a day, or even a year, let alone ten or twenty years teaching challenging children? One could also ask why there are so few Asian teachers.
Regardless of the race or socioeconomic status of the students and teachers, teaching requires hard work and discipline on the part of the learner and teacher, along with sometimes restrained, reflective discussions. It's just like parenting. Most academic classes cannot run like a PE class.
The lack of comments on this piece speaks volumes.
4
Teaching is not for sissies. The model of one teacher in an over crowded classroom is a recipe for failure. One teacher cannot fulfill all a students needs and variety of learning styles. Until this is addressed the teacher will be more apt to enforce a sit and listen style of classroom management just to keep the pace going and complete all that is required in a school year. Today's students do not need to learn the way we did in the past by the sage on the stage. Today's students need to learn how to learn by the guide on the side.
4
There's a hidden assumption here that the only schools that matter are those where Black children are failing, and where centralized control by ed school graduates is the only path to improvement.
There are Black women and men teaching in private schools, and in public districts where involved and educated parents can keep the ed schoolers and the common corers in their proper place. Much could be learned from their successes, but these aren't the schools that professors of education like to talk about.
In the less favored schools, though, it turns out that Black men don't like doing a thankless job for low wages. What a relief that we now have a theory to explain this.
There are Black women and men teaching in private schools, and in public districts where involved and educated parents can keep the ed schoolers and the common corers in their proper place. Much could be learned from their successes, but these aren't the schools that professors of education like to talk about.
In the less favored schools, though, it turns out that Black men don't like doing a thankless job for low wages. What a relief that we now have a theory to explain this.
I have had good teachers both white, black and of many races. I have had bad teacher both white, black and many races. Some crazy and unfit to teach. Some so full of love for knowledge they seem to almost burst every day.
This commentary is full of loaded biased observations that match the author personnel experiences.
Overlooked is why other disenfranchised students transcend they challenges more often than black male students. Role models at home and school can only make the situation better.
Any teacher who is poorly supervised and uninspired can fall in the a disciplinary spiral of all whip and carrots.
This commentary is full of loaded biased observations that match the author personnel experiences.
Overlooked is why other disenfranchised students transcend they challenges more often than black male students. Role models at home and school can only make the situation better.
Any teacher who is poorly supervised and uninspired can fall in the a disciplinary spiral of all whip and carrots.
4
This begs the question -- what happens to black guys who have taught and leave the profession for another.
My guess is that they might find more remunerative occupations in the non-education private sector. Got a college degree, three to five years of experience with one employer -- you're golden to a lot of private sector employers.
Would like to see more data, thanks for writing the article.
My guess is that they might find more remunerative occupations in the non-education private sector. Got a college degree, three to five years of experience with one employer -- you're golden to a lot of private sector employers.
Would like to see more data, thanks for writing the article.
5
This is pretty deep. My own feeling is that boys are likely to get the shaft in an educational setting, especially minority or single-parent boys. I have on occasion put myself forward to take care of a "lost boy." They really respond to someone who cares and doesn't want anything in return except to see them thrive.
You save people one person at a time. That includes lost boys, lost girls, lost adults. Mr. Emdin makes a lot of good points here, points that should be pointed at school administrators. There is no excuse for the refusal to let teachers use their humanity to "save" young people.
You save people one person at a time. That includes lost boys, lost girls, lost adults. Mr. Emdin makes a lot of good points here, points that should be pointed at school administrators. There is no excuse for the refusal to let teachers use their humanity to "save" young people.
2
I was talking today with a friend who recently retired from being a high school teacher. We were chatting about a lot of stuff. But at one point he got on to how things aren't the same compared to when we were both in high school.
I live in Ontario and about 15 years or so ago the provincial government started introducing standardized testing in the school system. The test essentially rated student 1 - 4 with 4 being great, 3 good, 2 marginal and 1, well you get the idea.
According to him, shortly after all this started, he started noticing a significant increase in boys starting high school totally unmotivated.
Why?
Well his thoughts were that these kids would take these tests. Then a few months later the tests would come back and they would find themselves labeled a '1' or a '2'. So after a while they simply accepted that they were a '1' or a '2' and weren't going to go very far in the school system.
And since these tests came from the Ministry of Education with the teachers having no input into them, they couldn't adjust the courses they were teaching to try and offer help.
Yet in today's culture, I wonder how much anyone cares about all this?
I live in Ontario and about 15 years or so ago the provincial government started introducing standardized testing in the school system. The test essentially rated student 1 - 4 with 4 being great, 3 good, 2 marginal and 1, well you get the idea.
According to him, shortly after all this started, he started noticing a significant increase in boys starting high school totally unmotivated.
Why?
Well his thoughts were that these kids would take these tests. Then a few months later the tests would come back and they would find themselves labeled a '1' or a '2'. So after a while they simply accepted that they were a '1' or a '2' and weren't going to go very far in the school system.
And since these tests came from the Ministry of Education with the teachers having no input into them, they couldn't adjust the courses they were teaching to try and offer help.
Yet in today's culture, I wonder how much anyone cares about all this?
5
Do you know who is teaching black students well? Catholic schools.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/nyregion/as-archdioceses-schools-retre...
"Justice Sotomayor’s emotions are shared by a generation of accomplished Latino and black professionals and public servants who went from humble roots to successful careers thanks to Catholic schools."
"“The Catholic schools have been a pipeline to opportunity for generations,” said Justice Sotomayor... “It gave people like me the chance to be successful. It provided me and my brother with an incredible environment of security. Not every school provides that.”
"“The inner city is where we do our best work,” said Timothy J. McNiff, the archdiocese’s superintendent of schools."
“I had no self-esteem,” Dr. [Nelly] Maseda said. “But Aquinas [High School], without a doubt, made all the difference. It gave me a vision of what I could be.”
"Pedro Noguera, a professor of education at New York University, said part of the reason for the success of parochial schools was the partnership forged with parents and the community"
So why are white and Hispanic Catholics able to succeed as teachers? Apparently Catholic schools know how to reach a lot of these kids, and that includes discipline and respect for rules. So instead of calling for a complete education overhaul, why won't the Government help schools that are actually helping black students succeed!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/nyregion/as-archdioceses-schools-retre...
"Justice Sotomayor’s emotions are shared by a generation of accomplished Latino and black professionals and public servants who went from humble roots to successful careers thanks to Catholic schools."
"“The Catholic schools have been a pipeline to opportunity for generations,” said Justice Sotomayor... “It gave people like me the chance to be successful. It provided me and my brother with an incredible environment of security. Not every school provides that.”
"“The inner city is where we do our best work,” said Timothy J. McNiff, the archdiocese’s superintendent of schools."
“I had no self-esteem,” Dr. [Nelly] Maseda said. “But Aquinas [High School], without a doubt, made all the difference. It gave me a vision of what I could be.”
"Pedro Noguera, a professor of education at New York University, said part of the reason for the success of parochial schools was the partnership forged with parents and the community"
So why are white and Hispanic Catholics able to succeed as teachers? Apparently Catholic schools know how to reach a lot of these kids, and that includes discipline and respect for rules. So instead of calling for a complete education overhaul, why won't the Government help schools that are actually helping black students succeed!
8
Public school teachers respond to comparisons to Catholic and charter schools by pointing out that the privately operated schools can "dump" the worst students.
They are dumped on the public school system.
They are dumped on the public school system.
5
They are successful because they are selective. Unlike public schools that have to take everybody, private schools, religious or secular, have the advantage of self-selection first (not everybody can afford them) and ability to expel students with behavioral, emotional or mental issues second. And guess where those students end up?
3
Teachers need to respond to each student's individual needs.
Black students are struggling with poverty racism and criminalization.
I don't think this person remembers what it is like to have a bus load full of students (if they ever had any to begin with), and I don't think this person wants to believe that the black community has intrinsic issues.
It will never improve until the left also gets real.
Black students are struggling with poverty racism and criminalization.
I don't think this person remembers what it is like to have a bus load full of students (if they ever had any to begin with), and I don't think this person wants to believe that the black community has intrinsic issues.
It will never improve until the left also gets real.
2
Excellent article. Asking black men to handle the discipline of black boys is just wrong on so many levels.
Another issue is that many white and Asian teachers do not understand how authority works within black and Latino families. Respect is more often earned through clear communications backed up with no-nonsense approach rather than vague expectations backed up with threats and discipline. Whites and Asians tend to show more respect for a position of authority, while blacks and Latinos tend to show more respect for someone who demonstrates authority in his/her person.
Another issue is that many white and Asian teachers do not understand how authority works within black and Latino families. Respect is more often earned through clear communications backed up with no-nonsense approach rather than vague expectations backed up with threats and discipline. Whites and Asians tend to show more respect for a position of authority, while blacks and Latinos tend to show more respect for someone who demonstrates authority in his/her person.
2
I teach in an urban, predominantly black high school. Here's what I have to say: I never again want to hear the term "failing school." I never again want to hear the phrase "preparing for jobs in the next century." I never again want to hear the term "accountability." Okay. I'll break my own decree. Schools do not fail; communities fail because they have been failed. "Preparing for jobs in the next century" is a load of crap to provide cover for endless standardized tests and control of teachers. "Accountability" is a great idea, if only it were applied to the forces and structures that contribute to the failing of communities... Having seen for decades what young African-American males experience in their communities and in school, I cannot imagine why any might consider going into teaching. For the record, I am white.
15
I am an African American teacher myself, although a woman. I agree that the solution lies with preparation and training of future teachers. That process should include confronting our own issues and prejudices and becoming more aware of the background of the people we are tasked to teach and how to tailor our pedagogy towards them. I pay special attention to themes of social uplift and justice when choosing reading material for African American males because these tend to be reflective of their experiences. Tupac, anyone?
4
The transformative, wonderful teacher is everywhere on television shows and movies. The reality and difficulty of teaching is much different. It can be quite difficult emotionally for a real teacher who can't achieve what every television teacher does effortlessly. Perhaps more peer support would be helpful.
5
There is a much broader problem here. Chances are your local elementary school employs no male teachers of any color. Boys have different needs and behaviors when young. Many female teachers and administrators not only don't understand boys (having never been one) but are intolerant of them and punish them for their natural inclinations. There has been so much focus on girl's needs and a sense of entitlement to correct past injustices by putting their needs to the forefront that boys are now falling behind. How is that fair to our sons? These are children we're talking about. Let's not forget that.
4
For the most part, black males leave teaching in ghetto schools for the same reason any other teachers leave--the work is extremely difficult and few have been equipped with the necessary skills prior to entering any classroom. At bottom, teachers in poor communities need particularly to learn what is called classroom management, that is, the set of skills necessary to maintain order and discipline, and they must also be equipped with not merely knowledge of their subject area or areas but how to convey that knowledge to youngsters in a manner that will keep them engaged for the allotted period of classroom time. These goals are not impossible to achieve; they are in fact achieved by thousands of gifted teachers each day in schools across our nation.
3
The root causes of the problems of black male students isn't just poverty and the usual suspects that black and liberals return to again and again, it's also that poor black families have massive problems, especial the absence of fathers, but instead very often a steady stream of unrelated men, the boyfriends and hookups, of these kids' mothers and sisters, and aunts and grandmothers, too, often angry black men with poor impulse control, etc, and who very often feel cheated, feel that they're owed something.
a few years back, a study reported that three out of five black women reported that they'd been molested or raped when they had been underage, an increase of fifty percent, in just seven years, again, doubtless often the men who cycle through their homes visiting their mothers and other female family members.
Studies have shown that men unrelated to the children in household are a grave threat, not all of them, obviously, but that such men are much more likely to beat and even kill the boys in the household and to molest the girls.
Of course our society's war on drugs and crime hasn't made it any better, sending far too many black men to prison, and thus shrinking the population of black men that black women compete for, so that black women, even if they were not sexually abused, often take a very easygoing attitude toward sex and the men in their lives.
And then there's the denial of the problem in the community and among liberals.
a few years back, a study reported that three out of five black women reported that they'd been molested or raped when they had been underage, an increase of fifty percent, in just seven years, again, doubtless often the men who cycle through their homes visiting their mothers and other female family members.
Studies have shown that men unrelated to the children in household are a grave threat, not all of them, obviously, but that such men are much more likely to beat and even kill the boys in the household and to molest the girls.
Of course our society's war on drugs and crime hasn't made it any better, sending far too many black men to prison, and thus shrinking the population of black men that black women compete for, so that black women, even if they were not sexually abused, often take a very easygoing attitude toward sex and the men in their lives.
And then there's the denial of the problem in the community and among liberals.
19
How is that some students want to learn and some students want to do anything but learn and the rest are somewhere in-between ?
If you are descended from a succession of poor families and families where it is not at all unusual to spend time in prison it may well be the case that most members of your family do not want to spend time learning in school. Now why
they don't want to sit in a desk 8 hours a day and learn the way the local school district has decided they should learn is the question we all need to ask.
Perhaps doing well in school means little in their household. Perhaps their role models did not take school seriously. Perhaps there are no repercussions for:
Not turning in your work, Disrupting class, Not studying - either from your school or your guardians.
Perhaps schooling for the people that do not do well in a typical school needs to be wholly restructured.
Something happened to productive discipline in schools in the late 1960's and it spread like a virus. A young friend of mine who taught at a school I attended - where no one was allowed to disrupt the class - left teaching at that school because the Administration would not discipline students for anything short of brandishing a weapon.
There is a solution, but it may be a very difficult solution to implement and may
repulse those who believe all teachers must be cuddly soft with all their students all of the time.
Better tough caring love then time in prison.
If you are descended from a succession of poor families and families where it is not at all unusual to spend time in prison it may well be the case that most members of your family do not want to spend time learning in school. Now why
they don't want to sit in a desk 8 hours a day and learn the way the local school district has decided they should learn is the question we all need to ask.
Perhaps doing well in school means little in their household. Perhaps their role models did not take school seriously. Perhaps there are no repercussions for:
Not turning in your work, Disrupting class, Not studying - either from your school or your guardians.
Perhaps schooling for the people that do not do well in a typical school needs to be wholly restructured.
Something happened to productive discipline in schools in the late 1960's and it spread like a virus. A young friend of mine who taught at a school I attended - where no one was allowed to disrupt the class - left teaching at that school because the Administration would not discipline students for anything short of brandishing a weapon.
There is a solution, but it may be a very difficult solution to implement and may
repulse those who believe all teachers must be cuddly soft with all their students all of the time.
Better tough caring love then time in prison.
11
smaller classes, smaller classes, smaller classes. Any disruptive students should be separated, maybe even a different school! But parents need to support teachers and instill the need for education in their children. Real life needs to be taught in school and maybe boys and girls should be educated in different schools. Yes there's a need for more male black teachers but there's also a need for more teachers, period and better pay for them. We know education is the key to success but we don't do enough to support that idea. More, smaller schools, smaller classrooms, more teachers, better pay for teachers, insist on parental involvement. Sometimes it seems that it's the parents that need educating!
5
Here is a professor from the most reknown teacher college in the country, and he relies on nothing but his "call for" understanding of the separate and unequal status of a cultural subset. How many black male teachers are there in NYC who might have something to add to this "call"? How about some numbers showing suspensions in all black and Hispanic schools? Stats on failure rates when there are black male teachers in the school? Numbers of black males in teacher colleges who don't take teaching jobs? Maybe they are discouraged after a year or two of the students' "playfulness", breaking minor rules like disrupting classes, absenteeism, drug use or physical violence witnessed in most inner city schools.
The only remedy is for kids to have three things in the home
1. books
2. A parent who reads to them in English
3. A father
2. A father.
The only remedy is for kids to have three things in the home
1. books
2. A parent who reads to them in English
3. A father
2. A father.
27
It is true that Teachers College is "the most reknown teacher college in the country," but have you ever gone to one of its conferences and listened to the speakers?
To be honest, this article really confused me. The so-called tough love described here doesn't fit my image of that concept and just seems to be cover for disparate treatment of young black males, instead of being tough on students because you truly care about them. Having said that, real tough love works, but it takes time to show results. The data-driven, indeed data-obsessed approach to education, however, demands immediate results. I think I know something about these issues because I do one of the hardest jobs in education -- I SUBSTITUTE teach in NYC's public schools. (If anybody remembers how they treated their substitute teachers, then they know what I'm talking about). I often deal with some of the most difficult student populations. But when I'm given a chance, say, if I have the same assignment for awhile, I can and have made a difference. It's extremely difficult being patient with -- much less teaching -- students who are often belligerent, combative, and disruptive, but I manage by trying to be as even-tempered as possible, but also by not pulling any punches. If a student's behavior is wrong, I call them out on it, but frequently the way students are punished undermines my and regular teachers' authority. Students are not held accountable for their actions, which is really important for character building, and have become extremely disrespectful towards their teachers.
97
A good substitute can be a great thing. But please understand, with no disrespect, you are not a classroom teacher. The idea that if you get an "assignment for awhile" is comparable to teaching students for an entire semester or year is laughable. Kudos to you for filling a huge need, but please don't toot your own horn here and act like what your doing is anything close to maintaining discipline for an entire school year. Also, often the treatment of substitutes reflects the practices of the classroom teacher who is absent. Admins and school policy can make us (teachers) feel like they are undermining our authority, but you find ways around that by fostering relationships that are developed over the course of a school year. Oh and in case you are wondering, yes I'm talking about "difficult populations".
1
This is the ultimate in useless, psuedo-intellectual junk:
First of all, if black men have a greater propensity to quit than other teachers, it has nothing to do with "tough love", but instead has everything to do with the disillusionment that comes with the fact that the children that they are assigned to teach don't treat them like saviors or heroes, but behave and progress just as poorly with them as with other teachers.
Then there is the absolutely absurd way that the author defines "tough love":
"Teachers hear the phrase “tough love” all the time; it is used to justify hurtful practices such as not giving black students the second chances that others receive to complete assignments, suspending students for breaking minor rules that others are not punished for..."
REALLY??? There can be nobody ignorant enough (other than maybe the author) who could possibly think that this is an appropriate way to encourage disadvantaged teenagers.
First of all, if black men have a greater propensity to quit than other teachers, it has nothing to do with "tough love", but instead has everything to do with the disillusionment that comes with the fact that the children that they are assigned to teach don't treat them like saviors or heroes, but behave and progress just as poorly with them as with other teachers.
Then there is the absolutely absurd way that the author defines "tough love":
"Teachers hear the phrase “tough love” all the time; it is used to justify hurtful practices such as not giving black students the second chances that others receive to complete assignments, suspending students for breaking minor rules that others are not punished for..."
REALLY??? There can be nobody ignorant enough (other than maybe the author) who could possibly think that this is an appropriate way to encourage disadvantaged teenagers.
80
I've taught kids from poor inner city to wealthy advantaged. There was one common factor that made all the difference, and that was parental involvement. No matter the income level, demographic, or neighborhood, if constructive parental involvement was there, the kids did much better. If the parents were absent or worse, abusive, the kids did much worse. That's it. It is not the teachers, it is the parents.
282
It seems that many American parents have abandoned their role as parent. They just don't even try to socialize their children to live successfully in society. I encourage everybody to watch "Super Nanny". Teachers, women, men, black and white can do very little to correct this cultural problem.
3
Parental involvement of course! But doesn't that ignore the real problems of 'income levels, demographics, and neighborhoods,' all of which work against parental involvement.
1
This is a very strong comment. I agree that what students need is teaching. But it is difficult for children to learn if they feel that the teacher doesn't like them, is unfair, or is a bully. However, a teacher-learner relationship does not need to be based on 'love'. The "tough love" model in a classroom is an oxymoron as it relies on coercion. It is impossible to convince someone that you actually '"love" them while you are applying ritualized consequences for behavior that do not involve understanding and compassion. The teachers I've talked to who use "tough love" agree that it causes learners to feel ashamed, resentful or even angry and it makes teachers feel guilty, lacking in empathy and failing as a teacher (particularly for repetitive problems). This does not appear to be a basis for any positive learning. There are new models for instructional interactions between teachers and children/adolescents. Changing teacher education and teacher certification to reflect new models might help both teachers and learners, regardless of ethnicity.
