Atlas-Wheelock Seminars on Black Male Youth/October 2006- January 2007


Five 2 hour sessions and four all day sessions on the Education of Black Male Youth. Powerful, right on, theoretical, practical, academic, research based, extremely well delivered and engaging.
It would have been hard to anticipate such a thorough program based on a series of monthly lectures and day long workshops. They were both satisfying in themselves and addressed one of the most serious questions our country faces:"How can we educate Black male youth?"

The question alone provided the thread to the series and while individual presenters had not met one another about their presentations, they were all on the same page though they gave their message from their own discipline.

David Banks is the founding headmaster of the all male The Eagle Academy for Young Men in New York City. He spoke of the school’s beginning under the sponsorship of One Hundred Black Men to help Black Male Youth understand the world they face, and how to navigate it.

People left that presentation impressed by the fact that every student at Eagle Academy has a one on one mentor. Many of the attendees at the all day session pledged to find mentors for the Black boys in their school or class, or to begin single sex groups either during or after school where issues that are particuar to them can be addressed.

Margaret Beale Spencer is a professor in the Department of Human Development at the University of Pennsylvani in Philadelphia. Her presentation was both scholarly and warm, emphasizing her work on resilience in young people, particularly young Blacks.

She focused on the perception our society has of young Black males, and the result that perception has on them. Being seen in a negative light and being faced with demeaning interactions often lead young black males to take on maladaptive strategies that protect them, but put them deeper into non-productive experiences. They take on a bravado that suggest they take risks, hate women , and don’t care very much about anythging.
Margaret Beale Spencer sees this as defensiveness in a basically hostile environment.

Her recommendation is that we understand the students and look beyond the external to connect with them. Their experiences need to be validated through discussions in class.
This will let them see that adults i.e. teachers understand what’s actually going on in their lives.

Beale-Spencer feels that Race is still the elephant in the room that is rarely discussecd. Adults need to be honest in their discussions with each other and with students about race and racism.

Afred Tatum’s specialty is teaching reading. He is a professor of reading at Northern Illinois University and has published a book Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males. His main point is that books, poems and other writings that Black adolescents are asked to read should relate to them and their experience. These writings need to engage them and provide some sense of where they might go in the future. Tatum speaks of a textual lineage which is books that most influence individuals in their middle and high school years.
Kids learn to read by reading and there is a large list of books that are available and important for young black children.

Drs. Gwendolyn Webb-Johnson and Ron Rochon echoed much of the three previous presentions by emphasizing that schools need to meet students where they are, and take them where they need to be. They were discussing the disproposrtionate representation of Black males in Special Education. Instead of assigning students to categories in special education we need to respond with cultural relevant teaching and undertand that certain behaviors may be different but not aberrant. If teachers really understand who the children are, strengths and weaknesses, and fit the curriculum and pedagogy to these children, these children will learn.
Schools need strong principals who can lead faculties through this change process.

Gwen and Ron are great believers in affirmations and have developed a number of chants that help children believe in themselves.

I took away some common threads from the presentations. Clearly we are expected to educate our entire population, and this demands teachers who have a reportoire of skills and considerable knowledge about people and pedagogy. We need to begin to train aspiring teachers for this, and help move currrent teachers to it.
We have not been successful in educating Black Male Youth. We need to be real with Black youth and let them know we understand what their experience is, and are willing to talk about it and read about it. This is not an excuse for low expectation but rather a preliminary piece while holding our students responsible for the hard work of learning.
Secondly we will best acoomplish this by looking carefully at the data about our students and use it to direct our teaching.
We need to combine a culturally responsive subjective piece with the clear cut hard data piece.

Hopefully a number of individual efforts will emerge from this series, and principals will begin the difficult process of engaging faculty in educating Black Male Youth.