Full Article At: MichiganRadio.org
The teaching profession in America remains largely white and female. That means young African American males can go through school without ever seeing a teacher who looks like them.
Not only can this mean a lack of black role models, but it also means teaching doesn’t get held up as a profession that’s desirable for black men to pursue.
Curtis Lewis is trying to chance that narrative. He’s principal of Henry Ford Academy and founder and Chairman of the Board of the Black Male Educators Alliance of Michigan. He’s spent his career in education and has experienced first-hand what it’s like to be the only black male teacher in a school.
Listen to the full interview: CLICK HERE
Hello
My name is Racquel and I’m that State of Michigan rep for Black Educators Rock. We have ove 155000 members 9n our group froom all over the world. I was wondering if I can meet with you during your upcoming event. Also, I’ve had other educators from other states inquiring about the event. Will it just be for things going on in Michigan or for male educators everywhere
Black Education Is About Identity
“Let ignorance reproduce itself until it is weary of its own offspring”
Kahlil Gibran
To make the playing level you must bring your own dirt. The primary function of education is to teach identity. In its first stage, children learn their name (who they are—or not) and their basic language structure in their homes in order to communicate with the primary caregiver(s) and have needs met.
All ethnic groups have maintained elements of their culture (culture defined as; “being taught how to think,” then expressed through language, art, cuisine, social behaviors, etc.) as they assimilated into the American culture. The conundrum for African Americans, in their enslavement they were not given the choice or luxury to have their way of thinking—their thoughts expressed and accepted in the mainstream of American society. That was then; this is now.
Today, we have the responsibility, choice, and obligation to connect the missing pages of our collective culture and history; that history before the West Africa slave trade.
First, deconstruct the special education that was compulsory to enslaved Africans; and most freed Africans.
Second, reconstruct an education with past and present knowledge to resemble and enable African Americans to embrace their ancestral connection and learn how to think differently. Insanity is doing the same things repeatedly, expecting different results.
In areas of high populations of African Americans, the school systems are failing the people. According to “Problems Growing for Poorly Educated Black Men,” an article in Diversity Inc., “New studies, however, show that within inner cities across the country, more than half of all black men still do not finish high school.” The system is not working for them—for us. Yet, we keep changing the same things (buildings, books, curriculums, teachers, etc.) and getting the same results. We keep addressing the symptoms and not the problem – how we think.
We are different—not deficient. We look different. We talk different. We think different. There is no shame in being different. However, Eurocentric thinking deems our difference a deficiency, a paradigm that has existed for two thousands of years.
It is essential and imperative we teach our children how to think, not what; because, we need answers in our communities that we are responsible to provide. It is our duty to develop thinkers and activist to increase our quality of life. Yes, many have prospered by the “old guard” the old and proven methods of distributing equal educational opportunities. Nonetheless, methods and people do change, and if we are not cognizant and adapt by addressing the cause of ill effects in our communities, we will lose more than our men. We will lose all.
Subsequently, it is the salient point for us to educate ourselves. If not now, when? It is our responsibility to teach our children who and whose they are. Over the years, we have relied upon someone who did not consider us as equal, yet we gave our children over to them to be “educated” or so we thought. We need discerning citizens, critical thinkers, advocates and activists, to enhance our communities and create parity.
Overall, to make the playing field level, we must bring our own dirt. Education; African- centered, African-based, and facilitated with mother love, it is that dirt (education) to enable our children to take their seat among the nations of humankind.
–Howard W. Starks Jr., Ed. Spec.
© 2016