2
The problem with teaching in this country is that while it often is denigrated and disrespected as a profession, its practitioners are increasingly held to impossible standards, and for notoriously mediocre pay. Instruction of a designated academic subject is a necessary but no longer sufficient requirement: teachers are now expected to function competently as social workers, psychiatrists, cheerleaders, political progressives, in addition to striving to be mere mentors and counselors. Is there any other professional group on which such profound and wide-ranging demands are made?
"In loco parentis"? If only parents in their roles could be hired or fired on the basis of such broad demands.
"In loco parentis"? If only parents in their roles could be hired or fired on the basis of such broad demands.
3
I applied to teach at schools that are considered less than successful for various reasons. I was rejected. Mind you, I have 20 years of experience under my belt. It didn't matter. No one wanted to pay my salary or deal with my level of seniority/tenure. You cannot tell me that a student straight out of grad school is more qualified to teach than I. Yet, there it is. Who are we putting in front of our children? I was naive to think that experience mattered - the bottom line does. It rules the schools. So, we have teachers hired on the basis of budget, not on ability, facing the daunting task of educating those who may be difficult, or assumed as such. Tell me again why the schools are failing?
4
What rules schools today is a philosophy of education that dismisses hard work, the acquiring of knowledge, and the learning of patience and perseverance at tasks, and instead stresses group work, letting children who know nothing decide what they want to learn, and applauding anything that emerges.
And that's at good schools, even highly regarded private schools. Children at those schools, of course, usually start ahead in that they have parents who from the get-go spoke with and read to them or were able to hire nannies that would do so. When parents at such schools realize that even some of the English teachers are woefully ignorant of the rules of grammar, they hire tutors to shore up their children's education.
It's not just the budget. When schools of education began to realize that children coming from communities that didn't prize learning were feeling resentful and angry at being in school, they began to push for schoolwork to be less challenging. That philosophy percolated upward into middle- and upper-class communities when teachers themselves, products mostly of public schools and of places like Teachers College, were unable to teach at the same professional level as earlier generations did.
My mother's public schools, back in the 1930s and 1940s, educated poor, often immigrant, Brooklyn children. The African-American children in her school also learned. But they were products of stable families, and they had teachers who knew their stuff.
And that's at good schools, even highly regarded private schools. Children at those schools, of course, usually start ahead in that they have parents who from the get-go spoke with and read to them or were able to hire nannies that would do so. When parents at such schools realize that even some of the English teachers are woefully ignorant of the rules of grammar, they hire tutors to shore up their children's education.
It's not just the budget. When schools of education began to realize that children coming from communities that didn't prize learning were feeling resentful and angry at being in school, they began to push for schoolwork to be less challenging. That philosophy percolated upward into middle- and upper-class communities when teachers themselves, products mostly of public schools and of places like Teachers College, were unable to teach at the same professional level as earlier generations did.
My mother's public schools, back in the 1930s and 1940s, educated poor, often immigrant, Brooklyn children. The African-American children in her school also learned. But they were products of stable families, and they had teachers who knew their stuff.
2
I don't disagree with anything Professor Emdin writes. This is a thought-provoking and important article. I am commenting to add that if we, as a nation, truly care about properly educating black male students, we must desegregate and equitably fund our schools as well. Separate but equal has never been equal, and today our schools are more segregated than they were in 1968. It is no coincidence that achievement gaps were narrowing when integration was at its apogee.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jun/25/hillary-c...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/integration-worked-why-...
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jun/25/hillary-c...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/integration-worked-why-...
1
Chris is right ATTEMPTS to increase minority male teachers, while well intentioned, miss the problems of poverty and inequity. As a puertorican leader who has worked in urban + international schools with majority minority enrollments and as a researcher of teacher prep programs in NY, PR and DR, the problem has little to do to with tough love or even insufficient minority teachers. Its the enormous odds against schools and teachers serving poor children. Schools struggle just to hire ANY teacher, and to retain the good ones is nearly impossible. Teachers struggle daily to contend with insuficiencies of every kind imaginable. The resources needed to ameliorate the effects of poverty, and concentrated despair, and educational neglect at home and in previous schools, simply has never existed. There are few simple solutions. More minority teachers certainly will not make a difference: its numerical impossible for the pipeline of minority teachers to increase rapidly enough to alter the demographics of teachers in any significant way. I can imagine several ways in which it might actually worsen it. The "best" solutions are always triage education of one sort or another: magnet schools, charter schools that have autonomy (+ millions of private donations) that alter the demographics of their students, private schools that handpick and mix the underprivileged kids in a sea of privileged ones. But none of these have ever been scaled up (but watch Success Academy try it)....
Professor Emdin gives us a lot to chew on. For one thing: the piece reads surprisingly well if you squint past "black" and read it as a statement about male teachers more broadly. Why do so many guys feel that it's our job to get tough with children? Why do men tend to believe that black and Hispanic teens don't suffer sufficient "consequences" already? I agree that "tough love" is mainly a cover under which adults can ignore kids' real needs and duck away from the emotional attachment inherent in mentoring relationships.
But I don't that was his main point. Black men are, Chris tells us, leaving a profession that boxes them into destructive relationships with people that look like them. Again: in my experience that's why 20% of all NYC teachers move on each year. It's why one school I work with had 40% turnover last year. It's a difficult job that is little appreciated and modestly rewarded. If it is also futile, then ... .
Emdin calls for better teacher training. An ironic anecdote: I asked a dozen very experienced, high energy teachers what I could give to a group of grad students to read before joining them as assistants in the fall. Silence. Teachers with degrees from NYU, Pace and Teachers College, after considerable prodding could think of only one useful reading: Lisa Delpit's Classic, "Other People's Children". After that, they said, it's all on-the-job training. I suppose they would agree with Chris: we can do much better at teacher training.
But I don't that was his main point. Black men are, Chris tells us, leaving a profession that boxes them into destructive relationships with people that look like them. Again: in my experience that's why 20% of all NYC teachers move on each year. It's why one school I work with had 40% turnover last year. It's a difficult job that is little appreciated and modestly rewarded. If it is also futile, then ... .
Emdin calls for better teacher training. An ironic anecdote: I asked a dozen very experienced, high energy teachers what I could give to a group of grad students to read before joining them as assistants in the fall. Silence. Teachers with degrees from NYU, Pace and Teachers College, after considerable prodding could think of only one useful reading: Lisa Delpit's Classic, "Other People's Children". After that, they said, it's all on-the-job training. I suppose they would agree with Chris: we can do much better at teacher training.
I teach, though I don't teach at the K-12 levels. And sadly, very sadly ... there is a point in this essay: "prepared to teach to each student’s unique needs" ... that society is not, and cannot, afford for all.
Individualized private instruction is too costly in labor. Anyone who has taught knows that each child in the class who requires special attention is costly -- even if that child is gifted. The number of students that can be taught in a class is highly dependent on their uniformity. In societies (Japan is the obvious example) that demand conformity teachers can effectively teach large classes ... the more the students vary, and particularly the more discipline problems a teacher faces, the fewer who can be taught.
The old-fashioned 'tracking' was efficient ... and cruel. It didn't care much about individual kids and it wasn't about any equity at all. It just optimized the output frankly it made the assumption that some kids weren't worth "really teaching;" they were abandoned, or excluded, or simply warehoused in what amounted to daycare classes.
The assumption that there ARE "strategies for being effective with these students despite their differences" is often grotesque wishful thinking; if one's expectation is that disfunctional kids (often from disfunctional families) can be educated on par with "normal" kids; particularly so if the expectation/limit is that these kids will get no more resources than the kids who are better off.
Individualized private instruction is too costly in labor. Anyone who has taught knows that each child in the class who requires special attention is costly -- even if that child is gifted. The number of students that can be taught in a class is highly dependent on their uniformity. In societies (Japan is the obvious example) that demand conformity teachers can effectively teach large classes ... the more the students vary, and particularly the more discipline problems a teacher faces, the fewer who can be taught.
The old-fashioned 'tracking' was efficient ... and cruel. It didn't care much about individual kids and it wasn't about any equity at all. It just optimized the output frankly it made the assumption that some kids weren't worth "really teaching;" they were abandoned, or excluded, or simply warehoused in what amounted to daycare classes.
The assumption that there ARE "strategies for being effective with these students despite their differences" is often grotesque wishful thinking; if one's expectation is that disfunctional kids (often from disfunctional families) can be educated on par with "normal" kids; particularly so if the expectation/limit is that these kids will get no more resources than the kids who are better off.
3
Not giving black students second chances others receive to complete assignments? Suspending black students for breaking minor rules others are not punished for? Yelling at black students for being playful and asking too many questions? This sounds like sour grapes from the author and more likely than not reflects his own memory, flawed or accurate I know not, of his earlier schooling. None of this ever happened to my black students in my classroom, and the black male teachers in my school have never mentioned anything like this as being a problem for them. Personally, I think black male teachers might be quitting after several years of teaching when they realize they are unable to change trajectories for most students. Hence the disquieting fact that by 3rd grade you can fairly accurately predict an individual students likelihood of graduating from high school or go to college.
9
Many educators start out as idealist, hoping to change the education system for the better. The make things better for the kids like them. But our educational system is surprisingly uninterested in the lives of children and there are many forces that maintain the status quo even when it is apparent that it is causing harm.
One day the brighter teachers realize that despite all his/her efforts, instead of changing the system, the system is changing them. and they realize that they are now passively participating in an unjust system and becoming participants in it's evil.
It's the teachers that leave that we should want to teach the next generation.
One day the brighter teachers realize that despite all his/her efforts, instead of changing the system, the system is changing them. and they realize that they are now passively participating in an unjust system and becoming participants in it's evil.
It's the teachers that leave that we should want to teach the next generation.
1
Prof. Edmin makes some good points about the unfair burdens placed on black male teachers. But his casual dismissal of the need for discipline is a serious mistake. Frankly, without some evidence to back it up, his claim that "tough love" is "code for doing damage to black students" is little short of outrageous.
Prof. Edmin should visit at the St. Paul school system and recant his hasty comments. Recently the school board fired its superintendent of schools, Valeria Silva. She got a $787,500 buyout.
Silva made eliminating this racial gap in discipline a top priority. As Katherine Kersten (The Federalist, 7/29/16) writes, "In Silva’s view, the [gap was] caused by teachers’ racial bias and cultural insensitivity, not by higher rates of misconduct by black students. [Silva] mandated 'white privilege' training for all district personnel, eliminated 'continual willful disobedience' as a suspendable offense, and shifted many special education students with behavior problems—students who are disproportionately black—to mainstream classrooms."
Silva's policies "launched the St. Paul schools on a downward spiral of chaos and violence. Order disintegrated. Assaults on teachers multiplied, sending one to hospital with traumatic brain injury. In December 2015, Ramsey County attorney John Choi labeled the situation 'a public health crisis.'
I dare Prof. Edmin to leave his snug office at Teachers College and return to the trenches. I doubt he'll last a year unless he gets real.
Prof. Edmin should visit at the St. Paul school system and recant his hasty comments. Recently the school board fired its superintendent of schools, Valeria Silva. She got a $787,500 buyout.
Silva made eliminating this racial gap in discipline a top priority. As Katherine Kersten (The Federalist, 7/29/16) writes, "In Silva’s view, the [gap was] caused by teachers’ racial bias and cultural insensitivity, not by higher rates of misconduct by black students. [Silva] mandated 'white privilege' training for all district personnel, eliminated 'continual willful disobedience' as a suspendable offense, and shifted many special education students with behavior problems—students who are disproportionately black—to mainstream classrooms."
Silva's policies "launched the St. Paul schools on a downward spiral of chaos and violence. Order disintegrated. Assaults on teachers multiplied, sending one to hospital with traumatic brain injury. In December 2015, Ramsey County attorney John Choi labeled the situation 'a public health crisis.'
I dare Prof. Edmin to leave his snug office at Teachers College and return to the trenches. I doubt he'll last a year unless he gets real.
13
"They (= teachers) should be prepared to teach to each student's unique needs".
Nice idea in an ideal world, but not when you have 30 students in a classroom (or more or less, still a nice idea impossible to implement).
"A better solution is to train all teachers, black and white, to acknowledge the biases they hold about their students based on their race, class, gender....They can learn strategies for being effective with these students..".
I would think that we are all individuals and as such our biases are not necessarily "group" biases but "individual biases". Bias training, fine. What is "effective". I have taught for almost 40 years, albeit in in a university, and effective has never what I sought to be under any circumstances.
"They just need to educate them". Indeed, that is the key.
"It is a call for a more thoughtful approach to teacher recruitment and retention, and a renewed focus on teacher preparation". Correct. Raise standards, better training and then also better payment and conditions. That is a package deal.
Nice idea in an ideal world, but not when you have 30 students in a classroom (or more or less, still a nice idea impossible to implement).
"A better solution is to train all teachers, black and white, to acknowledge the biases they hold about their students based on their race, class, gender....They can learn strategies for being effective with these students..".
I would think that we are all individuals and as such our biases are not necessarily "group" biases but "individual biases". Bias training, fine. What is "effective". I have taught for almost 40 years, albeit in in a university, and effective has never what I sought to be under any circumstances.
"They just need to educate them". Indeed, that is the key.
"It is a call for a more thoughtful approach to teacher recruitment and retention, and a renewed focus on teacher preparation". Correct. Raise standards, better training and then also better payment and conditions. That is a package deal.
2
I think the focus on the failure rates in schools misses the point. When 40% of students drop-out that means 60% stayed the course. Most of those who stayed through to graduation come from the same disadvantaged backgrounds. We need to be studying why those with the disadvantaged backgrounds stayed the course. There will always be those who cannot be reached - for many reasons. Regarding the curriculum, kids start with limited to no motivation to go to school. 80% of learning is self-learning. The teacher's job is to hopefully ignite that interest. If an adult or a kids is not motivated they will not learn! Plus kids now are pawns for every marketing company that is zeroing it on them to seduce them into buying things they probably don't need. What's in it for kids? When their peers are making money and living the American dream(?) As a black teacher myself, I focus on my students personal values, encouraging them through dialog and honesty evaluations. Unfortunately the governmental educational system is charged to instill specific information about the world around them within the K-12 public school program. Public school teachers are not supported by the society at large plus they have no time to teach kids to think about way to maneuver successfully in our world today. A motivated parent is worth their weight in gold. That's where it starts. Unfortunately, you can't legislate parents to be responsible for the kids they bring into the world.
2
"Black male educators I work with have described their primary job as keeping black students passive and quiet, and suspending them when they commit infractions."
Why is this?
Growing up, I went to inner city elementary and middle schools in Brooklyn. It was an incredibly diverse place with nearly every nationality you can think of represented, a mix of recent immigrants and more established families. The black students - African Americans, not Africans - were almost uniformly the ones that were poorly behaved and found themselves in remedial classes.
My family moved, and I went to middle class suburban high school in NJ. There was less ethnic diversity and only a small number of African American students, but again, they were nearly uniformly the ones who go in trouble, wreaked havoc and needed remedial education.
The schools in Brooklyn were largely poor; the one in NJ was middle class. The environments were different but African Americans in both seemed to always be getting into trouble and behind academically. The AA community has to address this as a cultural issue, first and foremost. I agree with the author that putting the emphasis, not to mention the onus, isn't going to result in any progress. Fix the community and the schools will fix themselves.
Why is this?
Growing up, I went to inner city elementary and middle schools in Brooklyn. It was an incredibly diverse place with nearly every nationality you can think of represented, a mix of recent immigrants and more established families. The black students - African Americans, not Africans - were almost uniformly the ones that were poorly behaved and found themselves in remedial classes.
My family moved, and I went to middle class suburban high school in NJ. There was less ethnic diversity and only a small number of African American students, but again, they were nearly uniformly the ones who go in trouble, wreaked havoc and needed remedial education.
The schools in Brooklyn were largely poor; the one in NJ was middle class. The environments were different but African Americans in both seemed to always be getting into trouble and behind academically. The AA community has to address this as a cultural issue, first and foremost. I agree with the author that putting the emphasis, not to mention the onus, isn't going to result in any progress. Fix the community and the schools will fix themselves.
7
As a former black male kindergarten and first-grade teacher in NYC public schools, I encountered numerous instances in which black boys were dehumanized and objectified. In this age of high-stakes testing, teachers often see children, especially black boys, not as individuals with specific learning needs or humans in need of care, but rather, as math scores or reading levels in need of improvement. A low reading score doesn't need love and support, it needs a reading intervention.
Supporting the success of black boys begins with seeing and affirming their humanity. Teachers, regardless of their race or cultural background, must recognize, as Mr. Emdin articulates, that students do not learn well under conditions that make them feel uncared for. If we really want learning outcomes to improve and achievement gaps to close, we must begin to acknowledge, unpack, and address the implicit biases that all teachers - black, white, and other - carry into classrooms across America.
I am the Founder and Chief Reading Inspirer at Barbershop Books, a community-based literacy program that creates child-friendly reading spaces in barbershops. For more info visit. http://barbershopbooks.org/
Supporting the success of black boys begins with seeing and affirming their humanity. Teachers, regardless of their race or cultural background, must recognize, as Mr. Emdin articulates, that students do not learn well under conditions that make them feel uncared for. If we really want learning outcomes to improve and achievement gaps to close, we must begin to acknowledge, unpack, and address the implicit biases that all teachers - black, white, and other - carry into classrooms across America.
I am the Founder and Chief Reading Inspirer at Barbershop Books, a community-based literacy program that creates child-friendly reading spaces in barbershops. For more info visit. http://barbershopbooks.org/
3
First, teaching is an art, not a craft. Teachers have to be passionate about their subject and possess an innate ability to connect to students. Everything else is irrelevant on the teachers' side of things. As a matter of fact, pedagogical training always does more harm than good.
Second, educational success around the world depends on the educational attainment of the students' parents - even in places like Finland where schools are excellent and free. As long as race and poverty are as closely mapped as they are in the US, minority students will, on average, do worse than white middle class kids.
Even excellent teachers can't make the effects of poverty go away. Just look at the PISA rankings. All countries in the top 20 (the US are not among them) are either small city states or European countries with a strong tradition of social democracy. Enough said.
Second, educational success around the world depends on the educational attainment of the students' parents - even in places like Finland where schools are excellent and free. As long as race and poverty are as closely mapped as they are in the US, minority students will, on average, do worse than white middle class kids.
Even excellent teachers can't make the effects of poverty go away. Just look at the PISA rankings. All countries in the top 20 (the US are not among them) are either small city states or European countries with a strong tradition of social democracy. Enough said.
What is being discussed is dealing with young folks too far downstream. The core problem is identified by Mancuroc. "The inconvenient truth is that inequitable income and wealth, and unequal employment opportunities make a difference in how well or poorly families and their communities can function." Absolutely spot on.
What is needed for the whole United States is a Marshall Plan for families and children. Beginning in utero. This would involve visiting nurses, psychologist, much counseling, coaching, ----and money, which the client would get and decide how it would be used. Some would fail. Most would succeed. Poor people are smart, they just struggle all the time to have "enough" for themselves and their children. See "Unequal Childhoods" by Annette LaRue, for a longitudinal 10-year study on the effects of upper middle class, working class and poor outcomes for children, regardless of race.
