Think about the first time you had a black male teacher, if ever. If you did, chances are you will never forget him. I firmly believe that if we put positive black men in front of these students, more young black boys will aspire to be educators.
Challenge: Ask two people how many African-American male educators they’ve had in their K-12 school careers. It is my hypothesis that most will give you an answer between zero and two. Continue the conversation by affirming the need to increase this number.
Poor achievement among our neediest students is the result, at least in part, of a lack of strong, positive black educators in the classrooms. This nation needs to move swiftly to engage more African-American men in teaching. No longer can we simply be OK with black men representing less than 2 percent of our teacher workforce. It is unacceptable.
Donald G. Nicolas is a 5th grade teacher at a public school in Broward County, Fla.