When I heard of Abdul Wright, the 2017 Minnesota Teacher of the Year, I knew I needed him to speak at our inaugural Black Male Educators Convening in October 2017. Read his blog post below and you’ll see why. And, while the...
Category - Belief Gap
Khulia Pringle wrote this article a few years ago. A recent comment on her blog inspired me to repost it. “I’m a black woman who is finishing a master’s in education. Right now, I’m a substitute teacher...
This week was Teacher Appreciation Week, one of my favorite weeks. After all, it honors a profession that should be considered one of the most important vanguards of our communities. They have one of the hardest and most...
Of my twenty-five plus years working with and on behalf of children, about eight of those years were spent in schools where 99.9 percent of the students were children of color, and 85-90 percent of the teachers were white...
Some of the most contentious decisions in a city often involve schools that are struggling – many for generations. While everyone can give solutions that they believe (but haven’t often seen) work, there is a lot of...
Time and time again, I’ve heard educators say that the lack of parental engagement in their schools is what is holding them back. But, when I listen to families, in Philly or Chicago or any other urban city, I hear about the...
A recent study, reported on in the New York Times under the headline “Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys,” and facilitated by researchers at Stanford, Harvard, and the Census Bureau, found that...
By last December, the fall of my ninth year of teaching high school, I had been observed by teacher coaches, visitors from educational non-profit organizations, principals and assistant principals, no fewer than 15 times. Each...
In the article Is the Road to Special Education (for Black Boys) Paved with the White Educator’s Paperwork?, we meet Randy for the first time. Some Context Let’s imagine something for a moment. There is a Black father...
“Your presence is an act of resistance.” —Vincent Cobb II, CEO of The Fellowship: Black Male Educators for Social Justice In October 2017, The Fellowship: Black Male Educators for Social Justice invited Black male educators...