The second issue is schools using teaching theories that don't work. The most crucial one is reading. 70% of all felons in prison are crippled or non-readers. They are there in part because school systems failed to create environments where the brain can learn to read. Reading cannot be taught explicitly, it is an implicit process, the same as learning to talk. The brain is bathed in meaningful sound (parent(s) talking) and figures it out. Bath the brain in meaningful print and it will figure it out, IMPLICITLY. That's what all human brains do. Learn.
What is needed for the whole United States is a Marshall Plan for families and children. Beginning in utero. This would involve visiting nurses, psychologist, much counseling, coaching, ----and money, which the client would get and decide how it would be used. Some would fail. Most would succeed. Poor people are smart, they just struggle all the time to have "enough" for themselves and their children. See "Unequal Childhoods" by Annette LaRue, for a longitudinal 10-year study on the effects of upper middle class, working class and poor outcomes for children, regardless of race.
The second issue is schools using teaching theories that don't work. The most crucial one is reading. 70% of all felons in prison are crippled or non-readers. They are there in part because school systems failed to create environments where the brain can learn to read. Reading cannot be taught explicitly, it is an implicit process, the same as learning to talk. The brain is bathed in meaningful sound (parent(s) talking) and figures it out. Bath the brain in meaningful print and it will figure it out, IMPLICITLY. That's what all human brains do. Learn.
1
Every new teacher is pretty much placed in front of a room full of children and told to teach. I had a great credential program, we worked hard for a calendar year. You can't learn everything in a year. You certainly can't teach using eight different styles of teaching in front of a single class.
In many schools, the vast majority of students are doing fine, and yet some students are failing. Schools don't fail, students fail.
Good math teachers teach math. Not Black math, or Asian math, just math. You need a solid foundation to build on, every year.
CA state testing results were released Wednesday:
http://caaspp.cde.ca.gov/sb2016/Search
In third grade, economically advantaged Black students outperformed economically disadvantaged students of all races. By 11th grade, economically advantaged Black students were performing essentially the same as economically disadvantaged students of all races. It's not about money.
On the other hand, in 11th grade, 50% of advantaged Asian students exceeded the standard for math. 26% met the standard, 14% almost met the standard and 10% did not meet the standard. Black student's math scores in 11th grade are almost a mirror image of Asian scores. Asians suffered legal discrimination in CA for over 100 years. Asians are 45% of the entering classes at our top UCs, at just 15% of the states population.
Asian parents don't accept excuses. Time to stop pointing fingers and start asking successful families how they succeed.
In many schools, the vast majority of students are doing fine, and yet some students are failing. Schools don't fail, students fail.
Good math teachers teach math. Not Black math, or Asian math, just math. You need a solid foundation to build on, every year.
CA state testing results were released Wednesday:
http://caaspp.cde.ca.gov/sb2016/Search
In third grade, economically advantaged Black students outperformed economically disadvantaged students of all races. By 11th grade, economically advantaged Black students were performing essentially the same as economically disadvantaged students of all races. It's not about money.
On the other hand, in 11th grade, 50% of advantaged Asian students exceeded the standard for math. 26% met the standard, 14% almost met the standard and 10% did not meet the standard. Black student's math scores in 11th grade are almost a mirror image of Asian scores. Asians suffered legal discrimination in CA for over 100 years. Asians are 45% of the entering classes at our top UCs, at just 15% of the states population.
Asian parents don't accept excuses. Time to stop pointing fingers and start asking successful families how they succeed.
6
Consider the closing lines of the article:
Have we not seen the effects of programs that recruit mostly white, middle-class college graduates to “tough schools” only to see high teacher turnover, ineffective teaching and increasing achievement gaps? Why are we embracing a black male version of the same broken model, instead of working to fix the problem?
The author might not like this, but I think implicit in his remarks is the idea that the contemporary notion, that a diverse environment and multiculturalism are inherently good, is flawed
Have we not seen the effects of programs that recruit mostly white, middle-class college graduates to “tough schools” only to see high teacher turnover, ineffective teaching and increasing achievement gaps? Why are we embracing a black male version of the same broken model, instead of working to fix the problem?
The author might not like this, but I think implicit in his remarks is the idea that the contemporary notion, that a diverse environment and multiculturalism are inherently good, is flawed
We've got to get away from the mythology of teacher as hero/savior and start funding education so it will succeed for everyone. Part of this is making sure students are fed, then that they have current books and supplies with safe spaces to study. As others have noted, messed up families and poverty are also significant hindrances to learning. Even the best teachers, regardless of race, cannot overcome the debilitating material circumstances so many students, and teachers, face.
3
I am personally insulted and surprised to see such a racist and misogynist opinion in such a prestigious source. Having brought technology into the lives of underprivileged children by bringing education into a police station, my students were exposed to a lifestyle different from their anti-social relatives.
Yes, I'm white but my mother taught vocational school and accompanied me the first day of class. We did not need men and they would have tried to dominate, which would be the wrong lesson.
Turns out, I was fortunate that my father was a war refugee who taught me sensitivity and both parents were disciplined enough to demonstrate its value.
By the way, I spent three years in Sheepshead Bay High School and never saw a Black male teacher. Imagine how the kids who were bussed halfway across Brooklyn felt to have all-White faculty. At least, I left my program in the hands of local, African-American teachers, all happened to be female.
Yes, I'm white but my mother taught vocational school and accompanied me the first day of class. We did not need men and they would have tried to dominate, which would be the wrong lesson.
Turns out, I was fortunate that my father was a war refugee who taught me sensitivity and both parents were disciplined enough to demonstrate its value.
By the way, I spent three years in Sheepshead Bay High School and never saw a Black male teacher. Imagine how the kids who were bussed halfway across Brooklyn felt to have all-White faculty. At least, I left my program in the hands of local, African-American teachers, all happened to be female.
Black men accepting parental responsibility would go along way to solving this problem. Along as "spreading ones seed" and not "caring for the crop" is seen as acceptable behavior, nothing will change.
Many black entertainers and athletes that receive a lot of attention in the media do not present a positive example for black boys to emulate though these same athletes and entertainers are the very black men that young black boys see as role models.
Expecting teachers with 30 children in a class for 30 hours a week to negated the the effects of the other 158 hours in a week in a dysfunctional home environment is unrealistic and delusional.
Many black entertainers and athletes that receive a lot of attention in the media do not present a positive example for black boys to emulate though these same athletes and entertainers are the very black men that young black boys see as role models.
Expecting teachers with 30 children in a class for 30 hours a week to negated the the effects of the other 158 hours in a week in a dysfunctional home environment is unrealistic and delusional.
8
Almost every student, aside from a very few highly exceptionally brilliant self starters, can point to a teacher or teachers who believed in them when the rest of the crowd of other teachers and the school system itself seemed to be against them, seemed to be saying, "Look, just give up and coast on through. Don't worry about actually learning anything." This belief in the student can be shown in subtle ways, an extra bit of attention to something the student did well, an acknowledgement that the student found a point in a lesson that others missed, etc. When that drop of encouragement comes, it can be like a cup of water to someone walking across a vast desert. "Me? Are you sure you mean me?"
I still remember when my second grade teacher gave me backhand praise of my writing by questioning whether I had actually written a short paragraph about the frontier movement in America. She helped me indirectly by doubting me and later, perhaps feeling guilty, kind of took me on as a second son, a playmate for her son.
I have thanked the teachers who showed they believed in me previously in comments here online and elsewhere. They didn't erase those who were dismissive or worse, but, combined with some degree of unstoppable belief in myself, they made a huge difference in my life. A chain of favorable comments and compliments about all of our vital teachers would be a great idea.
I still remember when my second grade teacher gave me backhand praise of my writing by questioning whether I had actually written a short paragraph about the frontier movement in America. She helped me indirectly by doubting me and later, perhaps feeling guilty, kind of took me on as a second son, a playmate for her son.
I have thanked the teachers who showed they believed in me previously in comments here online and elsewhere. They didn't erase those who were dismissive or worse, but, combined with some degree of unstoppable belief in myself, they made a huge difference in my life. A chain of favorable comments and compliments about all of our vital teachers would be a great idea.
2
Seems to me this country has already lowered it's educational standards enough to accomodate this "issue", to the point where very few children can get a decent eduction, regardless of race.
I am sick and tired of hearing these excuses.
Jews at the turn of the 20th century were poor, and many didn't speak the language, yet within a generation they were able to overcome religious bigotry and join society as productive members.
And why don't we hear the same excuses made for asian immigrants, or hispanic immigrants?
Perhaps if the black community began by examining its own message, and cease to depend on the guilt of the white community, they might find answers.
But for now, we continue to see these articles, in which the black community is blaming everyone but themselves, and expecting society at large to fix it for them.
The Shakedown continues...
I am sick and tired of hearing these excuses.
Jews at the turn of the 20th century were poor, and many didn't speak the language, yet within a generation they were able to overcome religious bigotry and join society as productive members.
And why don't we hear the same excuses made for asian immigrants, or hispanic immigrants?
Perhaps if the black community began by examining its own message, and cease to depend on the guilt of the white community, they might find answers.
But for now, we continue to see these articles, in which the black community is blaming everyone but themselves, and expecting society at large to fix it for them.
The Shakedown continues...
8
"It is a call for a more thoughtful approach to teacher recruitment and retention, and a renewed focus on teacher preparation." Amen! And it applies equally to both urban and rural communities, black and white and whatever!
But the author fails also to include some other important factors that apply equally as importantly....the enforced desegregation of schools and public housing, if necessary across school districts boundaries, the creation of school campuses for all children that match what is found in suburban white middle class communities, and the dedication of funding that affords all schools the ability to meet the needs of all children.
The bottom line origin of this piece is the segregation of our schools not merely by race but by class and economic status. That is something that I do not foresee ending at any time.
But the author fails also to include some other important factors that apply equally as importantly....the enforced desegregation of schools and public housing, if necessary across school districts boundaries, the creation of school campuses for all children that match what is found in suburban white middle class communities, and the dedication of funding that affords all schools the ability to meet the needs of all children.
The bottom line origin of this piece is the segregation of our schools not merely by race but by class and economic status. That is something that I do not foresee ending at any time.
We have a friend who teaches mathematics, and his problems seem to be pretty much the same as any other teacher who works in the public system in a poor area. Unmotivated students who can't seem to hear him if he's not yelling, substandard equipment in a seedy building with dirty bathrooms, parents who are defiantly protective of their sons but still have low expectations for all of their kids. Add that to a subject that many children find difficult, lousy pay, and the expected "black male role model" thing and it's no wonder he has felt burned out for years.
7
As a Black male child of the 60s I grew up in Jim Crow South Carolina and attended one of the “Equalization Schools”-- South Carolina’s attempt to avoid implementing the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision by finally attempting to build separate but equal facilities per the Supreme Court’s racist Plessy v. Ferguson decision.
My particular elementary school was built in 1956, two years after Brown. I entered this school as a first grader in 1963, the year of JFK’s assassination and the terrorist act that killed 4 little Black girls while attending Sunday school in a church. The school was an amazing place. The Black teachers who taught there were conscious of the needs of their students. They instilled a lot of pride in us as they taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. They taught race pride along with the basic. “You’re Black” they told us and “no one else is any better than you.” The measure of personal worth was still personal achievement, and the route to success was taught in the simple maxim: “Whatever you do, do your best.”
Black women represented 98% of the teachers. These brilliant, passionate, and caring teachers are at the route of my success today. This is not to say that Black males are not needed as teachers, I believe that they are, but I agree that it is a cop-out to avoid tackling the larger systemic issues that relegate the masses of Black people to a life of poverty that manifest itself in the classroom.
My particular elementary school was built in 1956, two years after Brown. I entered this school as a first grader in 1963, the year of JFK’s assassination and the terrorist act that killed 4 little Black girls while attending Sunday school in a church. The school was an amazing place. The Black teachers who taught there were conscious of the needs of their students. They instilled a lot of pride in us as they taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. They taught race pride along with the basic. “You’re Black” they told us and “no one else is any better than you.” The measure of personal worth was still personal achievement, and the route to success was taught in the simple maxim: “Whatever you do, do your best.”
Black women represented 98% of the teachers. These brilliant, passionate, and caring teachers are at the route of my success today. This is not to say that Black males are not needed as teachers, I believe that they are, but I agree that it is a cop-out to avoid tackling the larger systemic issues that relegate the masses of Black people to a life of poverty that manifest itself in the classroom.
45
I am somewhat familiar with Professor Emdin's beliefs about "white folks who teach in the hood" and what young students of color need. Much of what he says, as far as pedagogical style and the necessity of building relationships- makes sense. However, as a "white folk" who has taught in the hood- including both NYC and prison- for fourteen years, his descriptions of what it's like to be white and teaching young urban students of color does not seem familiar to me at all.
Most of my white colleagues and I really go out of our way to relate to our urban students of color. We attempt to learn about their cultural norms, integrate culturally sensitive instructional tools, and give them not only second chances, but third, fourth and fifth chances. Many of us have heard- from both students and parents- that we're not "really white." But at some point, we all notice that we do something that is quite the opposite of tough love- we tend to coddle our students. We tolerate behaviors- like walking into the first period of the day fifteen minutes late every day, and hardly ever handing in homework, much much more than would be allowed in a white suburban school.
I've yet to see this "tough love" environment that Dr. Emdin says exists. On the contrary, I worry that I allow my students to get away with much more than I would permit my own child to do. Are my experiences that unique? I look forward to the comments.
Most of my white colleagues and I really go out of our way to relate to our urban students of color. We attempt to learn about their cultural norms, integrate culturally sensitive instructional tools, and give them not only second chances, but third, fourth and fifth chances. Many of us have heard- from both students and parents- that we're not "really white." But at some point, we all notice that we do something that is quite the opposite of tough love- we tend to coddle our students. We tolerate behaviors- like walking into the first period of the day fifteen minutes late every day, and hardly ever handing in homework, much much more than would be allowed in a white suburban school.
I've yet to see this "tough love" environment that Dr. Emdin says exists. On the contrary, I worry that I allow my students to get away with much more than I would permit my own child to do. Are my experiences that unique? I look forward to the comments.
146
I found this article incredulous, wondering how the NYT chooses to report on the black experience in America. I am a Black man in my early 60s. My friends include a broad range of experiences, ranging from Black Fortune 100 CEOs and EVPs to Black surgeons to childhood friends brought low by crime and drug addiction. Fortunately none of my friends suffer from the internal conflict and self-loathing that seem to inflict those who make their living intellectualizing the Black experience. Am I really to believe that hoards of Black men are leaving the field of education because our racist educational establishment requires them to victimize their black male students with tough love? Not for a second.
The successful charter schools have proven time and again that black students can perform on a par with any racial or demographic cohort when we treat them as inherently capable students and demand that they perform to high standards. On the other hand, the traditional public schools prove every day that these same students will fail at alarming rates when we tell them they are victims and then excuse the students and their teachers when they don't perform.
Pseudo-intellectual victim posturing might win elections, get published in the NYT, earn tenure, and garner appointments to high positions in the educational establishment, but it is not doing anything to help Black students break the cycle of failure.
The successful charter schools have proven time and again that black students can perform on a par with any racial or demographic cohort when we treat them as inherently capable students and demand that they perform to high standards. On the other hand, the traditional public schools prove every day that these same students will fail at alarming rates when we tell them they are victims and then excuse the students and their teachers when they don't perform.
Pseudo-intellectual victim posturing might win elections, get published in the NYT, earn tenure, and garner appointments to high positions in the educational establishment, but it is not doing anything to help Black students break the cycle of failure.
235
Interesting rebuttal. I read this knowing that I had also recently read an article in the Times that contradicted Donald Trump's dystopian vision of being "black in America" and I had a hard time making sense of the two points of view... http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/us/politics/donald-trump-black-voters....
Aren't parents the reason a child attends a charter school over a public school? Don't parents pay to have children attend charter schools when public schools are free. If this is true, I suspect parents make the difference in the success of charter school children compared to public school children. That and numbers. Charter schools are smaller and class sizes are smaller. The worst behaved children are kicked out of charter schools, can't be done with public schools.
2
Parents don't pay to send their kids to charter schools.
4
What seems to be unacknowledged is that irrespective of race there are persons of varying personalities and dispositions. There are those who are studious and introspective. They are often in school branded as "nerds" or "bookworms." While those students are immersing themselves in their studies many of their peers are seeking acceptance among the wilder sorts, those with a tendency to resist discipline. Often those are simply unfortunate young men who for various reasons missed out on primary education, mainly basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills. Once the early training for that educational rooting is bypassed it's a very difficult struggle (almost impossible) to even get another chance to gain the mechanics or the ambition to ever become one of the academic set. In those high school years the scholastic types were often mocked and abused by those who had fallen in with the miscreants and had by peer pressure become one of them.
Those "bookworms" are the only ones who even have a chance much less the skills to become a teacher. Now those men are foisted with the responsibility to relate to (and somehow effect behavioral change) on the very social group which made their them lives miserable in their own high school years. It's like oil and water. Easy to understand why they are often ineffective and abandon their chosen profession.
Those "bookworms" are the only ones who even have a chance much less the skills to become a teacher. Now those men are foisted with the responsibility to relate to (and somehow effect behavioral change) on the very social group which made their them lives miserable in their own high school years. It's like oil and water. Easy to understand why they are often ineffective and abandon their chosen profession.
3
I agree that we need strong, supportive teaching that's sensitive to students' backgrounds and needs, regardless of the teacher's race. But I'm surprised at the reported expectation of "tough love" from black male teachers and I wonder to what extent it varies by region or district. I haven't seen this myself.
I'm a white male mathematics teacher of 16 years experience in a very diverse public high school in Chicago - I can't speak directly to such racial expectations. But I also help facilitate professional development sessions for a group of about 20 schools in our geographic area, including several that serve predominantly African-American populations and have relatively large numbers of African-American educators, some of whom I know quite well. I've never gotten a sense from them that they try to (or feel expected to be) harder on students than anyone else. The ones I most admire are thoughtful, level-headed, and supportive, with an intense belief that all students can succeed.
Now, I would love to see more such educators in the profession. My own school has no black male mathematics teachers and only one black male science teacher. And I help screen resumes and conduct interviews - we're not passing anyone up. There simply aren't enough black male teachers to go around, period. But I don't see any evidence that the ones that do exist are coming in feeling like they have some special disciplinary role that other teachers do not.
I'm a white male mathematics teacher of 16 years experience in a very diverse public high school in Chicago - I can't speak directly to such racial expectations. But I also help facilitate professional development sessions for a group of about 20 schools in our geographic area, including several that serve predominantly African-American populations and have relatively large numbers of African-American educators, some of whom I know quite well. I've never gotten a sense from them that they try to (or feel expected to be) harder on students than anyone else. The ones I most admire are thoughtful, level-headed, and supportive, with an intense belief that all students can succeed.
Now, I would love to see more such educators in the profession. My own school has no black male mathematics teachers and only one black male science teacher. And I help screen resumes and conduct interviews - we're not passing anyone up. There simply aren't enough black male teachers to go around, period. But I don't see any evidence that the ones that do exist are coming in feeling like they have some special disciplinary role that other teachers do not.
54
So, the answer is always about race until it is not about race - whatever conveniently fits the argument to justify one's beliefs. The article uses race to excuse black male teachers from opting out of a difficult profession. Joseph Mathews is a cop-out. Instead of staying in to make changes by developing his skills, he runs. The article uses race to, once again, blame teachers for the attitudes, motivations, and values taught and reinforced at home everyday and brought to school everyday. Look at the family - not the teacher, because kids growing up side-by-side in the same neighborhood bring values to class that result in one's daily challenges to perceived authority which does not result in learning, and the other's consistent good work habits that result in learning. The point the author misses is the fact that all students have a responsibility for their learning, and learning, like everything else, requires specific behaviors. Half the people who go into teaching leave within 5 years, the primary reason being dissatisfaction with the job. This is a problem, not a black male problem. But yes, we still need black males to go into teaching, so they can gather their evidence about this issue and add their voices to the fact that the solution does not lie in a blanket of accusation that teachers of other races go to work day in and day out to practice bias. That idea is a scheme, not a solution.
