When it comes to the academic achievement gap between Black males and white males, the media has portrayed the problem as very severe with an overwhelming lag between the two’s success rates, Ivory Toldson, Ph.D. said. The reality is that the country has been heading slowly in the right direction for decades.
Despite this positive progress, he said the problems for African-American males have been getting worse over the last several years. However, things are not so dire they can’t be fixed. From his research Howard University associate professor Toldson draws the conclusion that academic success for Black males starts with their educators.
“Every teacher has in their power [...] to help Black males achieve,” Toldson said.
Toldson recently gave an online seminar for Inside the School to discuss the factors that affect school-aged Black males and the ways teachers and administrators can help them succeed. Toldson says black students and school failure have been linked for far too long and says the black history timeline can be reversed.
The four factors that are impacting them are school factors, personal and emotional factors, family factors and social and environmental factors.
Toldson discussed his findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey: School Crime Supplement (2005) that contains the analysis of thousands of interviews with children from across the country. One of the main points from the study reveals the importance of the student-teacher relationship.
Analysis of the student-teacher relationship shows that being treated with respect is the most important characteristic to students.
“Students that are in the D and F (grade) category report their teachers make them feel bad about themselves. The ones that are in the A category felt that their teachers made them feel good about themselves,” Toldson said.
Toldson can relate to the research findings because he lived in an urban, underserved area of Baton Rouge. Positive contacts with a caring teacher made the difference for him.
When Toldson was a student in the fourth grade, he was segregated into a lower level reading group and was often punished by the teacher for his “lack” of abilities. The following year in fifth grade, he met a teacher who changed his life. Toldson said the teacher simply told him that she could not understand how he could have problems and he was one of her brightest students. That encouragement put Toldson on a path to success.
The story exemplifies that when a teacher makes the students feel good about themselves they can be successful. Teaching black boys is an opportunity to change someone’s life.
A student’s perceptions of school can influence her success as much as having a caring or uncaring teacher. Toldson’s study shows that the safer a student feels, the better they will perform in school.
“Regardless of race, if you don’t feel safe at school – you aren’t going to have as much success,” Toldson said. “But what the study shows is that most African- Americans don’t feel safe at school.”
Toldson shared the emotional factors that affected one student in the survey. The student said, “I think sometimes we don’t get enough sleep and can’t stay up during class, which affects how much information you get from the teacher. From that you don’t take very good notes. Then, you study bad notes and have the wrong information. Now, you take the test and get a bad grade. That gives people further reason to believe that we are dumb and don’t know anything.”
According to the Health Behavior in School-Age Children (2003) study, students who are tired in the morning perform very poorly. Many African- Americans are not getting enough sleep. Toldson said this is a common characteristic for Black male students and recommends changing life habits can help them perform better.
“Feel safe, eat healthy and get more sleep and the students will perform better,” Toldson said.
Feeling safe can also be directly attributed to whether or not Black males have a father-figure in their lives. Black males with a father in the home reported higher levels of academic achievement according to the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (2003) study.
From these findings, Toldson produced strong evidence that modeling is an important component to academic development among Black adolescent males. The father’s education, but not the mother’s education, had a significant impact on Black males’ academic achievement.
According to Toldson it isn’t just school, personal and social factors affecting Black male psyche. Financial resources have large implications of how well Black males perform in school.
“African-American males who were reared in homes with more financial resources had better odds of performing well in school. African-Americans are more likely to live in poverty than any other racial group,” Toldson said. “African-Americans also had the greatest wealth gap, suggesting that their finances are more sensitive to national economic trends.”
The factors Toldson discussed can all have an impact on African-American students, but there is one thing educators can do immediately to help them achieve.
“We need to give students positive reinforcement to recognize success instead of emphasizing failures,” Toldson said.
