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| Students at a Baltimore high school in April |
Why Black Men Quit Teaching
How can we help black boys succeed in school? One popular answer
is that we need more black male teachers.
The logic appears simple:
Black boys are not faring well, and the presence of black men as teachers and
role models will fix this problem. The former secretary of education, Arne
Duncan, brought this theory to national attention with a number of speeches at
historically black colleges and universities. His successor, John King Jr., has
taken up the argument, often repeating the statistic that only 2 percent of our
nation’s teachers are African-American men.
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. Black male teachers can serve as powerful role models, but
they cannot fix the problems minority students face simply by being black and
male.
Black male teachers are not
just expected to teach and be role models; they are also tasked with the work
of disciplinarians. The stereotype is that they are best at dispensing “tough
love” to difficult students. 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. In this model, they are robbed of the
opportunity to teach, while black male students are robbed of opportunities to
learn.
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, or yelling at students for being playful or asking too many questions.
Many
black male teachers at first believe in the need for “tough love.” When they
realize it is code for doing damage to black students, they are filled with
remorse and often leave the field of teaching. About a year ago, a teacher
named Joseph Mathews came rushing into my office saying: “I can’t look those
black boys in the face and make them feel like I felt in school anymore. I have
to quit.” This is a pervasive yet under-researched phenomenon that seriously
affects teacher retention.
To his credit, Mr. King has
recognized what he calls “the
invisible tax” on
minority educators. This tax is paid in the extra disciplinary and
relationship-building work that black teachers do beyond teaching.
Unfortunately, acknowledging the tax does little to alleviate it or its
consequences.
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. 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. If the
notion that we must hire black male teachers in order to have positive role
models for black youth makes sense, how can we not recognize that untrained and
unprepared black male teachers can cause more harm than good?
I vividly remember, as a
boy, having a black male teacher who didn’t see any value in me as a person,
and who didn’t seem to enjoy teaching black and brown boys. Our school was
diverse, with students from many ethnic and racial backgrounds, and this teacher
clearly treated black male students differently, raising his voice and
enforcing rules more strictly. He was allowed to teach the way he did because
he was dealing with black male students who were perceived to need “tough
love.” But I felt targeted by the very teacher who (because he was black) was
supposed to be the person I connected to.
This cycle of dysfunction
is repeated in schools across the country when black men, unprepared and
burdened with expectations that inhibit them from being effective, are placed
in front of students and told to teach. 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. Then they can learn strategies for being effective with these students
despite their differences.
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.
This is not a call for more
white teachers or a statement about some inherent inability of black male
teachers. It is a call for a more thoughtful approach to teacher recruitment
and retention, and a renewed focus on teacher preparation. 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?
Chris Emdin: Why Black Men Quit Teaching?
Dear Commons
Community,
In a New
York Times op-ed today, Chris Emdin, an associate
professor at Teachers College and an alumnus of our Ph.D. Program in Urban
Education here at the CUNY Graduate Center, examines the role of black male
teachers in -12 education. Chris comments that “black male teachers can
serve as powerful role models, but they cannot fix the problems minority
students face simply by being black and male”. His rationale is:
“Black male teachers
are not just expected to teach and be role models; they are also tasked with
the work of disciplinarians. The stereotype is that they are best at dispensing
“tough love” to difficult students. 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. In this model, they are robbed of
the opportunity to teach, while black male students are robbed of opportunities
to learn.”
As a result, black
male teachers leave the profession rather than dish out “tough love”.
There is truth to what
Endin says but it is not the whole story. The entire profession has a
very high attrition rate regardless of race or gender especially in the first
several years of teaching. Furthermore, there are so few black male
teachers in K-12 because proportionally very few of them go into it in the
first place. If there were more black male teachers, they would not all
have to be “tough love” dispensers, some would just be teachers.
Chris is correct in
that our schools of education can do more to prepare all teachers to deal with
severe issues of poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources across
communities, and the criminalization of black men inside and outside of
schools. But I believe that we would serve our minority students better
if there were more role models for them. Our K-12 system needs more male
teachers – black, Latino, and white.
Tony