7
As a teacher in an all-black school, I must question the author's entire premise The black men (& women) who teach in our schools are exceptional teachers who do great work. None of our many black teachers & leaders fit his description
I realize the trend lately is to write opinion pieces based on mere assertions, anecdote & hyperbole, but really--can we at least get some data to support the premise? What percentage of black male teachers have the 'dysfunction' he speaks of as opposed to all teachers? What scientific basis is there for the assertion at all? Is the entire article based on the single personal bad experience the author had as a child?
Why do black men quit teaching? Why do any of us quit teaching? Nationally, the average turnover for all teachers is 17%, & this is far higher in charter schools.
It's increasingly an untenable job. It's not the kids.We need at least a college degree, our pay is not commensurate with our educational experience; we have no autonomy but all the responsibility; the people in charge typically have absolutely no experience, sometimes laughably so; both political parties embrace a testing mania that is unsupported by data & is contrary to good practice.
Black male teachers have their own sets of challenges on top of this, but to assert that it's because they 'have to' dispense 'tough love' is unsupported by any data I am aware of. I'm so tired of articles on education that are simply various forms of propaganda in disguise.
I realize the trend lately is to write opinion pieces based on mere assertions, anecdote & hyperbole, but really--can we at least get some data to support the premise? What percentage of black male teachers have the 'dysfunction' he speaks of as opposed to all teachers? What scientific basis is there for the assertion at all? Is the entire article based on the single personal bad experience the author had as a child?
Why do black men quit teaching? Why do any of us quit teaching? Nationally, the average turnover for all teachers is 17%, & this is far higher in charter schools.
It's increasingly an untenable job. It's not the kids.We need at least a college degree, our pay is not commensurate with our educational experience; we have no autonomy but all the responsibility; the people in charge typically have absolutely no experience, sometimes laughably so; both political parties embrace a testing mania that is unsupported by data & is contrary to good practice.
Black male teachers have their own sets of challenges on top of this, but to assert that it's because they 'have to' dispense 'tough love' is unsupported by any data I am aware of. I'm so tired of articles on education that are simply various forms of propaganda in disguise.
13
As a corollary, boys in general need to be treated more tolerantly towards how boys are. Instead of disciplining them for what is essentially part of stereotypical boy behavior and which is not in itself bad.
Professor Emdin,
I've heard another story about the fraught nature of black teachers/professors. The narrative goes as follows: black teachers have less authority in the eyes of students, both black and white. While the fact of white students doubting the ability of black teachers, male or female, to teach them effectively is not unexpected (though its ridiculous and indicative of this nation's racial distortions), it's the fact of black students resistance to being taught by black teachers--especially math and science subjects--that first shocks, then perplexes. I know a very qualified black female math teacher who has faced tough situations in her classroom with her dominantly black students in NYC.
I've heard another story about the fraught nature of black teachers/professors. The narrative goes as follows: black teachers have less authority in the eyes of students, both black and white. While the fact of white students doubting the ability of black teachers, male or female, to teach them effectively is not unexpected (though its ridiculous and indicative of this nation's racial distortions), it's the fact of black students resistance to being taught by black teachers--especially math and science subjects--that first shocks, then perplexes. I know a very qualified black female math teacher who has faced tough situations in her classroom with her dominantly black students in NYC.
2
Nonsense.
American public schools in the "inner city" are in chaos. A friend of mine in Indianapolis reports that his buddy was involved in breaking up over a dozen fights that involved pepper spray. A gang of kids followed him around, threatening to kill him. After a year, he left for an elite school. No one wants to teach, can teach, or should teach in this nightmare.
Now, black male high school teachers presumably leave in large numbers because, like everyone else in these ghetto schools, they find such schools a daily nightmare and face a choice of burning out slowly; exiting to suburban schools with few black students, where they may feel alienated; or becoming tyrants in a futile effort to secure control and provide a learning environment for the kids who want to succeed. They choose to leave altogether, instead.
Most male teachers of any ethnicity work in high schools and junior highs.
The Times' vacuous op-ed does not offer anything practical or even acknowledge the problem. Instead, it concludes in empty, pious hopes for more "training" (presumably offered by the professor and his friends, for vast amounts of money) that will teach black male teachers and everyone else about their "biases." What nonsense.
I'll tell you what: have the professor post a video of himself teaching in an inner-city school and gaining sufficient control of a real class of real students that he can deliver a lesson in mathematics, history or English literature. Then we'll listen.
American public schools in the "inner city" are in chaos. A friend of mine in Indianapolis reports that his buddy was involved in breaking up over a dozen fights that involved pepper spray. A gang of kids followed him around, threatening to kill him. After a year, he left for an elite school. No one wants to teach, can teach, or should teach in this nightmare.
Now, black male high school teachers presumably leave in large numbers because, like everyone else in these ghetto schools, they find such schools a daily nightmare and face a choice of burning out slowly; exiting to suburban schools with few black students, where they may feel alienated; or becoming tyrants in a futile effort to secure control and provide a learning environment for the kids who want to succeed. They choose to leave altogether, instead.
Most male teachers of any ethnicity work in high schools and junior highs.
The Times' vacuous op-ed does not offer anything practical or even acknowledge the problem. Instead, it concludes in empty, pious hopes for more "training" (presumably offered by the professor and his friends, for vast amounts of money) that will teach black male teachers and everyone else about their "biases." What nonsense.
I'll tell you what: have the professor post a video of himself teaching in an inner-city school and gaining sufficient control of a real class of real students that he can deliver a lesson in mathematics, history or English literature. Then we'll listen.
8
After reading this three times, I cannot find a single concrete suggestion for change; calling for 'acknowledging their biases and 'a more thoughtful approach' are not a very satisfying recommendations. It would seem that all teachers face the same problems of unruly behavior, regardless of race or sex of either teachers or students, and that teaching cannot take place amidst chaos. Why should teachers be expected to be drill sergeants or jailers, and why should interested students be neglected while teachers try to cope with 'criminalized' miscreants? Rather than expecting black male teachers to solve the family and cultural problems that may have 'criminalized' these kids, would it not make more sense to send them to special schools designed specifically around their needs and allow well-behaved kids to receive a decent education in their local schools?
2
I teach. There are frustrating times/kids who have been discouraging. One example relevant to this article is I had half-siblings. The older brother's father was in jail, the younger sister's was at home with their mother. The boy was an exceptional artist (I teach art) for his age. After Christmas, he came back to school very negative, and I had to throw him out of the class several times. I asked a co-worker what she thought the problem was. "He had a rough Christmas" - His father was in jail, his sister's wasn't, and the comparison for him was painful. And she adored her older brother, who later made someone pregnant when he was 14. But I have NEVER thought about denying most of my troubled students the opportunity to go over incomplete projects. The tough love described here is not my approach. If the kids aren't allowed to complete their art project, they will have no art, they will not be exposed to something that will be healthy for them in the long run. There aren't easy answers! I've had white students who also need some firm handling, but I don't have less interaction with them because I teach in predominantly Black and Brown schools. I'm not glossing over the issues that these kids face outside and in their homes. I've had difficult students, but the schools are partly to blame. I take my role model role seriously. And, as far as "giving up" on a child, I remember the reverse: I was more challenging to the first Black teacher I had then he was to me, poor guy!
1
It is difficult to teach black male students, a lot less so, black female students. This is an unfortunate fact. There is no silver bullet to fix this problem. But SUBSTANTIAL IMPROVEMENTS could be made, if more resources are allocated to educate black students, though it would just be impossible to elevate their academic skills equal to white or Asian students.
Employing more black male teachers is unlikely to work. Instead hire as many more white female teachers as possible. Their dress code & physical appearance are important.
Black boys would instinctively respect white women who can instill lessons into black boys much more effectively than white men or black men & women. Such learned mutual respect between them could carry through middle and to high school. Of course there would be a lot of practical difficulties on the way, which should be addressed.
Integrating residential areas is not practical, at least for another generation.
Protection of white female teachers from a MINORITY of high school black male predators must be taken into consideration.
In spite of all these measures, a sizable portion of black male students couldn't be educated adequately, but a majority of them could be educated and a far larger (than now) minority of black students could advance to professional education and beyond. And the overall crime rate among black men would substantially drop.
An added method is preschool education, starting at 3 or earlier, by white female teachers.
Employing more black male teachers is unlikely to work. Instead hire as many more white female teachers as possible. Their dress code & physical appearance are important.
Black boys would instinctively respect white women who can instill lessons into black boys much more effectively than white men or black men & women. Such learned mutual respect between them could carry through middle and to high school. Of course there would be a lot of practical difficulties on the way, which should be addressed.
Integrating residential areas is not practical, at least for another generation.
Protection of white female teachers from a MINORITY of high school black male predators must be taken into consideration.
In spite of all these measures, a sizable portion of black male students couldn't be educated adequately, but a majority of them could be educated and a far larger (than now) minority of black students could advance to professional education and beyond. And the overall crime rate among black men would substantially drop.
An added method is preschool education, starting at 3 or earlier, by white female teachers.
1
Thank you for this thoughtful piece. As a white female teacher who, with several years experience teaching at the college level, chose to teach in "tough" public schools in Mississippi and Alabama, I also saw the results of low expectations for black male students. Unfortunately, I did not get cooperation from administrators or, too often, parents when students would not engage in classroom activities regardless of how "inquiry based" they were. The assumption that teachers alone (and we do spend most of our days without contact with our colleagues), can come up with strategies to overcome deep socioeconomic problems puts too much responsibility on us for student engagement, which explains, at least in part, the problem of retention. As the best teacher I had the experience of knowing once told me, students know by the end of the first week of class if a teacher is valued by the administration; if she or he is not, no amount of creative teaching can turn a bad situation around because that teacher will be under the bus in any conflict if the administration lacks the will to change the status quo. Black male teachers may be expected to administer "tough love" but females are expected to administer "magic love" regardless of their work environment. In fact, the janitor at one school told me, "If these kids treated me the way they treat you, my union would do something." Without supportive unions, administrations, and communities, teachers will continue to be blamed it all.
114
And that's why you moved out to Arizona.
I agree, in NC they have a teachers union, but it does nothing and is nothing of value in a corrupted system.
1
It's not the government's job to raise anyone's kids. That job rests largely with the parents and the adults in the community. Teachers are on the third line in the role of raising a child. Some teachers may have played an exceptional role in the long term development of a child but we shouldn't use a few success stories as a model. Parents will always have the greatest impact on a child's life, for better or worse. Teachers often spend only one year or maybe a few years with a student before the student moves on in school and in life. Legalizing drugs on the other hand will reduce gang violence and incarceration in the black community leaving more men around to raise their children. Gang violence and gang activity is a direct result of young men battling for their economic interests in controlling the sale of drugs within their communities. Gang leaders and drug dealers often serve as models for inner-city youths rather than parents and teachers. The criminalization of drugs leaves convicts without any good options, which leads to a high rate of recidivism. Drug rehabilitation and intervention programs, without the stigma of a criminal record, could reduce the amount of drug users over time. Improved teacher training will only have a marginal impact on breaking the negative cycles with the black community. It's time for a bold transformative adjustment.
1
Sorry bold moves, it is the government's job to teach the children when those children do not get the teaching at home. This happens throughout society, schools included. While we would all hope that your sentiment held true, unfortunately, it does not.
This article perfectly illustrates the damage that the psychobabble of educational training has wrought on disadvantaged people. Hearing calls for teachers to take into account "each student's unique needs" makes me retch. In what universe can a teacher of 30-40 kids completely personalize the educational approach? This emphasis on individualism has ruined education in the U.S., especially in poor communities. Not too long ago, classrooms were managed as a disciplined collective that served the needs of the 80% of kids who were able to control their behavior and focus long enough to assimilate the material. In the quest to meet the needs of the other 20%, we've sacrificed the majority. Teachers are now expected to understand the circumstances and psychological makeup of every child - an utterly impossible task. Well-run educational systems in other parts of the world don't take this approach. As a result, they're able to provide quality educations to kids at a fraction of our cost - without computers, metal detectors, or social workers. Economic imbalance is a huge problem in the U.S., but a significant part of it is due to the lack of quality public education.
13
At the end of the day students need to work hard and study hard. And many do, and they do better because of it. There is a mindset problem for the teachers and students that disconnects hard work from academic success. And I'm annoyed by all the efforts to innovate the way math and sciences are taught to captivate kids who are assumed too dull or inattentive to appreciate the simple elegance of math taught as it was up until the late 90's. I leaned trigonomety and calculus from well-worn books written in the early to mid 60's, which included instrution with simple language--numbers and equations and then perhaps the word "hence" and "thus," each followed by a colon with a result below that would make sense after a few moments of active mental puzzling. Obviously there are a lot of issues for many students in the poorer and more chaotic and dysfuntional communities--from trauma, attachment insecurity, or even lead exposure--and perhaps love does come into play, but so does logic and the uplifting reality of hard work.
2
The picture says a lot. High school? Young men who, in other times and places, would be bread-winners, peace officers, military officers, adventurers--anything but flotsam and jetsam in the rich pool of America.
I sympathize with Mr. Emdin, but like too many, he seems to think the ills of the poor can be fixed in schools, even with tough love. The home is a major contributor to "education." As one writer put it (Hariri) humans are born prematurely, probably as a result of adaptation to the large brain and the cranium. Other animals are ready to stand, run, and feed after minutes or hours. Humans are still developing, outside the womb, for years, and during that time, their habits take shape. They absorb their environment, many doing it so thoroughly that they remain faithful throughout their lives to their community totems and taboos. Many start school with the foundations of schooling already in place. Many do not.
There were always poor among us. Human economies produce not just wealthy people; they produce poor people.
Of course, the school system needs to be fairer, but unless the economy is drastically changed, there will always be some left behind—whether in inner
cities or in rural and mountain communities.
I sympathize with Mr. Emdin, but like too many, he seems to think the ills of the poor can be fixed in schools, even with tough love. The home is a major contributor to "education." As one writer put it (Hariri) humans are born prematurely, probably as a result of adaptation to the large brain and the cranium. Other animals are ready to stand, run, and feed after minutes or hours. Humans are still developing, outside the womb, for years, and during that time, their habits take shape. They absorb their environment, many doing it so thoroughly that they remain faithful throughout their lives to their community totems and taboos. Many start school with the foundations of schooling already in place. Many do not.
There were always poor among us. Human economies produce not just wealthy people; they produce poor people.
Of course, the school system needs to be fairer, but unless the economy is drastically changed, there will always be some left behind—whether in inner
cities or in rural and mountain communities.
3
Here is the obvious solution: Smaller classes. I have been advocating this for years, but the public does not want to pay for it.
Primary grades, pre-K-1st: max student load of 12-15 with an aide.
Lower elementary, grades 2-5: 14-20 and an aide shared among four teachers.
Middle school, grades 6-9: Departmentalized with a total load of eighty students, no one class exceeding 20. English language arts teachers limited to 16 per class, maximum load of seventy. Aides available in copy room and as floaters to escort recalcitrant students to an isolation room.
Secondary school, grades 10-12: Maximum class size, 30, with limits on English composition/grammar classes so that total student load does not exceed 80. Those English class loads should be 20 or fewer. Vocational courses are to be limited to 10-16 per class group.
My vision calls for doubling the spending on pre-K through grade 12. Everyone will learn better in small classes. Trust me--been there, done that. I was part of a study where I had the privilege of teaching 14 eighth graders in a self contained class. All of them passed their state tests for entry into high school courses-- and they (and I) were in a school where the passing norm was 15%. Class size is significant to success!
Cut class sizes to half of what they are now, and dramatic changes will take place when teachers are allowed to teach individuals what they need as unique children aspiring to become productive adults.
Primary grades, pre-K-1st: max student load of 12-15 with an aide.
Lower elementary, grades 2-5: 14-20 and an aide shared among four teachers.
Middle school, grades 6-9: Departmentalized with a total load of eighty students, no one class exceeding 20. English language arts teachers limited to 16 per class, maximum load of seventy. Aides available in copy room and as floaters to escort recalcitrant students to an isolation room.
Secondary school, grades 10-12: Maximum class size, 30, with limits on English composition/grammar classes so that total student load does not exceed 80. Those English class loads should be 20 or fewer. Vocational courses are to be limited to 10-16 per class group.
My vision calls for doubling the spending on pre-K through grade 12. Everyone will learn better in small classes. Trust me--been there, done that. I was part of a study where I had the privilege of teaching 14 eighth graders in a self contained class. All of them passed their state tests for entry into high school courses-- and they (and I) were in a school where the passing norm was 15%. Class size is significant to success!
Cut class sizes to half of what they are now, and dramatic changes will take place when teachers are allowed to teach individuals what they need as unique children aspiring to become productive adults.
7
This article keeps saying the African American male teachers would not be well trained. One certified teacher on average is as good as another.
And yes, I feel more African American male teachers would help African American boys do better in school. Did Justice Sandra Day O'Connor inspire Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Did Muhammed Ali inspire Mike Tyson? Did Althea Gibson inspire the Williams sisters?
Black boys won't feel so alien when they're taught by black men.
To put this in perspective, imagine girls who had stickly male teachers for their entire life. Do you think their perspectives and aspirations might be skewed?
And yes, I feel more African American male teachers would help African American boys do better in school. Did Justice Sandra Day O'Connor inspire Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Did Muhammed Ali inspire Mike Tyson? Did Althea Gibson inspire the Williams sisters?
Black boys won't feel so alien when they're taught by black men.
To put this in perspective, imagine girls who had stickly male teachers for their entire life. Do you think their perspectives and aspirations might be skewed?
3
Tough love is a term that only the best, most veteran teachers should be allowed to use. It's an empty cliche in the mouths of administrators, policy makers, and Ed school theorists, but I can assure you that my mom, who taught in public schools for 43 years (with majority minority enrollments for the last 15 or so), knows what "tough love" means and how to do it the right way.
Young teachers need to be mentored by proven veterans, preferably ones who have stayed and succeeded in the same schools/communities for decades.
Whether such teachers even exist anymore...well isn't that the root of the problem?
Young teachers need to be mentored by proven veterans, preferably ones who have stayed and succeeded in the same schools/communities for decades.
Whether such teachers even exist anymore...well isn't that the root of the problem?
4
Does anyone else find it disturbing that Prof. Emdin is using a blanket stereotype to make his argument? And he is using this stereotype to try to fix a problem that was created created in part by racial stereotypes. Like most stereotypes, any claim that most people of a certain race behave in a certain way, will prove to be unfounded.
Emdin's ostensible claim that this article is not "a statement about some inherent inability of black male teachers" falls flat. It is out of sync with the tone set in the rest of the article.
I can't help but think that this man is not the right one to write this article. He is living in the morningside campus - an isolated enclave of white faces inside a predominantly african american neighborhood. And he is in a place focusing on teaching theory.
Enough of these articles theorizing on the theory of teaching theory of teaching. As a mathematics phd student, I know that there is no substitute for raw enthusiasm when it comes to teaching.
Emdin's ostensible claim that this article is not "a statement about some inherent inability of black male teachers" falls flat. It is out of sync with the tone set in the rest of the article.
I can't help but think that this man is not the right one to write this article. He is living in the morningside campus - an isolated enclave of white faces inside a predominantly african american neighborhood. And he is in a place focusing on teaching theory.
Enough of these articles theorizing on the theory of teaching theory of teaching. As a mathematics phd student, I know that there is no substitute for raw enthusiasm when it comes to teaching.
