More Black men need to answer the education call
Classroom teaching is often a thankless job. Teachers are asked to do a lot these days, and it’s not an easy profession, especially for a small fraction of educators: Black male elementary school teachers.
Less than 2% of all teachers in the country are men of color and the challenges that Black male educators face are of a wide range. These challenges don’t just affect the teacher. They also impact the students they teach and their families, as well as the schools where they work and the communities in which they serve. All are directly or indirectly affected by the lack of Black male representation in the classroom.
I’ve seen these challenges personally during my time in the classroom. First, when I was part of The Literacy Lab’s Leading Men Fellowship working as an early literacy tutor at Next Door in Milwaukee, and now in my current job as a lead teacher at the same school.
One of the biggest challenges I’ve witnessed Black men face and frequently talk about has been knowing the route or the next steps for them to take to get into teaching.
Women have been the gatekeepers for careers in education for decades. That’s not the fault of women. It’s just a role that society has mistakenly assumed only they could fill.
Women, specifically white women, have dominated the teaching demographic and representation inside the education setting, making it easier for them to see a lifelong career in education.
Less than 6% of MPS teachers are Black
But times have changed. The need to increase the number of Black male teachers is more pressing than ever, particularly in classrooms filled with Black students.
More than half of Milwaukee Public School students are Black. Unfortunately, most will not have teachers this year that look like them. Less than 6% of Milwaukee Public School teachers are Black, and an even smaller number of them are Black men.
Black students who have at least one Black teacher in elementary school are significantly more likely to graduate from high school. Alarming data such as this cannot be ignored and changes to the teacher pipeline need to be made.
Historically, Black men have not had the opportunity where we could reach out to another male of color who’s willing to “teach” someone like me the ropes or even be a mentor without needing pay. And the limitations Black males are faced with outweigh how much fun we truly have inside the classroom.
If more Black males were appreciated and afforded the same opportunities as their white counterparts, we would see an increase in the number of Black male teachers in elementary school classrooms here in Milwaukee and across the country.
There are a few impactful solutions to the challenge of lack of representation in the classroom. One solution is meeting these future advocates and teachers at the high school level before they make a decision about college. We need more men of color who have done the work to speak about the work and explain why this work matters and why it’s most important for us to change the trajectory and diversity in the education setting.
Black men need to answer call to get into school classrooms
That’s one of the reasons why I continue to lend my voice to The Literacy Lab’s Leading Men Fellowship. As a former Fellow, I’m honored to continue working with the Leading Men Fellowship as its new National Education Ambassador.
It’s a volunteer role that gives me an opportunity to travel the country and share my experiences as a Black male educator to help recruit young men of color who have aspirations to better their community and embed them into classrooms as tutors or aids.
Black and Brown kids look up to teachers who look just like them and they learn best from us just by being there in their face every day. That by itself is a reason why Black men need to consider a career in teaching.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen many males of color leave the classroom because of the lack of support and mistreatment of Black men in this field.
I believe we need to create a cohort of men from tutors, teachers, public officials, advocates and principals – really any Black male in an education system who can acknowledge the critical need for more Black male teachers and offer support to keep them in the profession – to help widen the teacher pipeline and connect kids of color with teachers who can help them excel in the classroom and in life.
The future of Black kids is in our hands and we have an obligation to do whatever we can to help them. I’m doing my part by showing up to answer the call to diversify the teacher pipeline and I challenge other Black men to do the same.
David Tate, Jr. is The Literacy Lab’s Leading Men Fellowship 2023-2024 National Education Ambassador. As one of the first Leading Men Fellows from Milwaukee in 2018, David quickly became a household name throughout the organization and his cohort as someone dedicated to making a difference in and out of the classroom. He is enrolled in the B.A. Early Childhood Education degree program at the University of WisconsinWhitewater.
Less than 2% of all teachers in the country are men of color and the challenges that Black male educators face are of a wide range.