In
February, 2014, President Obama established My Brother’s Keeper (MBK)
in an attempt to “address persistent opportunity gaps and to tear down
barriers that all too often prevent boys and young men of color and
other young people from realizing their potential.” This has been an
ambitious initiative, with mixed results.
One of the challenges
MBK faces is the need to recruit more African-American (A-A) males to
serve as mentors, tutors, and teachers. In the US, only 2% of teachers
are A-A males. This is a problem to meeting the MBK goals. And those
teachers who are in classrooms find themselves in very difficult
positions - that of not only teaching their class, but also serving as
counselor, monitor, police, judge, and jury, for the other A-A students
not in the class. These A-A teachers are feeling overwhelmed, as well
as believing that the system is abrogating its responsibility, and using
these teachers as buffers.
In a recent article by Christopher Emdin, Why Black Men Quit Teaching,
Christopher provides great insight into the experience of the
African-American male teacher.
No comments:
Post a Comment