6
Institutional education for African American males has always been laced with the contradictions of a nation whose proclamations and practices (theory and praxis) are rooted in racism and power. The idea of empowering someone with knowledge that might alter the power dynamic has always been a dilemma for American schools. It's one of the reasons that educating Blacks was illegal until after the Civil War. It was the same with segregated schools until after the Civil Rights movement. Before the ink was wet on the Bill that forced integration, the inner cities saw white flight into suburban independent school disrticts. The point of debarcation was the property tax bracket wherein the new communities drew the line. I experienced the segregated shools of the south and the immediate aftermath of integration. This is when "the talk" that African Americans had to have with their sons became a matter of life or death. As I read this piece it resonated within me; the duel role of African American men, not only as teachers but mentors in a society that has been lethal in dealing with Black boys; especially when they feel threatend. After spending more than twenty six years in structured curricula with students, teachers, professors and scholars from all over the world, I have discovered that the problem is not in the African American boys nor the absence of positive Black role models. The problem is a structerd culture that devalues black males. A culture that sees them as a threat.
38
True, but the questions I have: 1) Why does our culture see young black males as a threat and 2) What steps can we all take to change that culture?
What a student gets out of school has nothing to do with someone trying to prevent from gaining power. It has to do with the moral values of the student and a system that is failing to create a climate to help the teacher teach.
2
Yawn. Why do so many articles have to be about race, when many of institutions are failing?
Our K-12 system performs abysmally across the board compared to other industrialized nations. While inner city black youth are failed by the system, so are many more millions of poor white students in Appalachia and millions of Latino students across the country. Our education system fails poor children everywhere and only does a mediocre job with middle class kids.
So I agree with the author’s “call for a more thoughtful approach to teacher recruitment and retention, and a renewed focus on teacher preparation”. Performance is so poor, that we may need to up root most of the system to get rid of failed practices. Then we would end up helping students of all races.
Our K-12 system performs abysmally across the board compared to other industrialized nations. While inner city black youth are failed by the system, so are many more millions of poor white students in Appalachia and millions of Latino students across the country. Our education system fails poor children everywhere and only does a mediocre job with middle class kids.
So I agree with the author’s “call for a more thoughtful approach to teacher recruitment and retention, and a renewed focus on teacher preparation”. Performance is so poor, that we may need to up root most of the system to get rid of failed practices. Then we would end up helping students of all races.
3
David: Our most pervasive failed practice is the economy. We've been belabored for decades with guff about the free market and how it benefits all. It does not. The evidence is all around us, and nowhere more glaringly than in poor areas of our cities--and this was true long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Good ideas but they don't in any way mean that it is not helpful for every student to see black male teachers in the classroom.
Excellent and inspiring black male teachers surely will inspire young black men and boys.
But such teachers will also show every other student, of every other ethnicity, whatever their sex, that black males are not just sports stars, criminals, security guards, preachers and Presidents of the USA(!!!), but people, in the holistic sense of the word. That it is normal to see black men as integral and key pillars of our society, in positions of authority, in positions of respect, in positions important to society and to the lives of the boys, girls, young men and young women who are doing the experiencing. See that black men are just like, well, just like everyone else. What did the Who sing about "see me, touch me, feel me...." I remember a black man irritatingly responding to a white man who bumped him in a not crowded subway car, saying, "don't act as if I'm not there." That seems a fairly reasonable request. How about "act as if I'm just like you?"
Excellent and inspiring black male teachers surely will inspire young black men and boys.
But such teachers will also show every other student, of every other ethnicity, whatever their sex, that black males are not just sports stars, criminals, security guards, preachers and Presidents of the USA(!!!), but people, in the holistic sense of the word. That it is normal to see black men as integral and key pillars of our society, in positions of authority, in positions of respect, in positions important to society and to the lives of the boys, girls, young men and young women who are doing the experiencing. See that black men are just like, well, just like everyone else. What did the Who sing about "see me, touch me, feel me...." I remember a black man irritatingly responding to a white man who bumped him in a not crowded subway car, saying, "don't act as if I'm not there." That seems a fairly reasonable request. How about "act as if I'm just like you?"
3
"... teachers are not just expected to teach and be role models; they are also tasked with the work of disciplinarians."
Another faux pas.
Public school teachers willingly tackle "disciplinary" problems they either know or believe they have a chance of resolving.
They also routinely never hesitate to avoid situations they they know they might not be able to or definitely cannot handle, and dismiss these outright with the scripted "we are educators now disciplinarians" excuse.
Discipline in public schools needs to be meted out fairly and evenly.
Another faux pas.
Public school teachers willingly tackle "disciplinary" problems they either know or believe they have a chance of resolving.
They also routinely never hesitate to avoid situations they they know they might not be able to or definitely cannot handle, and dismiss these outright with the scripted "we are educators now disciplinarians" excuse.
Discipline in public schools needs to be meted out fairly and evenly.
In sociology, racialization is attributing racial identities to a relationship, social practice, or group that did not identify itself as such.
What we really don't need is the racialization of teaching by the Grey lady.
What we really don't need is the racialization of teaching by the Grey lady.
4
@ SteveRR CA - Steve I wrote a full comment yesterday as reply to your comment at Burkini rather than write as reply. Just for the record that comment/reply is at
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/opinion/sunday/at-the-beach-in-my-burk...
Now to racialization. It appears you may be a sociologist and if you are it might be good to tell us readers that and then go further as concerns racialization. As an American I know that all of us were steeped - brainwashed - to using "race" and as a Swedish citizen I know that Swedish scientists and at least one exceptional Science Journalist Karin Boye know that these races were the creation of racists and have no scientific basis. Read taopraxis comments and you will see the same point of view.
So if you are a sociologist why don't you go further here, pick up on Prof Dorothy Roberts' lead at the end of her book Fatal Invention and explain that unless the US can change society - Universal Health Care, better support for all pregnant women, and on and on - having teachers selected simply by the color "black" won't solve anything.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/opinion/sunday/at-the-beach-in-my-burk...
Now to racialization. It appears you may be a sociologist and if you are it might be good to tell us readers that and then go further as concerns racialization. As an American I know that all of us were steeped - brainwashed - to using "race" and as a Swedish citizen I know that Swedish scientists and at least one exceptional Science Journalist Karin Boye know that these races were the creation of racists and have no scientific basis. Read taopraxis comments and you will see the same point of view.
So if you are a sociologist why don't you go further here, pick up on Prof Dorothy Roberts' lead at the end of her book Fatal Invention and explain that unless the US can change society - Universal Health Care, better support for all pregnant women, and on and on - having teachers selected simply by the color "black" won't solve anything.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Very poignant article! Now we need a collaborative solution that will work for all. It cannot be based on a one size fits all solution as noted in the article, but needs to developed by multiple constituencies and be implementable in inner city schools, in the bayou, in Appalachia, in Montgomery County, MD, etc.
This article raises excellent questions and statements about our educational system and how it needs to change for black students.
I manage a school garden and am involved with Master Gardeners. I have seen black teachers yell at black students, while white students in the same class were doing the same thing, and were rewarded. It was explained to me as "tough love", and that these students had to be prepared for a tough life.
I believe that black teachers get substandard training compared to whites, and teach in increasingly segregated public schools. This results in great pressure on the teachers, and punishes students. We must change this unjust system.
I manage a school garden and am involved with Master Gardeners. I have seen black teachers yell at black students, while white students in the same class were doing the same thing, and were rewarded. It was explained to me as "tough love", and that these students had to be prepared for a tough life.
I believe that black teachers get substandard training compared to whites, and teach in increasingly segregated public schools. This results in great pressure on the teachers, and punishes students. We must change this unjust system.
2
Tough love is not love at all. It is often just disguised hate.
We need to stop emphasizing degrees in education, which essentially teach nothing. We need to focus on courses like African American studies and good old geography.
We need to stop emphasizing degrees in education, which essentially teach nothing. We need to focus on courses like African American studies and good old geography.
And yet here you are publishing articles for the NYT despite feeling targeted. Perhaps there is more merit to the approach than you think.
1
Is there an argument here? Invisible tax, more like invisible argument. Thin.
6
Having taught in a 50-50 Bible belt school and being white, I don't differentiate black males and black females all that much. The black kids I taught all lived separate lives. Separate churches, separate playgrounds, separate doctors, and separate family values. Their dialects, their humor, and their music were all distinctively black whether they were male or female. It's hard to teach kids of a different race. It's hard to tech kids of a different sex. It's good days and bad days. Teaching in general is hard work.
9
Teachers are underpaid and blamed for intractable problems that are not their fault. The teachers I know also have bizarre stories about the inexplicable incompetence of principals in public schools. Why would black men want the job?
6
Because most jobs available today to workers with the average intelligence level and knowledge base of public-school teachers are worse in many respects.
Really. This is a cop-out if I ever heard one. Someone has to instill discipline! It's part of life. It's not wrong to do this. White male teachers need to do the same thing. Way too much "sensitivity" here.
9
You have missed the point entirely.
Here's a thought...
Train, support, pay and honor teachers as craftspersons in their profession.
Let them exercise their craft -- let them be professionals -- without placing any other expectations or demands on them except meeting the highest standards of their profession.
Stop treating them as surrogates for parents, for law enforcement, or for community mores - blaming them when they fail that charge.
Judge them against the standards of the profession - not against some unrealistic and unfair expectation that they can unto the failures of others.
We don't ask other professionals - doctors, nurses, attorneys, CPAs, etc. - to do more than their professions demand. Why do we not only ask this of teachers, but then treat them as hired hands - disrespecting (in word, deed, and paycheck) their professions?
Train, support, pay and honor teachers as craftspersons in their profession.
Let them exercise their craft -- let them be professionals -- without placing any other expectations or demands on them except meeting the highest standards of their profession.
Stop treating them as surrogates for parents, for law enforcement, or for community mores - blaming them when they fail that charge.
Judge them against the standards of the profession - not against some unrealistic and unfair expectation that they can unto the failures of others.
We don't ask other professionals - doctors, nurses, attorneys, CPAs, etc. - to do more than their professions demand. Why do we not only ask this of teachers, but then treat them as hired hands - disrespecting (in word, deed, and paycheck) their professions?
32
Teachers are not really professionals. Professionals have far more autonomy in their work than teachers do.
Professionals don't punch time clocks or follow precise work rules established by others.
We just let teachers apply this aggrandizing label to themselves as a form of cheap compensation. It's easier to engage in a fiction elevating the status of teaching than it is to pay teachers better.
Professionals don't punch time clocks or follow precise work rules established by others.
We just let teachers apply this aggrandizing label to themselves as a form of cheap compensation. It's easier to engage in a fiction elevating the status of teaching than it is to pay teachers better.
Well I am both a teacher and, as it happens, a landlord. In both roles I try to be professional-- To spell out expectations and work hard at my job. I actually think I'm good at both because I don't let emotions get in the way. I forgive mistakes and move on while keeping high expectations. Though I am a white woman, some of my most appreciative students have been African Americans, including black males. They appreciate me for seeing everyone as an individual with goals and being willing to help them understand a challenging subject, Physics, and giving them a sense of accomplishment.
3
I had two elementary and several middle school teachers who were Black. They taught me to see beyond skin color as when I was a child, they were Mr. or Ms. So-and-so to me first above anything. From what I remembered, they disciplined everyone equally.
To this article, I have to say behavior is behavior. It's really up to the teachers themselves to make sure they are treating students more or less equally when punishment is meted out in the classroom. It's true that studies show Black students are treated more harshly, I suspect, both by Black and non-Black teachers, just as Blacks are treated unequally by Black and non-Black employers, landlords, and law enforcement. But being Black should not be a an excuse for turning in homework late, disrupting class, or, as happened to one of my middle school teachers, being punched in the face. Black or other teachers should ask themselves, if this student were of another color, how would I treat them and act accordingly.
Disciplining students is hard in general. I have taught, but at the college and post-grad level. I have had students who come from money, Ivy League colleges, influential families. I treat them the same as I do other less advantaged students; if you do not do work to the level required, I will not give you a good grade. In medicine this is especially important -- they could end up hurting or killing someone.
To this article, I have to say behavior is behavior. It's really up to the teachers themselves to make sure they are treating students more or less equally when punishment is meted out in the classroom. It's true that studies show Black students are treated more harshly, I suspect, both by Black and non-Black teachers, just as Blacks are treated unequally by Black and non-Black employers, landlords, and law enforcement. But being Black should not be a an excuse for turning in homework late, disrupting class, or, as happened to one of my middle school teachers, being punched in the face. Black or other teachers should ask themselves, if this student were of another color, how would I treat them and act accordingly.
Disciplining students is hard in general. I have taught, but at the college and post-grad level. I have had students who come from money, Ivy League colleges, influential families. I treat them the same as I do other less advantaged students; if you do not do work to the level required, I will not give you a good grade. In medicine this is especially important -- they could end up hurting or killing someone.
3
When I was in high school in the late 1970's I went to the inner city school in my district because they had created a rigorous college prep magnet program there to attract White students from the other high schools in the district. It was wildly successful, we had 10 kids in my graduating class get into Stanford for example. But we basically were a school within a school, as there were few if any Black or Hispanic students from the local student body that enrolled in the magnet program. This school did not lack resources, and any student who wanted to participate could. So what would it have taken to enroll more minority students? In addition, the immigrant children that lived locally did enroll in the magnet program and did well.
What would it take to close the achievement gap? How much is truly a lack of resources or qualified teachers (I don't think those really explain much of it), how much is poverty as a cultural factor that limits achievement, and how much is plain vanilla racism? If African American boys were given more leeway and second chances would that make a huge difference?
I sympathize with the teachers who are being asked to play a role other than teacher. But what is the answer? Has anyone found a system that genuinely works and isn't just a form of cherry-picking the best students (like charters do)?
What would it take to close the achievement gap? How much is truly a lack of resources or qualified teachers (I don't think those really explain much of it), how much is poverty as a cultural factor that limits achievement, and how much is plain vanilla racism? If African American boys were given more leeway and second chances would that make a huge difference?
I sympathize with the teachers who are being asked to play a role other than teacher. But what is the answer? Has anyone found a system that genuinely works and isn't just a form of cherry-picking the best students (like charters do)?
4
You are asking the right question . "What would it take to close the achievement gap". Now do a simple comparison of a successful school or two and a school which is not successful. ie a school where most of the students go on to college and a school where many of the students have either have dropped out or do not graduate. That is the place to start comparing and obviously I have done that and the operative difference is behavior. What is critical to understand is that belligerent behavior is a CRY for HELP not an affront to authority. Why folks have not used the most basic engineering concept of comparing something that works with something that does not work is a mystery to me.
I teach at the largest Catholic university in the United States. My classes are populated by Muslims, Christians, and Jews. If I include atheists, Catholics are a minority. I do not teach differently to Muslims or Jews or Atheists. Should I? Is their religious affiliation any less important to them than their race? If we continue to fragment students, do we not communicate to them that they are different? That argument has been used in the past for very negative justifications. How do we expect these students to become contributing members of a diverse society when we fragment them in school?
23
Teaching at a university gives you almost no ground for comparison to urban public schools.
Students at the primarily black title I middle school where I teach are subjected to a wide swath of living conditions and experiences, including some that are extremely traumatic to a still-developing person. To suggest that they ALL can be taught just as you might teach a well fed white middle class student from the suburbs displays a great misunderstanding.
Teachers need to be trained in conflict resolution, recognizing signs of trauma, and positive behavior promotion in order to end the cycle of shouting and suspensions that is rampant in our urban public schools.
Students at the primarily black title I middle school where I teach are subjected to a wide swath of living conditions and experiences, including some that are extremely traumatic to a still-developing person. To suggest that they ALL can be taught just as you might teach a well fed white middle class student from the suburbs displays a great misunderstanding.
Teachers need to be trained in conflict resolution, recognizing signs of trauma, and positive behavior promotion in order to end the cycle of shouting and suspensions that is rampant in our urban public schools.
Was there a single fact or databit in this piece? I must have missed it. This is anecdote and speculation. Interesting, but not the basis for any sort of policy.
16
I had exactly the same reaction.
This essay should have been called "My Gut Feelings."
This essay should have been called "My Gut Feelings."
A black teacher says, "“I can’t look those black boys in the face and make them feel like I felt in school anymore." Why not? He knows how he was taught (and how to teach, since it evidently worked!), so what's changed?
14
This article is chock full of very important information that every American citizen interested in education and the plight of poor Black people should have. The Black family has fallen apart because young black men are entering adulthood poorly educated and lacking the skill sets to get decent jobs. Education is now and has always been the key. I personally worked as an advocate for poor children with disabilities in my own county here in Maryland. Most of the families I worked with were African American. I have personally witnessed how black boys are treated to much harsher discipline than all other races of students. I have also noticed how many Black educators make a point of treating Black students much more harshly than white or Hispanic students. They do this primarily to earn brownie points with White co-workers.In one school I visited frequently there was a Black male administrator who made a point of never greeting or speaking to the Black students who attended his mostly white public school and he treated the parents of these students much the same way. It almost goes without saying that Black students in this school did not fare well.It is time to speak truth to power and point out bigotry in public education regardless of where the bigotry is coming from. There is so much unharvested talent in these poor communities and we cannot allow this treasure to be squandered anymore.
6
What an indictment of school systems that would hire a person of color JUST for the disciplinary aspects with students of their color! On the other hand, men of color should be hired to teach because they just might be darned good at it and because they should be in the profession just as males of color are in the classroom.
This is an excellent column, Professor Emdin! You are spot on in each point, that any problem begins with poverty, inequitable distribution of resources and criminalization of black men and won't be fixed with the race of their teacher. As an elderly, retired white teacher, let me add to that the prejudice that some white teachers exhibit, their prejudice preventing them from providing the structure and discipline required to meet each student's needs, afraid they might step on someone's toes, fairness not in their heads and fairness not in their deeds.
This racial animus needs to end, now, for everyone's sake, black, white, brown or purple. It serves no beneficial purpose to anyone.
Thank you for speaking out. Your book title sounds like a must-read for educators.
This is an excellent column, Professor Emdin! You are spot on in each point, that any problem begins with poverty, inequitable distribution of resources and criminalization of black men and won't be fixed with the race of their teacher. As an elderly, retired white teacher, let me add to that the prejudice that some white teachers exhibit, their prejudice preventing them from providing the structure and discipline required to meet each student's needs, afraid they might step on someone's toes, fairness not in their heads and fairness not in their deeds.
This racial animus needs to end, now, for everyone's sake, black, white, brown or purple. It serves no beneficial purpose to anyone.
Thank you for speaking out. Your book title sounds like a must-read for educators.
34
Well there was absolutely no evidence provided that school systems actually do hire people of color solely to be disciplinarians. That is just the unsupported opinion of the writer.
These are opinion pieces not statements of fact. This article is just one guy's hunch and seems to be a gross over-generalization.
These are opinion pieces not statements of fact. This article is just one guy's hunch and seems to be a gross over-generalization.
1
Where it begins has nothing to do with schooling. We need to keep the administrators and gurus out of our education and leave it to teachers to teach. This kind of thinking is part of the problem.
2
A more thoughtful approach to teaching is needed as well. Teachers need to be given time to get to know their students, their neighborhoods, the challenges they face. Teachers don't need to be Black or male (I taught in a Baltimore-area high school for seven years and I am neither), but they need to be aware of the challenges they face (having after-school jobs that support their families, needing to care for younger siblings while parents work, food uncertainty, homelessness, unstable parents) and fit the education to what students can manage.
There is also a way to discipline respectfully - to acknowledge that students are young adults who have oftentimes taken on adult responsibilities at a too-early age, but to remember that they are still children who need caring guidance. Teachers can only do this in less-crowded classrooms with time built into the curriculum to make the lessons matter to students wherever we find them. I learned this on the job, through trial and error, not in my teacher-training course.
