Breaking Barriers: Unleashing the Potential of Black Males in School

“With education, I know I can go beyond my wildest dreams. With help from my teachers, family, and friends, the sky is the limit!” said 8th grader Zaniriusz. Zaniriusz lives in a community with a dropout rate above 50% for Black males, but aspires to graduate from college and return to his neighborhood to “build a new playground,” make sure “every family has air conditioners and heaters,” and “get rid of criminals and gangs.” He shared his experiences in “A Mile in My Shoes Writing Project: African-American Males Telling Their Own Stories.”

The Excellence Gap: A New Version of the Achievement Gap

Educators should give themselves a pat on the back: the achievement gap is narrowing. More kids are passing standardized tests and more schools are meeting NCLB’s requirements. That’s a huge achievement for teachers and schools, but most of all, it’s a huge achievement for the students themselves.

Except, along the way, we’ve forgotten some kids.

We’re doing well at the middle and that’s great, but the demographics have remained almost unchanged for students who excelled in education standards like reading and math.

Black Male Achievement: Incorporating the Community and Institutions in Black Male Academic Success

We all know that the time between the 7:30 morning bell and the 3 p.m. dismissal bell is pretty short. We try to make our classes, our rooms, our schools welcoming, safe, student-focused, and full of learning.

But when the final bell rings, the students exit the double doors and return to the world where they spend two-thirds of their time. If the students are urban Black males, chances are that they won’t graduate from high school (Livingston & Nahimana, 2006). There’s also a good chance that many of them have had a disciplinary referral this year (1 in 4), take remedial reading lessons, are enrolled in special education, have been expelled, score low on standardized tests, and have never seen the inside of a Gifted and Talented classroom (Whiting, 2006).

The Road to Burnout is Paved with Good Intentions

Burnout. It’s out there. Somewhere. And like a bad flu, it’s coming to get you.

Or is it?

Actually, no. It’s not coming at you. You might be moving toward it, but burnout isn’t something that lurks in shadows waiting to grab you. It’s really rather passive. It sits in front of you like a potted plant. In fact, it’s not scary at all. It might cast a large shadow over the conversations we have about teaching and educators, but it is quite frankly a rather benign little thing in some ways. Let me explain.

Teacher Anger: When Does It Violate Expected Norms of Teacher Behavior?

Do you ever reach a point where you’ve just had it with your students – they still aren’t following directions you’ve repeatedly delivered, they’re still talking not so quietly in the back of the room, and too many of them are still turning in work that has been dashed off at the last minute? So what do you do? March into class and more or less let them have it? Well, if you do, you certainly are not alone. In a study of teacher anger, researchers asked students to think of a specific teacher who had become angry in class and then describe that angry episode. Only five of the 301 students asked could not think of an angry-teacher event.

A College Culture Encourages Students to Continue Their Education

Researchers Nicole Holland, Ph.D., and Raquel L. Farmer-Hinton, Ph.D., looked into the question of whether school size encourages a college culture. They found that smaller schools, or smaller learning communities within larger schools, were more successful in creating a college culture than big schools.

In the budget battles, their findings that smaller learning communities prepare students for higher education should give student advocates powerful arguments to keep schools small.

For we teachers, the biggest take-away from Holland and Farmer-Hilton’s research is how we can encourage this college culture in our own classrooms.

Teacher Working Conditions Affect Student Performance

My first year of teaching fifteen years ago was in a poor school in a poor school district. The only supplies in my closet were paper clips and ditto masters. My supply budget was $20. The student lockers were dented, some window panes were broken or missing, and my classroom ceiling leaked when it rained.

I don’t have to tell you that teachers didn’t stay long in that building. Everyone was looking for a school that had plenty of books for the students and a pleasant working environment with outlets that functioned and a photocopier with toner.

Music as a Tool in the Secondary Classroom

Popular music and student’s preoccupation with it can be scourges of the secondary classroom. However, a savvy teacher can harness students’ interests in music and turn preoccupation into classroom community, commitment and comfort. Here are a few suggestions that have worked in my science, art and teaching methodology classrooms.

Acronym Overload

A few weeks ago, I had to stay after school for a SILT meeting. SILT was established because of our school district’s commitment to VPAT, with hopes of increasing NCLB and CATS indexes (from the KCCT) in an effort to meet AYP. Of course, SILT needs to remember to report to DILT, a strong instructional arm of SCPS. A focus on CC 4.1 and close examination of PCs should help, I am told. Same with a recommitment to teaching and modeling TRIBE.