Images DO make lasting impressions...

Let's see-in the span of 5 weeks, I've been removed from my position as a 5th grade teacher and reassigned to teach 1st grade, been called "Grossly insubordinate" and "Disrespectful", had two disciplinary letters placed in my file, been accused of having no classroom management skills, and threatened with an "Unsatisfactory" year-end rating-in October. All by a principal who has never seen me teach, nor had a one-on-one conversation with me. Halloween came early this year.

On a different note, I came across this article: Nation's pupils find few black men to call Mister The Network Journal. It got me thinking about my place as an educator. In my school, I am the only male classroom teacher. There are a few other men-the gym teacher, two paraprofessionals and two resource teachers-but in terms of the one face who works with the same class for 180+ days a year, there's just me. The article really got me wondering why so few Black men get into this profession. Do we not like children? Are we unintelligent? Are we not wired to appreciate the concept of teaching others? I've come up with a reason why we have so few male teachers:

We've had very little images of them

I can't speak for the school system in the suburbs, but if you grew up in an urban community like I did, a considerable amount of your teachers looked like this:

Does she look like she lives in the South Bronx?

Now I must admit that in high school, there were plenty of male teachers (I went to an all-boys school, so I suppose the male presence had to be prominent). But the school was in Harlem. HARLEM! Explain to me why most of the teachers there looked like this:

This guy reminds me of Mr. Mackey in high school. Someone once put gum on his pants. Another kid hemmed him up against the blackboard. Halloween lasted a year for him.

See where I'm going? Red Aurobach once told a story of when he passed through Roxbury, Massachusetts and saw a bunch of Black kids wearing Philadelphia Sixers and L.A. Lakers jerseys. He walked up to them and said they shouldn't be wearing those jerseys. They were in Boston, they should be representing the Celtics. What Red didn't get was that no one on the Celtics-at least, no one Black-was as dynamic as Magic Johnson or Julius Erving. Those kids could care less about the city on the front. It was all about the name on the back. Why do so many of our kids want to grow up to do various forms of entertainment? For one, it's cool. But another reason is because there are sooooooo many images of people who look like them and grew up the way they grew up, that they equate those forum as the only way to attain success and/or wealth. Why would "Malik City Kid" want to teach if he's rarely, if ever, seen a Black man do it? He's seen Black men sing, rap, act and play sports. Ask him what he aspires to be when he grows up, he'll probably give one of those options. But teach?!? That's just crazy talk.

I think that in order to change the education system, we need to take a serious look at the issues that plague it. A lack of men in the classroom is a big problem.