There is also a way to discipline respectfully - to acknowledge that students are young adults who have oftentimes taken on adult responsibilities at a too-early age, but to remember that they are still children who need caring guidance. Teachers can only do this in less-crowded classrooms with time built into the curriculum to make the lessons matter to students wherever we find them. I learned this on the job, through trial and error, not in my teacher-training course.
89
The only thing a teacher needs to know and the student is how a student learns and this should be established early in each students schooling. You are mistaking teaching for parenting.
2
I know that the situation in Germany cannot be compared to the one in the USA, but we also have our share of foreign pupils, of various ethnicities. While I was still working, I always enjoyed those classes with a great range of social and ethnic backgrounds. The pupils knew what I expected of them - each single one of them, and that was attentiveness in class, work, homework done properly. If one had a problem, I always made time for that pupil and my kids knew that I liked and respected them, and they respected me in turn. This may sound like an idealized description, but it really was like that; above all, they knew that I demanded the exact same of each of them, no differences or allowances made. And - I never thought of my own experiences at school when I taught, as that was the past.
Here is some " tough love " for the author. He states that black men are " criminalized ".Sure about that?
1
"Teachers hear the phrase “tough love” all the time; it is used to justify hurtful practices such as not giving black students the second chances that others receive to complete assignments, ....."
To put it politely, HogWash.
Ira Block
To put it politely, HogWash.
Ira Block
7
This is a poorly researched, poorly written article that seems to advocate nothing in particularly except the perception, held by many whites, that black students come from a defective culture and so nothing can help them. I think that there are many good reasons to increase the proportion of nonwhite teachers. First, empirical studies HAVE shown that students do perform better when they have a teacher who shares the same ethnicity. Second, our schools have become majority nonwhite. Students deserve a teaching workforce that is a realistic representation of the composition of the student body and the nation's demographics as a whole. Third, white teachers without multicultural training have a tendency to approach nonwhite students with a racial-deficit model of student learning. I read an article by a woman recalling her early days as an English teacher in a majority nonwhite school. She remembered one teacher who had great knowledge of the subject, but called the Asian students "rice eaters." Are our children really served by having someone like that in the classroom? I would take a black teacher who needs a little more experience over someone like that any day. Last, black teachers are more likely than white teachers to accept jobs in the urban areas, which high concentrations of nonwhite students. I'm surprised at the Times for publishing this article! Mr. Emdin seems to have no knowledge of the subject about which he writes!
4
Not sure about the thesis--better teacher training as silver bullet.
My father once told me that when he was in elementary school in Akron, Ohio, during the Depression, his classes often had as many as forty pupils and five languages going on at once with just one teacher to manage it all. Somehow, he and his friends made it through high school and many continued to college, as he did.
Poverty was far worse during that period, no question. So what's changed, the family structure, perhaps? Might want to start there rather than blasting teachers--white or black--for "inherent inability" or lack of training to deal with the students in "tough schools".
My father once told me that when he was in elementary school in Akron, Ohio, during the Depression, his classes often had as many as forty pupils and five languages going on at once with just one teacher to manage it all. Somehow, he and his friends made it through high school and many continued to college, as he did.
Poverty was far worse during that period, no question. So what's changed, the family structure, perhaps? Might want to start there rather than blasting teachers--white or black--for "inherent inability" or lack of training to deal with the students in "tough schools".
23
And I walked up hill both ways barefoot in the winter
Excellent points! Also, I appreciate your new book and your willingness to address the issue of white teachers teaching black children in socioeconomically deprived communities and school. Personally, I believe black parents should stop having their children getting educated through public schools and white teachers. And, if they do, they MUST have a supplemental school that acknowledges the fable-making of U.S. and European contributions. Ideally, a homeschool committed to teaching the truth about African history and African American history and black peoples' real contributions is crucial to self esteem, future success, and self pride.
What a load of codswallop. I spent over forty years teaching in an urban school setting and am aghast at this column. Aghast is actually a polite word for seething over with anger. I cannot recall an incident of anyone expecting black teachers more of a disciplinarian than was any white teacher. Nor am I pleased with the author's perceptions that white teachers somehow react differently with black students. I recall an incident when upset with a student's behavior in the classroom, I had him step out into the hall. He knew why I was upset. Suddenly a visitor to our school came storming up and began insisting I could not talk to a black student that way. My student looked at our visitor and said, "He's not upset with me because I'm black, he's upset with me me because I was acting like a fool. And who the hell are you to but in?" I suspect the author and his colleagues had difficulty not with discipline but with teaching. They may have thought that as black teachers they would have more rapport with black students and found out that that was a complete misconception. They failed to learn teaching any student can be difficult; and for learning to take place you first need to have the respect of your students. And that's not given, it's earned. So they found out they couldn't cut it. The students challenged them to teach, and they couldn't respond to the challenge. Many tyros quickly discover teaching is hard work, and that they are not up to it.
171
Did you ever imagine after forty years of teaching, this would even be a subject of serious discussion? It seems reason in our society is ebbing away.
2
I had a black male teacher for 5th grade. He was my only male teacher in elementary school. I remember him as a nice man. We had experimental math in those days and the book we used was written in mathese. (Yale's School Mathematics Study Group, as I recall.) Incomprehensible to 10-11 year olds. He basically translated the mathese into terms we could understand. The concepts weren't difficult but the terminology was.
I'm glad to say that I looked him up last year and called him. Still a lovely man. I was able to tell him that he played a big role by explaining all that math to me - I became an engineer.
I was in 5th grade in 1966-67. Thank you Mr. Reddy!
I'm glad to say that I looked him up last year and called him. Still a lovely man. I was able to tell him that he played a big role by explaining all that math to me - I became an engineer.
I was in 5th grade in 1966-67. Thank you Mr. Reddy!
57
If his last name was Reddy, he was probably South Indian, not African-American.
He was African-American. I didn't put his first name in my comment because I didn't want to presume that he'd want his full name out on the internet.
1
"They should be prepared to teach to each student’s unique needs..."
Regardless of the chances of an early-career teacher (any teacher?) being so prepared, environmental factors outside the classroom - cited by the author - minimize the impact of such preparation. Additionally, factors within the classroom (e.g. classroom size) make it impossible to teach to each student's unique needs. The most valuable approach is somewhere between teaching 'to each student's unique needs' and a 'one size fits all' approach to teaching.
Regardless of the chances of an early-career teacher (any teacher?) being so prepared, environmental factors outside the classroom - cited by the author - minimize the impact of such preparation. Additionally, factors within the classroom (e.g. classroom size) make it impossible to teach to each student's unique needs. The most valuable approach is somewhere between teaching 'to each student's unique needs' and a 'one size fits all' approach to teaching.
3
Sorry, but one more heartfelt plea from an out of touch higher ed academic who offers nothing by way of solutions to a truly complicated problem is just more hot air.
Teachers already know what the problems are and surprisingly most of them also have very good ideas to help solve them. Discipline is necessary in an environment where one or two students can permanently disrupt the educational opportunities for an entire class. Forever. And white teachers are discouraged from trying to deal with the issue lest they be saddled with the label of 'racist' or 'bigot'.
It is going to take a community of parents and other stakeholders to change an entire culture of disrespect for education to say nothing of the people who dedicate their lives to provide it. It will take a parade of successful adults to demonstrate the correlation and causation between educational achievement and life success. And it is going to take a committed challenge to conservative leadership in this country which demonizes educators and the poor alike.
Want to make a difference? Get involved. Want an article in the NYT? Become an academic and then stand on the sidelines shaking your head and making excuses.
Teachers already know what the problems are and surprisingly most of them also have very good ideas to help solve them. Discipline is necessary in an environment where one or two students can permanently disrupt the educational opportunities for an entire class. Forever. And white teachers are discouraged from trying to deal with the issue lest they be saddled with the label of 'racist' or 'bigot'.
It is going to take a community of parents and other stakeholders to change an entire culture of disrespect for education to say nothing of the people who dedicate their lives to provide it. It will take a parade of successful adults to demonstrate the correlation and causation between educational achievement and life success. And it is going to take a committed challenge to conservative leadership in this country which demonizes educators and the poor alike.
Want to make a difference? Get involved. Want an article in the NYT? Become an academic and then stand on the sidelines shaking your head and making excuses.
67
Stop having children out of wedlock. The role model for your child should actually live in the same house as the child and the child should know him as "dad." If you can't organize that, don't have children.
[[The new crop of black male teachers being herded into schools this fall as saviors of the same black children that schools have failed need to be told that teachers are not heroes; they do not need to save children, they just need to educate them.]]
Not true. They do need to try to save children. The idea of "saving" a child is not a mere abstraction. Getting a kid into after school programs…theater, clubs, sports…can literally save a child's life because he is not on the street and a potential victim of gun/gang violence. You can urge those activities because they are goof for the kid, but also be aware of the added life saving benefit. If the school is surrounded by violent gangs, a teacher of any skin color can and should be aware of where his students are and the risks they face.
Otherwise, the teacher can just bring flowers to the memorial.
[[The new crop of black male teachers being herded into schools this fall as saviors of the same black children that schools have failed need to be told that teachers are not heroes; they do not need to save children, they just need to educate them.]]
Not true. They do need to try to save children. The idea of "saving" a child is not a mere abstraction. Getting a kid into after school programs…theater, clubs, sports…can literally save a child's life because he is not on the street and a potential victim of gun/gang violence. You can urge those activities because they are goof for the kid, but also be aware of the added life saving benefit. If the school is surrounded by violent gangs, a teacher of any skin color can and should be aware of where his students are and the risks they face.
Otherwise, the teacher can just bring flowers to the memorial.
7
What you fail to address is that a teacher who has about 35 students in his/her class --and is expected to educate these girls and boys-- does not have the time to address the needs of the neediest students. Those who teach understand that many of the failing students are often the ones who have behavioral problems and who often disrupt the entire classroom. As much as teachers understand the unique problems of each student and are sympathetic, there is not a lot of time to stop and give extra attention to a student who is acting out. I wish that parents and teachers could work together. However, in places like South Central Los Angeles (where I taught for 6 years) very few parents show up to parent-teacher conferences. The parents who do, and attend the free workshops, tend to have children who are successful and happy in school. Instead of putting so much on one teacher to be social worker/teacher/surrogate parent it would be far better to have a mother and father be more present in their children's education... and life.
78
I think overcrowding is the biggest problem in education. There are too many children in the classroom to address any one child's difficulties with the material and the difficulties build and that child gets lost. Only the students with the most committed parents or the ones who get the material quickly thrive.
It is important for society, not just teacher and administrators, to find out WHY people aren't attending conferences, etc. Are they overwhelmed, overworked, have they been disenfranchised from childhood and excluded and disempowered since their formative years? These are systemic issues that won't significantly change until we become a humane society.
"...and the presence of black men as teachers and role models will fix this problem. "
No, it won't. The concept of "role model" is wrong, unhelpful and outdated.
These people don't look up to teachers. They worship athletes, actors, and criminal thugs. No amount of "black" teachers, or "black" teaching is going to change that. There needs to be a sea change in the way life, in general, is presented to them in order for them to imagine opportunities beyond the basketball court, the microphone, and the drug-selling corner. An more importantly, they need to be force fed the reality that no one is going to give them opportunities. They need to realize that they need to work hard in order to succeed and seize their own opportunities when they arise. Yea, that's right, Hard work, beyond one day, one week, one month, one season, one year. Hard work year after year in order to establish a foundation, achieve something, and eventually BUILD a better life for themselves.
No, it won't. The concept of "role model" is wrong, unhelpful and outdated.
These people don't look up to teachers. They worship athletes, actors, and criminal thugs. No amount of "black" teachers, or "black" teaching is going to change that. There needs to be a sea change in the way life, in general, is presented to them in order for them to imagine opportunities beyond the basketball court, the microphone, and the drug-selling corner. An more importantly, they need to be force fed the reality that no one is going to give them opportunities. They need to realize that they need to work hard in order to succeed and seize their own opportunities when they arise. Yea, that's right, Hard work, beyond one day, one week, one month, one season, one year. Hard work year after year in order to establish a foundation, achieve something, and eventually BUILD a better life for themselves.
41
"these people"...."for them"...let me guess, you are white. Others cannot be changed when the circumstances in which life is experienced is one of deprivation and oppression. Follow the lives of people of color who have not grown up in deprivation, but "only" oppression, and you will see that the outcomes are statistically different from people growing up in both deprivation and oppression.
As a teacher (25 years and counting), it frustrates me that this simple, obvious message still needs to be argued. Why is training necessary to get people to act like human beings? That said, I didn't really understand how badly black people were treated in this country until I was in my mid-twenties; growing up in a snow-white small town precluded me from having much contact with black people (or any other colors.) College (hallelujah!) enlightened me, then friends & co-workers.
The internet, with its ghettos of white nationalists and swamps of casual bigotry, appalls me, as do the stories my friends tell me of the subtle and overt hostility they experience still, in this "advanced" society.
The internet, with its ghettos of white nationalists and swamps of casual bigotry, appalls me, as do the stories my friends tell me of the subtle and overt hostility they experience still, in this "advanced" society.
6
I did not leave teaching for this reason I left for economic reasons I just could not afford to teach to little pay. I also never agreed that being a role model meant that I had to be the disciplinarian, I saw my role as the defender of these children, that the schools role and mine was to provide some shelter from the storms that raged in their lives out side of school. I was open and public about this and on more than one occasion challenged the staff to make the school a safe haven for our students, that we should stand shoulder to shoulder with them to face the issues in their lives. I taught for ten years before I had to leave. I would hope that you can begin to help other African American teachers redefine what a role model means and perhaps more importantly needs to be today. I am retired now but let me just close by saying that every child needs at least one adult at the school would write them a letter of recommendation for a job college or what have you. If there is no one at the school who will do that for a child then that child is at risk. We need a more thoughtful approach yes but lets start by defining the task not based on the need for better behavior management but rather on the desired outcome. Our children need role models who will show them not how tough love can be but how healing love is.
137
Cy, my neighbor from Oakland, writes, "Our children need role models who will show them not how tough love can be but how healing love is."
Those two attributes are not mutually exclusive; in fact, tenderness is inseparable from strength, and vice-versa! To make the school a safe haven means making it a safe haven for learning, and making it clear that learning is itself a safe haven from the other "issues in [students'] lives."
A shelter needs to be a sanctuary tough enough to weather "the storms raging outside" -- to inspire both by standing shoulder-to-shoulder and by standing strong. That's not easy, but it's what it takes to heal.
Those two attributes are not mutually exclusive; in fact, tenderness is inseparable from strength, and vice-versa! To make the school a safe haven means making it a safe haven for learning, and making it clear that learning is itself a safe haven from the other "issues in [students'] lives."
A shelter needs to be a sanctuary tough enough to weather "the storms raging outside" -- to inspire both by standing shoulder-to-shoulder and by standing strong. That's not easy, but it's what it takes to heal.
@Oakland Cy
Being a role model means more than taking the "follow me" approach. It requires being able to do the entire job, and that occasionally requires hard choices for adults. It means suspending kids, clarifying the lines you don't cross, following up on threatened sanctions.
Unfortunately, the problem is not only with the teachers. It is with the entire ecosystem surrounding our educators. Parents must prize character over their child's short-term emotional pain. Teachers must be revered, not for their income but for their sacrifice in tackling one of the most important jobs in our society. We need to trust you to do your job, one which most parents increasingly fail to do.
Once the reinforcements are in place, however, it is the courageous teacher who is on the front line. In our modern society, where this type of character-building takes place, we occupy a muddled battlefield. We speak in terms of macro-economics, class warfare, unionization, sterile terms of the marketplace rather than attributes of character.
I hope you have been able to change one life at time since leaving teaching. While the numbers of lives may seem less consequential than when you were standing in a classroom, I have no doubt the challenges for change remain.
Thank you for trying. It is more than most of us can look back on with some pride.
Being a role model means more than taking the "follow me" approach. It requires being able to do the entire job, and that occasionally requires hard choices for adults. It means suspending kids, clarifying the lines you don't cross, following up on threatened sanctions.
Unfortunately, the problem is not only with the teachers. It is with the entire ecosystem surrounding our educators. Parents must prize character over their child's short-term emotional pain. Teachers must be revered, not for their income but for their sacrifice in tackling one of the most important jobs in our society. We need to trust you to do your job, one which most parents increasingly fail to do.
Once the reinforcements are in place, however, it is the courageous teacher who is on the front line. In our modern society, where this type of character-building takes place, we occupy a muddled battlefield. We speak in terms of macro-economics, class warfare, unionization, sterile terms of the marketplace rather than attributes of character.
I hope you have been able to change one life at time since leaving teaching. While the numbers of lives may seem less consequential than when you were standing in a classroom, I have no doubt the challenges for change remain.
Thank you for trying. It is more than most of us can look back on with some pride.
1
We first need to see teachers are paid properly, allow them to take control of the class room and then let them do what they were hired to do, teach. Strangely, this worked before, but is considered outdated in the view of no child left behind.
1
Boy, this article is all over the map. I've read so much in the past saying that there are too many white teachers, that they can't possibly relate to their black students. This guy is saying that isn't true, that black teachers also can't relate to black students. Why is he saying the black male teachers are untrained and unprepared? Is he saying that graduating from college with a degree isn't being trained? Is he saying the black children are uneducable? What is he saying?
23
ARCHAEOLOGISTS Have repeatedly found the oldest human remains in Africa, meaning that we are all descended from those early African ancesorrs. We're all Africans. I met a guy, Keith White, an African American (interesting last name?) who had been a pro football or basketball player. You get the idea. He worked in a middle school in the inner city. I asked him how he was doing. He told me that the kids--mostly guys--would act up just so that they could see him. Keith looked like a gentle giant to me. A person who was sensitive and kind with the strength and power to keep things calm. Keith was a wonderful African American role model for all the kids. The boys especially. In my experience working in the same school system, in doing individual diagnostic evaluations, I found that the kids, especially the boys, had no idea how to relate to an adult male. My approach is to be very quiet and low key so that I can follow the kid's lead in interacting. Sometimes it meant having the kid eat lunch in the test site. Anyhow, I think it would be ideal to get as many gentle giants into the schools as possible. Of any background. After all, genetically we're all descended from African ancestors.
3
It's a thankless low-paying job. I'm watching my mother, in her 80s, struggling to survive on her teacher's pension. She was a specialist with 3 degrees, including a Master's and she never made enough to put much aside for retirement.
Until we acknowledge that teaching is a profession of highly educated individuals and pay these professionals accordingly, we'll always have unqualified young people getting hired. I was awarded state teacher certification - which I never asked or applied for, it was just 'given' to me when I graduated - at 24 just because I got a graduate degree in a humanities specialty. I was well-educated in my field but I knew absolutely nothing about how to teach below a college level and the state was lucky I didn't apply to teach elementary or high school where I would likely have caused problems in my total ignorance of psychology and how to teach, relate to or help hostile, under-achieving or unengaged students. Or students from a different culture than the one I had grown up in.
Tighten up the experience and qualifications needed to teach and pay teachers higher salaries. Otherwise, expect to continue fretting over the damage and pain unqualified teachers inflict on children, who're stuck with whoever they're assigned to.
Until we acknowledge that teaching is a profession of highly educated individuals and pay these professionals accordingly, we'll always have unqualified young people getting hired. I was awarded state teacher certification - which I never asked or applied for, it was just 'given' to me when I graduated - at 24 just because I got a graduate degree in a humanities specialty. I was well-educated in my field but I knew absolutely nothing about how to teach below a college level and the state was lucky I didn't apply to teach elementary or high school where I would likely have caused problems in my total ignorance of psychology and how to teach, relate to or help hostile, under-achieving or unengaged students. Or students from a different culture than the one I had grown up in.
Tighten up the experience and qualifications needed to teach and pay teachers higher salaries. Otherwise, expect to continue fretting over the damage and pain unqualified teachers inflict on children, who're stuck with whoever they're assigned to.
12
If your mother taught in NYS as mine did, she is receiving a pension, social security, and the most generous health care coverage that I am aware of. If she has a husband alive, he is covered as well. Retirement for all of us is tough, but teachers in NYS are among the most protected. In her working years, I am sure you also appreciated that your mother's vacation schedule was the same as yours. Being a teacher has its perks. I am very glad my mother was a teacher in NY, and wish that I had followed in her footsteps. My own retirement would be looking better!
3
Sometimes, a school or classroom simply has too much disruption for real learning to go on. A teacher or administrator must make the bitter choice (if he or she is allowed to) to remove some so that he or she can focus on educating the others. This is no fun, and is mostly likely in poor black areas of this country's inner cities where families are most broken and educational attainment is not family tradition. It drives away teachers, both black men and others. But denying it and assuming that a teacher can be trained to achieve some magical result like educating every child, no matter how troubled, will only drive away more teachers and result in more educational failure.
16
I have to disagree,
if the student is unruly in the classroom, that is the tip of the iceberg we can see. So much is not readily visable.
I think, leaving the student in the classroom and dealing with the "hidden" reasons is probably a better much better approach
if the student is unruly in the classroom, that is the tip of the iceberg we can see. So much is not readily visable.
I think, leaving the student in the classroom and dealing with the "hidden" reasons is probably a better much better approach
Wonderful and very important commentary! And the proposed solution - training to acknowledge biases - will actually help teachers for all students.
I would argue that there are more biases than just those based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and physical ability. There are also biases inherent in how a child looks and acts beyond their race and gender. Good looking, mature, articulate children are given the benefit of the doubt over quirky, young-acting, and high energy children.
As a teacher, I know that it's hard not to play favorites. It's hard to treat everyone equally - from behavior discipline to academic expectations. As a parent, I know that my son brings a lot of baggage to the classroom, not the least of which is the fact that he towers over all of his teachers.
Training teachers well, training them to educate all students well, is the key step in ensuring equal opportunities for all.
I would argue that there are more biases than just those based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and physical ability. There are also biases inherent in how a child looks and acts beyond their race and gender. Good looking, mature, articulate children are given the benefit of the doubt over quirky, young-acting, and high energy children.
As a teacher, I know that it's hard not to play favorites. It's hard to treat everyone equally - from behavior discipline to academic expectations. As a parent, I know that my son brings a lot of baggage to the classroom, not the least of which is the fact that he towers over all of his teachers.
Training teachers well, training them to educate all students well, is the key step in ensuring equal opportunities for all.
2
Society is very efficient at discarding people. We discard young men in the military, in schools, in prison, in their old age. You could almost say that we systematically do it. This bothers a lot of people, but really doesn't disturb the overall function of the society because there are far, far more people willing and endeavoring to work, to get along and to fit in. So society goes about its business and disregards those left on the trash heap of life.
For the young, the disinterested, the wannabe's I'd only say that you should recognize this condition and fight it. Don't be the one left behind. Take what you get and move ahead. The only one that can make a difference in your life is really "you".
For the young, the disinterested, the wannabe's I'd only say that you should recognize this condition and fight it. Don't be the one left behind. Take what you get and move ahead. The only one that can make a difference in your life is really "you".
4
This is an interesting article in that to be our best selves, we need to seek the best in others on that day, that hour, that minute. Our best selves just might bring out the best selves in others.
3
A confusing piece. Other than a single anecdote, what underlies the idea that Black Male teachers are more likely to dish out "tough love" at disproportionate rates between Black and White students?
Also, the author argues that a teacher can't counteract all of the influences in the lives of many young Black students, but then argues for better training and hiring practices to counteract these same influences: "These students are often struggling with poverty, inequitable distribution of resources, amd the criminalization of Black men. Black male teachers...cannot fix the problems students face by simply being Black and male." I agree on all fronts, though the author failed to mention being raised without a father among that list of influences.
Also, the author argues that a teacher can't counteract all of the influences in the lives of many young Black students, but then argues for better training and hiring practices to counteract these same influences: "These students are often struggling with poverty, inequitable distribution of resources, amd the criminalization of Black men. Black male teachers...cannot fix the problems students face by simply being Black and male." I agree on all fronts, though the author failed to mention being raised without a father among that list of influences.
13
I don't how any teachers are supposed to routinely overcome the major life problems that kids bring into the schools. Teachers can't teach when they're busy dealing with hungry, abused, neglected kids with zero incentive to do well.
56
This opinion piece is too PC and a kind of cop out for me. Once again the message, everything is someone else's fault.
The truth is the only right anyone has is the right to become wise through self effort. Seems that's one of the great lessons in life.
Obviously there is poverty, and there are broken & dysfunctional homes. And teachers can't fix those things and neither can the average citizen. In fact society has been trying in various ways for 50 years to fix as many of these social ills as possible, and they obviously persist. Clearly no one has a solution. Poor or not, common sense says individual choices enter into it, too.
Teachers don't have to try and administer tough love, but there has to be a measure of order in a classroom, assignments need to be done and turned in, grades earned and so forth ... so there have to be rules and students need to follow them. Are you going to make all rules optional? Is there anything that is actually the student's responsibility.
I'm all for helping students learn, most teachers in my experience really do care and try to help as much as they reasonably can, but both parents and students have to meet the teacher half way (it's clearly a cooperative effort), and that is not mentioned at all in this essay.
The truth is the only right anyone has is the right to become wise through self effort. Seems that's one of the great lessons in life.
Obviously there is poverty, and there are broken & dysfunctional homes. And teachers can't fix those things and neither can the average citizen. In fact society has been trying in various ways for 50 years to fix as many of these social ills as possible, and they obviously persist. Clearly no one has a solution. Poor or not, common sense says individual choices enter into it, too.
Teachers don't have to try and administer tough love, but there has to be a measure of order in a classroom, assignments need to be done and turned in, grades earned and so forth ... so there have to be rules and students need to follow them. Are you going to make all rules optional? Is there anything that is actually the student's responsibility.
I'm all for helping students learn, most teachers in my experience really do care and try to help as much as they reasonably can, but both parents and students have to meet the teacher half way (it's clearly a cooperative effort), and that is not mentioned at all in this essay.
23
I agree with this point. Impulse control can be taught, and rewarded, and thereby conditioned as a basic way of being. this way, if a student has a bad teacher then can control themselves from descending into self-destruction; i.e, fighting with the teacher and getting kicked out of school.
Check out on Youtube the "marshmallow test" given to toddlers. I think some of us are naturally predisposed to impulse control, and those people have an advantage; otherwise, it is good for a young person to get lessons on the virtue of being in self-control.
Check out on Youtube the "marshmallow test" given to toddlers. I think some of us are naturally predisposed to impulse control, and those people have an advantage; otherwise, it is good for a young person to get lessons on the virtue of being in self-control.
1
Who could argue against better teacher training and awareness raising? Not sure of the point of the article, but maybe you have to read the author's book...
5
I differ with you: Black men get out of teaching because it is not getting them anywhere in their field except the classroom. Most Black boys I have taught will not disrespect you as a Black male teacher if you show them you care and indicate clearly that you want and expect them to learn, and that you enjoy their presence in your room. I find it difficult to believe that the author of this opinion piece, himself a teacher educator, never experienced this from a Black male teacher." My history as a black educator is full of different experiences - having school districts, principals, and superintendents treat me with the harshest punishments. In my career of 15 years, only one supervisor has given me a letter of reference. I have never been allowed a promotional opportunity. Too many parents question the capabilities of Black men as teachers, especially in the sciences.
8
Having taught in a small public high school school with mostly African-American and Hispanic girls the biggest challenged I faced was getting my students to trust me. As a white male teacher it was a massive problem. I saw some teachers believed in the tough love idea but I do not believe it is the road to success. Being harsh and the source of extra discipline is not the method to build trust.
Teachers need to be trained to connect to their students. I worked hard to build that trust but it takes a long time. I remember after my first year at the school how students came up to me to apologize for being so difficult but they wanted to know if I could take it and stick around. They've been used to teachers coming and going in less than a year (which I saw that year). My students began to believe that I wasn't the enemy and that I could help them learn. Their state test scores did improve. Not everyone accepted me but that's always true, even at the higher level schools I've worked at.
Train teachers to educate and connect and the results will follow.
Teachers need to be trained to connect to their students. I worked hard to build that trust but it takes a long time. I remember after my first year at the school how students came up to me to apologize for being so difficult but they wanted to know if I could take it and stick around. They've been used to teachers coming and going in less than a year (which I saw that year). My students began to believe that I wasn't the enemy and that I could help them learn. Their state test scores did improve. Not everyone accepted me but that's always true, even at the higher level schools I've worked at.
Train teachers to educate and connect and the results will follow.
17
Sigh...
I''m not a teacher, or black. But I was raised in poor neighborhood in Brooklyn in the sixties. And went to schools with an overwhelming proportion of minority students.
Teachers can't make up for parents who don't do their jobs as parents.
They can't be expected to routinely overcome the obstacles that kids from dysfunctional families face.
They can't FORCE knowledge into the heads of kids who won't or can't try.
You can't expect them to add all the responsibilities of social workers on top of their responsibilities as teachers.
I''m not a teacher, or black. But I was raised in poor neighborhood in Brooklyn in the sixties. And went to schools with an overwhelming proportion of minority students.
Teachers can't make up for parents who don't do their jobs as parents.
They can't be expected to routinely overcome the obstacles that kids from dysfunctional families face.
They can't FORCE knowledge into the heads of kids who won't or can't try.
You can't expect them to add all the responsibilities of social workers on top of their responsibilities as teachers.
146
"A better solution is to train all teachers, black and white, to acknowledge the biases they hold about their students based on their race, class, gender, sexual orientation and physical ability."
It's a well known phenomena that inner city students and especially students living in poverty are the most likely to not take their education seriously, due to a myriad of factors. What if teachers, black, white, or any other race aren't biased, but are just struggling to deal with their many students who are apathetic? This seems like a major cop out to assume teachers are biased because the results aren't there (in this article, specifically in the case of black students). The problem is with the student body itself. How can teachers make an impact? If anything this article proves the point that teachers of any background are struggling to teach inner city students, which again reinforces the fact that the problem is with the students themselves. It is a difficult task for any teacher and this article presents no clear solutions, just more handwringing, per normal.
It's a well known phenomena that inner city students and especially students living in poverty are the most likely to not take their education seriously, due to a myriad of factors. What if teachers, black, white, or any other race aren't biased, but are just struggling to deal with their many students who are apathetic? This seems like a major cop out to assume teachers are biased because the results aren't there (in this article, specifically in the case of black students). The problem is with the student body itself. How can teachers make an impact? If anything this article proves the point that teachers of any background are struggling to teach inner city students, which again reinforces the fact that the problem is with the students themselves. It is a difficult task for any teacher and this article presents no clear solutions, just more handwringing, per normal.
47
Yes! "Tough love" is a bankrupt approach to pedagogy. Students don't need teachers who equate discipline, challenge, and discouragement with academic rigor. Instead, find ways to engage, encourage, and support them, and then watch them reach deep, sophisticated understandings of the topics you're teaching.
2
False dichotomy, JDA! Full engagement promotes (self-)discipline, and encouragement is all about confronting challenges.
1
I agree with your equation of engagement and self-discipline, but classroom discipline, as commonly understood, has more to do with rules, consequences for bad behavior, and teacher-as-manager or tough-guy. Instead, teachers need much more preparation and in-service professional development in the area of engaging students -- not merely "hooking" students with a snazzy anticipatory set at the beginning of a lesson, but constant engagement in inquiries that connect the topic at hand to student's lives, to their families' and communities' histories and cultures. That's a tall order in the diverse classrooms of, say, Oakland, but that's why teachers need more time to collaboratively plan and study lessons. In Oakland, you might have a fifth-grader or high-schooler who eats fish that she or he catches in San Francisco Bay. Are you going to capitalize on that opportunity for learning and inquire with the class on the health risks of consuming fish with toxins such as mercury or PCBs, how to prepare and cook the fish to minimize consumption of PCBs, where these contaminants come from, where the student's family's fishing traditions come from, the pushes or pulls that led the family to migrate to Oakland from their homeland, or are you going to insist that students stay in their seats, stay "disciplined," and meet the "challenges" presented by whatever NGSS or Common Core standard happens to appear in today's textbook entry in your district-approved instructional scope and sequence?
1
This article, as do many in the NYTs attempts to deflect from their responsibility of Black parents to raise and motivate their students. Here is one example of many I could give (until last year my two children went to an inner-suburban school that was about 45% Black)
My son is half-Chinese by ethnicity, and I wanted to enroll him in a school that taught Chinese when he was entering the 9th grade. (2 winters ago) There was a 90% black school district in an inner Ohio suburb that offered Chinese through a school (Global Business Advantage) within in a school. I observed the Chinese class (and others) in evaluating whether I should enroll my son in the school. (because few schools offer Chinese classes)
All the students in the class were Black, and I observed the class in February 2015. 90% of the time in the class was spent socializing and funning around. About 10% was spent in half-hearted efforts to speak Chinese phrases. Any reasonably motivated student, with reasonable intelligence could have learned in 10 days what these students had learned through mid-February. Poverty, slavery, or whatever was not responsible for the lack of motivation and the failure of these students to take advantage of a wonderful program.
The improvement of the educational achievement of Black boys has to start at home with motivated parents who motivate their children.
JD
My son is half-Chinese by ethnicity, and I wanted to enroll him in a school that taught Chinese when he was entering the 9th grade. (2 winters ago) There was a 90% black school district in an inner Ohio suburb that offered Chinese through a school (Global Business Advantage) within in a school. I observed the Chinese class (and others) in evaluating whether I should enroll my son in the school. (because few schools offer Chinese classes)
All the students in the class were Black, and I observed the class in February 2015. 90% of the time in the class was spent socializing and funning around. About 10% was spent in half-hearted efforts to speak Chinese phrases. Any reasonably motivated student, with reasonable intelligence could have learned in 10 days what these students had learned through mid-February. Poverty, slavery, or whatever was not responsible for the lack of motivation and the failure of these students to take advantage of a wonderful program.
The improvement of the educational achievement of Black boys has to start at home with motivated parents who motivate their children.
JD
191
"The improvement of the educational achievement of Black boys has to start at home with motivated parents who motivate their children"? BRAVO!
Maybe "do your homework" -- or a shared interest in learning -- should be the proper focus of "The Talk" parents (of any race) give their kids. Inculcate that attitude, and it should be apparent even in an encounter with a cop.
Maybe "do your homework" -- or a shared interest in learning -- should be the proper focus of "The Talk" parents (of any race) give their kids. Inculcate that attitude, and it should be apparent even in an encounter with a cop.
3
Black male teachers are important to more than just young black men. My middle school physical education coach in a public middle school in Athens, GA 1973-1976 made a lasting impact on my education. I am healthier, tougher, and a better, more racially sensitive human for those three years.
5
So how about we expect the parents to parent so that the teachers can teach. Yeah, I know, shocking notion.
90
I am the only African-American teacher at the elementary level in my school district, and I am acutely aware these concerns and problems. I am in agreement with most of the ideas exposed in this article.
6
As a teacher of 7th grade 12 year olds, one excellent contribution to the solution of our cultural race disparity is to focus on white privilege. When we really understand the implication of discrimination and racism, only then can we begin to address the problem straight up. Teachers and their race is not the solution. Educating our children about race relations is the solution. Black lives matter. FTR I am white.
5
As they say in the South, Michael, that's mighty white of you. Teaching needs to be about emancipation; no one heals by picking at a scab.
White privilege has nothing to do with black students being disrespectful, disruptive and failures as students. Stop this liberal nonsense of whites being the cause of all the failures of blacks.
2
In retrospect, wouldn't have been a lot better and a lot cheaper if the recommendations of the Kerner Commission. But just like now, the congress was unwilling to make the investment and saw it as money down the drain. Maybe a majority was for it , which I doubt, but you know how congress works.
We also had a President who was mentally sick and he was more concerned about showing those hooligans what's what.
Why is McGovern looked like as a joke. Of course he lost big; but, in my opinion it was the Eagleton affair that strangled his campaign in the crib, not to mention that Nixon ran the most corrupt campaign in modern American history. Bottom line: from where I sit McGovern was right about everything from the Vietnam war to raising incomes for those at the bottom. There are a lot for downsides to getting old like me and one of the worst is seeing how petty little men enriched themselves while not being soft on crime.
P.S. If anybody's interested, in my opinion the one person who more, than anyone, created the mess we're in, it was that Muslim freedom fighter, Sirhan Sirhan. If Bobby Kennedy had lived to be elected as he surely would have been,he could have united the country. He had everybody in his camp: college educated whites, minorities, the "ethnics," and the people who later became "Reagan Democrats, just about everybody except the segregationist white south.
The saddest words are truly" what might have been."
We also had a President who was mentally sick and he was more concerned about showing those hooligans what's what.
Why is McGovern looked like as a joke. Of course he lost big; but, in my opinion it was the Eagleton affair that strangled his campaign in the crib, not to mention that Nixon ran the most corrupt campaign in modern American history. Bottom line: from where I sit McGovern was right about everything from the Vietnam war to raising incomes for those at the bottom. There are a lot for downsides to getting old like me and one of the worst is seeing how petty little men enriched themselves while not being soft on crime.
P.S. If anybody's interested, in my opinion the one person who more, than anyone, created the mess we're in, it was that Muslim freedom fighter, Sirhan Sirhan. If Bobby Kennedy had lived to be elected as he surely would have been,he could have united the country. He had everybody in his camp: college educated whites, minorities, the "ethnics," and the people who later became "Reagan Democrats, just about everybody except the segregationist white south.
The saddest words are truly" what might have been."
5
I don't understand why its "hurtful" versus "helpful" for teachers to
- expect black males to respect and be accountable for assignment deadlines
- suspend black male students for disrupting the classroom
- correct black male students for being "playful in the classroom
There are other students in the classroom besides black males that deserve a classroom climate of order to allow learning to occur. This is sterotyping to the 1st degree!
- expect black males to respect and be accountable for assignment deadlines
- suspend black male students for disrupting the classroom
- correct black male students for being "playful in the classroom
There are other students in the classroom besides black males that deserve a classroom climate of order to allow learning to occur. This is sterotyping to the 1st degree!
124
I would strongly suggest educators take a close look at one of the nation's premier male Black Historical College's, Morehouse in Atlanta, GA. and duplicate the impressive model, rituals and practices that has become the signature of a Morehouse Man. Not only is there an air of expectation for these young men who come from all walks of life but every student is indoctrinated into a brotherhood where learning is key, discipline is required and mediocrity is unacceptable - to those much is given, much is expected - failure is not an option. The Men of Morehouse are expected to look the part, dress the part. To be worldly, articulate, competitive - and leaders. I have never met so many young men who have gone on to be successful business leaders, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and the list goes on. What the leaders of Morehouse College over all these years have accomplished should be duplicated.
26
I think that Professor Emdin's opinion piece is an example of the utility of taking little risk in being against sin. He is full of proposals as to what REALLY needs to be done, as opposed to the supposed failure of what is being done now. His ideas are not original and have been recycled many times by many in the education field. Teaching to "each student's unique needs" and making students feel "cared for." Who could possibly argue against such things?
But those in academia such as Professor Emdin are often the farthest away from the front lines where teaching actually takes place, and sometimes have not been in a classroom for many years, if at all. And it is often those farthest from the give and take of education who largely determine educational policy.
How to develop what he proposes, and develop it consistently, and how to consistently reinforce it on the front lines is the rub that he and others really do not know how to accomplish. Some teachers will "get it," and some will not, be they black, white, or other. And this is a tough thing for the system to admit. And expecting teachers to single handedly overcome the effects of historical and ongoing privations is a cynical exercise.
But those in academia such as Professor Emdin are often the farthest away from the front lines where teaching actually takes place, and sometimes have not been in a classroom for many years, if at all. And it is often those farthest from the give and take of education who largely determine educational policy.
How to develop what he proposes, and develop it consistently, and how to consistently reinforce it on the front lines is the rub that he and others really do not know how to accomplish. Some teachers will "get it," and some will not, be they black, white, or other. And this is a tough thing for the system to admit. And expecting teachers to single handedly overcome the effects of historical and ongoing privations is a cynical exercise.
20
I am not sure I understand why such teachers would feel forced to quit as opposed to changing the way they conduct their classrooms, especially if they understand exactly what these students are feeling.
Does this mean that these teachers don't have any of their own ideas about the best way to approach difficult students, or does it mean that addressing them within the bounds of the limited time available to the teacher in the classroom is not realistic? Perhaps training is what is needed, but clearly these teachers are not lacking in an understanding of the uphill battles their students are facing, or an ability to relate to their students which is seemingly an issue for white middle class college students.
We know that some of the best, most memorable teachers spend lots of their own time, and even money, attempting to make a difference in their students' lives. How about making that dedication be something other than a labor of love? How about paying teachers to run after school programs or clubs that allow them to work with kids in a less format setting? How about paying them to run an after school program where kids can get help with homework?
Does this mean that these teachers don't have any of their own ideas about the best way to approach difficult students, or does it mean that addressing them within the bounds of the limited time available to the teacher in the classroom is not realistic? Perhaps training is what is needed, but clearly these teachers are not lacking in an understanding of the uphill battles their students are facing, or an ability to relate to their students which is seemingly an issue for white middle class college students.
We know that some of the best, most memorable teachers spend lots of their own time, and even money, attempting to make a difference in their students' lives. How about making that dedication be something other than a labor of love? How about paying teachers to run after school programs or clubs that allow them to work with kids in a less format setting? How about paying them to run an after school program where kids can get help with homework?
18
The challenge, especially for these teachers but not only them, is not time, ability or desire. It has been many years since teachers lost authority and autonomy in their own classrooms to teach a curriculum of their choosing or use class management techniques that adapt to different environments.
60% of teachers quit during their first five years on the job. Many of them quit because they have a conscience-based opposition to the way their schools are run.
Black male teachers have many "good ideas" about what to do in their schools but cannot put any of them in place. They leave the profession because to participate in the system is to be complicit in it.
60% of teachers quit during their first five years on the job. Many of them quit because they have a conscience-based opposition to the way their schools are run.
Black male teachers have many "good ideas" about what to do in their schools but cannot put any of them in place. They leave the profession because to participate in the system is to be complicit in it.
3
As I contemplate my 21st yr, I can say administration is a yuge factor. It does not matter what students feel and think about their teachers, if the admin does not want you they find a way to get rid of you.
I'd be willing to discuss more with y'all
I'd be willing to discuss more with y'all
You can do all you want in training or selecting teachers of whatever ethnic group, but collective student performance has has nothing to do with teachers (except for rare outliers) and everything to do with the family and community environment the students grow up in. I guarantee that if a successful suburban school and a failing urban or rural school swapped faculty, they would still be a successful suburban and a failing urban or rural school.
And if it were possible to swap the students en masse not only between schools but between environments, their performances would be eventually be exchanged.
The Charter School "cure" is phony because such schools are free to select the students they prefer, and the students (rather, their parents) are self-selecting.
The inconvenient truth is that inequitable income and wealth, and unequal employment opportunities make a difference in how well or poorly families and their communities can function. Show me a community whose means of supporting itself has been undermined by trade policy or technology or both, and I'll show you failing schools.
Note that I've not even mentioned race. It's all about economics.
And if it were possible to swap the students en masse not only between schools but between environments, their performances would be eventually be exchanged.
The Charter School "cure" is phony because such schools are free to select the students they prefer, and the students (rather, their parents) are self-selecting.
The inconvenient truth is that inequitable income and wealth, and unequal employment opportunities make a difference in how well or poorly families and their communities can function. Show me a community whose means of supporting itself has been undermined by trade policy or technology or both, and I'll show you failing schools.
Note that I've not even mentioned race. It's all about economics.
203
mancuroc: You're both right & wrong. You're right in thinking that it's the parents, not the faculty. You're wrong in dismissing charter schools. Yes, unlike regular public schools, they can expel children whose behavior makes it impossible for teaching to occur. But that's what the parents, parents who have prepared their children to succeed in school, but who live in neighborhoods where that is not the norm & cannot afford private school want - the kind off school where teachers can teach & don't need to spend most of the school day on discipline.
3
There is actually solid evidence that the best teachers DO make a significant difference in learning outcomes for their students. We have a systemic problem -- wealthy school districts pay their teachers more, and offer a less stressful work environment, and so they are able to hire better teachers. It is not uncommon for a new teacher to start out in a low income school district (often one with a high proportion of minority students), prove to be a really good teacher, and get hired away a few years later to a high-income district. This is very unfortunate -- it is more difficult to teach in the low income districts, and they really ought to pay teachers more and have a disproportionate share of the better teachers. But that would require moving away from local school funding.
1
come to Bed-Stuy. We'll shown you the partnerships that truly educate our kids.
Unfortunately, it's not just Black men who are quitting. Many people are leaving the profession because of the lack of respect from politicians and the media, and the lack of support from administration. Teachers are being forced to be parent, nurse, social worker, etc. and yet when it comes to pay and benefits, we are told we have it good. We don't. Many are leaving because their salaries don't support a family, and working 2 or 3 jobs in no longer a viable option.
But let's examine the politics, especially from John King who treated all teachers and parents like garbage when he headed NYS. He expected all scores to show improvement, even if the student had a horrible attendance record. And that onus was on the teacher. He didn't care if classrooms were overcrowded, not enough supplies, or support, and couldn't give a hoot about poverty!! What has he ever done to improve the life of a student when he held office? He test-prepped them to boredom!! Never offered any assistance with increasing social services or finding ways a school community could perform family outreach. Most of the $$$$ went to testing and outside consultants.
Teachers brought in clothing, food and supplies out of their own pockets. Teachers are on the front line and see what is needed---and many times it's not about test scores. Students need "hope" as well. Poverty is never addressed. And it must be!! King is the wrong man for the job!!
But let's examine the politics, especially from John King who treated all teachers and parents like garbage when he headed NYS. He expected all scores to show improvement, even if the student had a horrible attendance record. And that onus was on the teacher. He didn't care if classrooms were overcrowded, not enough supplies, or support, and couldn't give a hoot about poverty!! What has he ever done to improve the life of a student when he held office? He test-prepped them to boredom!! Never offered any assistance with increasing social services or finding ways a school community could perform family outreach. Most of the $$$$ went to testing and outside consultants.
Teachers brought in clothing, food and supplies out of their own pockets. Teachers are on the front line and see what is needed---and many times it's not about test scores. Students need "hope" as well. Poverty is never addressed. And it must be!! King is the wrong man for the job!!
154
I imagine you are from a teachers' union. It is always them who presume to speak for students and parents as if they walked in lockstep on wage demands.
1
The students are struggling with poverty, racism, and the fathers and other men who should be mentors and role models spending their time in prison or trying to stay out of trouble with the law. Only a relative few of them will find the resources to do well in school and after. And only a relative few of their teachers will find ways to beat the odds that the societal situation has imposed on them.
A good deal of the money we spend on educating the disadvantaged will continue to be wasted until the disadvantaged are less disadvantaged. If we can figure out how to make these communities healthier, the schools will largely heal themselves. If we cant, the schools will remain largely broken.
A good deal of the money we spend on educating the disadvantaged will continue to be wasted until the disadvantaged are less disadvantaged. If we can figure out how to make these communities healthier, the schools will largely heal themselves. If we cant, the schools will remain largely broken.
72
People have to want to learn and want to be smart. When being smart is seen as not cool and masculine by his peers and community, there's a not much a male or female teacher can really do.
4
i thought communities had a lot to do with making themselves healthy.guess i missed something along the way.
2
A call for change that reflects the thoughtful approach called for.
I didn't even know that people threw around the phrase 'tough love' anymore - it came to symbolize a lot of misunderstanding around behavior modification when popular, and on top of that was misapplied. Discipline is necessary, but that is a complicated and nuanced concept, all about helping young people to learn how to be in charge of their own behavior.
BTW, good teachers are needed; male teachers including in elementary grades can be a gift, and black male teachers are definitely needed. A nephew of mine is a (white) teacher; he is the only consistent male role model some of his male( and female) students have encountered ( whatever their race).
The challenge is how to best create a setting where children can learn, and to draw the best out of them. And how to shape teachers - and administrators - who not only are dedicated to educating their students, but have strategies which are effective.
I didn't even know that people threw around the phrase 'tough love' anymore - it came to symbolize a lot of misunderstanding around behavior modification when popular, and on top of that was misapplied. Discipline is necessary, but that is a complicated and nuanced concept, all about helping young people to learn how to be in charge of their own behavior.
BTW, good teachers are needed; male teachers including in elementary grades can be a gift, and black male teachers are definitely needed. A nephew of mine is a (white) teacher; he is the only consistent male role model some of his male( and female) students have encountered ( whatever their race).
The challenge is how to best create a setting where children can learn, and to draw the best out of them. And how to shape teachers - and administrators - who not only are dedicated to educating their students, but have strategies which are effective.
45
Agreed, but realism is called for. I went to school for 22 years and I can count the number of truly great teachers I had on one hand with fingers left over. That said, those particular teachers shaped my whole life. They made a huge difference to me and I'll never forget them.
76
"I can count the number of truly great teachers I had on one hand with fingers left over."
Something I've learned from watching my own sons' interactions with teachers is that "great teacher" is sometimes relative. One that was incredible for my eldest was completely wrong for his brother, for example.
I see at least the goal of more male, and black male, teachers. But perhaps this is just the start. If we can better place students with the teachers that will be great for those particular students, schools will be that much more effective for the students and satisfying for the teachers.
...Andrew
Something I've learned from watching my own sons' interactions with teachers is that "great teacher" is sometimes relative. One that was incredible for my eldest was completely wrong for his brother, for example.
I see at least the goal of more male, and black male, teachers. But perhaps this is just the start. If we can better place students with the teachers that will be great for those particular students, schools will be that much more effective for the students and satisfying for the teachers.
...Andrew
3
@A. Gideon: Indeed, there is a Zen aphorism that states, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."
The single best teacher I ever had, by far, was a math professor who taught a graduate course in advanced statistical methods and computer modeling.
I absolutely loved his approach, but the course was very difficult and extremely unpopular. He got fired at the end of the school year.
He set a high bar and by clearing that bar, I was able to acquire a highly lucrative set of professional skills and a level of competence in a field not my own, one I never even considered before I took his course.
It is easy to see why the others did not like the prof, though. He did not suffer fools gladly. He humiliated them openly in class...tough love, indeed.
The single best teacher I ever had, by far, was a math professor who taught a graduate course in advanced statistical methods and computer modeling.
I absolutely loved his approach, but the course was very difficult and extremely unpopular. He got fired at the end of the school year.
He set a high bar and by clearing that bar, I was able to acquire a highly lucrative set of professional skills and a level of competence in a field not my own, one I never even considered before I took his course.
It is easy to see why the others did not like the prof, though. He did not suffer fools gladly. He humiliated them openly in class...tough love, indeed.
2
Tough love does not mean being unfair. This describes being unfair, harsh to some in ways not done to anyone else. It describes being unreasonable, unforgiving of any issues, a real Martinet. That isn't tough love. It is bully, not tough, and not love at all.
White boys and girls need tough love too in their teenage years. They'll run right over any teacher who won't stand up to them. White teachers have no trouble doing this for white kids.
What he's really saying is that black men are told to act like complete jerks, like people hey hate, and they won't do it. Good. They shouldn't. That very idea is racist nonsense.
Real tough love coming from a black man who is seen as a role model, as someone to respect, could make a world of difference for a black boy in the teenage years when he may be struggling with such issues. Tough would have to mean "firm but fair" and the "love" part would have to be evident too.
Actually, there are not that many good white teachers who do this well either. It is difficult. Their students know which ones they are, and they value them.
White boys and girls need tough love too in their teenage years. They'll run right over any teacher who won't stand up to them. White teachers have no trouble doing this for white kids.
What he's really saying is that black men are told to act like complete jerks, like people hey hate, and they won't do it. Good. They shouldn't. That very idea is racist nonsense.
Real tough love coming from a black man who is seen as a role model, as someone to respect, could make a world of difference for a black boy in the teenage years when he may be struggling with such issues. Tough would have to mean "firm but fair" and the "love" part would have to be evident too.
Actually, there are not that many good white teachers who do this well either. It is difficult. Their students know which ones they are, and they value them.
164
Then why the racist distinction in this article? Truly fine teachers should not make racial distinctions with their students. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of those who would be post-independence leaders came to England to study: Jinnah, Nkumrah, I imagine their tutors were racists by today's standards (who wasn't?) but they don't seem to have made any distinctions in their teaching, judging by their students' accomplishments.
Tough love is nonsense, for any children, black or white. Children need love, not toughness. I've worked with very difficult children, who need love most of all. The idea of toughness is a sad and mistaken part of our American view of raising children. So-called "no excuses" charter schools are an abomination. They see brown and black students as problems to solve, not children to love.
2
This is an unusually nuanced article, one I highly applaud.
Very thought-provoking, indeed.
I've always questioned the one-size-fits-all curriculum.
It's not working, nor has it ever worked.
Take music instruction, for example: What percentage of ordinary music students become accomplished musicians?
As I read this article, I happened to be listening to a 1950's recording made by the late jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. O.P. was one great role model, irrespective of your so-called race, a concept to which I do not personally subscribe.
Allow me to digress...
I considered buying the house next door to mine when it appeared on the market some years ago after the death of the owner. It was the late 1990's and I knew it would be an excellent investment.
I decided not to buy it, though.
I bought gold, instead.
Why?
If I'd bought the house, I'd have become a dreaded landlord.
Do you know anyone who likes landlords?
Do you want to be the man who throws out someone who stops paying rent because her husband cheats on her or her kid is sick or she lost her job or whatever?
Personally, I do not want to be in that position, especially if the alternative is to go broke.
I eat at home, in part because I am uncomfortable with people waiting on me. I do not like power imbalances even, especially, when I am on top.
Where have I been I going with all of this tangential maundering?
I would never want to be teaching kids who were disinclined to trust me to be on their side. Love me or lose me...
Very thought-provoking, indeed.
I've always questioned the one-size-fits-all curriculum.
It's not working, nor has it ever worked.
Take music instruction, for example: What percentage of ordinary music students become accomplished musicians?
As I read this article, I happened to be listening to a 1950's recording made by the late jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. O.P. was one great role model, irrespective of your so-called race, a concept to which I do not personally subscribe.
Allow me to digress...
I considered buying the house next door to mine when it appeared on the market some years ago after the death of the owner. It was the late 1990's and I knew it would be an excellent investment.
I decided not to buy it, though.
I bought gold, instead.
Why?
If I'd bought the house, I'd have become a dreaded landlord.
Do you know anyone who likes landlords?
Do you want to be the man who throws out someone who stops paying rent because her husband cheats on her or her kid is sick or she lost her job or whatever?
Personally, I do not want to be in that position, especially if the alternative is to go broke.
I eat at home, in part because I am uncomfortable with people waiting on me. I do not like power imbalances even, especially, when I am on top.
Where have I been I going with all of this tangential maundering?
I would never want to be teaching kids who were disinclined to trust me to be on their side. Love me or lose me...
58
"Power imbalance" is a good phrase to capture the problem.
"Tough love" has featured in a lot of drug treatment programs I dealt with over the years. Abusing the inherent power imbalance has been a clear warning sign of a bad program. It has been all too common, all the way in some cases I've dealt with to use as free labor and blatant sexual abuse.
That abuse of the concept does not invalidate the idea. I've seen it done right, and save "hopeless" cases.
Do you know what it takes to train a dog? I don't mean the kids or the addict are like dogs, I mean you ought not do to people things you wouldn't even do to a dog. Consistency, rewards, firm but not punitive, and lots of love and approval and caring for will win over almost any dog to train it for almost anything. I make the comparison because I have a cousin who does drug counseling, and she also trains even the most impossible rescued dogs doing the same things. She is very good at both.
People of course are more complicated, but that does not justify abuse in the name of tough love. It means extra effort, to understand what is going on inside that mind.
"Tough love" has featured in a lot of drug treatment programs I dealt with over the years. Abusing the inherent power imbalance has been a clear warning sign of a bad program. It has been all too common, all the way in some cases I've dealt with to use as free labor and blatant sexual abuse.
That abuse of the concept does not invalidate the idea. I've seen it done right, and save "hopeless" cases.
Do you know what it takes to train a dog? I don't mean the kids or the addict are like dogs, I mean you ought not do to people things you wouldn't even do to a dog. Consistency, rewards, firm but not punitive, and lots of love and approval and caring for will win over almost any dog to train it for almost anything. I make the comparison because I have a cousin who does drug counseling, and she also trains even the most impossible rescued dogs doing the same things. She is very good at both.
People of course are more complicated, but that does not justify abuse in the name of tough love. It means extra effort, to understand what is going on inside that mind.
38
@Mark: Interesting post. My idea of tough love is a combination of basic love and/or respect for the individual coupled with some unvarnished truth and a clearly defined contingency space that each individual is free to choose to accept or reject.
I would encouraged people to 'choose life', for example, while understanding that it is up to them to find a reason to make that choice.
I would encouraged people to 'choose life', for example, while understanding that it is up to them to find a reason to make that choice.
11
They may be disinclined to trust you to be on their side when you start, but if you are sincere in caring and work at it it is certainly possible to win them over. Back in the 60s I tutored several black kids at a mostly black high school (Franklin) in Seattle. One of the students had recently moved up from Louisiana and had never spoken to a white person before. She was terrified by her mostly white teachers and was failing everything. Since I had spent my childhood in the deep South I was very comfortable with black people because so many of them had been in my life, starting at an early age. Because I accepted her first as a worthy person she began to trust me and did so well that she ended up going to a Washington state college. One of my proudest accomplishments in my 76 years.
You retired early and can afford the time. Suggest you try some tutoring or Big Brothering. You might find it brings some joy into your life. It's even better than owning gold!
You retired early and can afford the time. Suggest you try some tutoring or Big Brothering. You might find it brings some joy into your life. It's even better than owning gold!
3
I see so much value in what you have written. You shine a light on an important area many have never considered. Forgive me for questioning this sentence but when you wrote, "...how can we not recognize that untrained and unprepared black male teachers can cause more harm than good?" - did you really mean "improperly trained" and "improperly prepared" black male teachers? Is there really a big problem with black male teachers with no training or preparation? Your focus everywhere else in the article but that sentence presumes that teachers have been trained but not properly trained and prepared for the reality of teaching. I agree with that focus since that was my experience many years ago when I taught in the NYC public schools and I have no reason to believe that training and preparation is much better now. I left the system after about 2 years because I couldn't be a part of an institution that I felt was hurting kids.
This is not intended as a negative criticism. I think what you have written is very important. It needs to be heard and put into action. I'm clear that you are not disparaging black male teachers. That one sentence stuck with me long after I read the article so I had to come back and ask you about it. I'm 1000% with you on the need for teachers to be trained and prepared in a way that makes them effective educators of the children entrusted to them.