The Need for African American Teachers
As we look forward to a new school year in the fall the problem of a lack of Black and teachers of color in general still exist. Our schools, both locally and nationally need to organize an aggressive campaign to recruit teachers from colleges and universities and to do a national search to find the best qualified teachers of color. This is not only a problem in the Buffalo school district, but it is a national problem.
When I invited Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu to Buffalo many years ago he stated that the teachers especially in the elementary schools across the nation are predominantly white and female. Of course, with the new administration this will be more of a challenge with the diversity and equity initiatives. However, our challenge is to utilize our churches as a teaching hub to get students more involved in teaching. It is not impossible, but it will take determination and courage to do it.
African Independent schools were once popular. For example, we had a school in Buffalo called The Nile Valley Shule. The word Shule means school. At one time they were called Freedom Schools. We must remember our history and struggle to be free. We can start by encouraging students to read. We have many resources here in our community to do so. Instead of our youth standing on the corner getting into fights all summer; we must direct them to positive activities.
The end of this article gives some suggestions. There was a story recently on the news, highlighting a reading program for students that allowed them to read what they wanted to read— not just for testing but for enjoyment. It was a refreshing look at another way to teach reading. This will be a long summer, and already young people are causing chaos in the streets of Buffalo. The violence we see is unacceptable. Reading and writing go hand in hand. This is one reason I introduce essay contests. They encourage students to learn, do research and express themselves in a variety of subjects. They might even want to get into filmmaking. Buffalo is popular for making films now. All it takes is imagination and creativity.
Reading the story of the great educator Mary McLeod is an example of a woman who took four crates and created a school for Black children and later created a college. These stories are inspirational. She did this in the time of the Klan. However, she did not give up. Her ultimate goal was the education of Black children. She later became an advisor to Presidents.
We must tell these stories to our youth so that they have other people to follow. They can be writers, poets, filmmakers, playwrights, inventors, artists, and creative people in any field they choose to go into. It is up to us to encourage them to reach for the stars! The same situation exists right here in our school system. This is a great concern because the majority of the student population is African American. We also have large numbers of immigrant children attending our schools. All students need to see teachers in the classroom that look like them and are from their cultural background. This is not to say that this will solve all of the problems in the schools. However, more teachers of color and those who can teach from a Culturally Responsive perspective will have a greater chance of producing successful students.
This problem of a lack of teachers of color was evident when I was in the classroom many years ago and even earlier. This columnist certainly does not have all of the answers. However, I would like to suggest some ideas that might help to increase the number of African American teachers our schools. Here are several suggestions:
We must introduce the idea that teaching is an Honorable profession. We can do this by making it a priority in our community and exposing our children to examples of good teachers. Many years ago I created a Black Educators Exhibit at the Merriweather Library that showed many of our African American Teachers. I did this exhibit for several years highlighting these teachers and their accomplishments for everyone to see. I still have the articles on this effort that appeared in the Criterion newspaper.
At every opportunity we need to expose our students from the very earliest grades to teaching. We need to do this in our churches and community centers. Instead of promoting the athletes we need to promote our teachers who are doing a good job in the schools. There are many good teachers who work hard every day to help students succeed.
As a historian I would like to urge our community to point out those teachers in our history who made a difference not only in their own community but in the entire nation. These teachers include, Mary McCleod Bethune, who took a few orange crates and started a school that later became a college. Charlotte Hawkins Brown, who created a school for Black girls in the early 1900’s, Dr. Rufus E. Clement who was a skilled teacher and who created three different schools. He also became a minister. Lucy Craft Laney was such a gifted teacher that many of her students also became teachers. Benjamin E. Mays was a gifted and inspirational educator who later became the president of Morehouse College in 1940. He taught and inspired many people such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There are also hundreds of teachers right here in our community, retired and still working, who made tremendous contributions to education.
We must also increase the salaries of teachers so that they are competitive and will attract the best and the brightest teachers from our colleges and universities.
This columnist rejects any idea that these suggestions will not work because many of them have not been tried before. We are so used to talking about the problem until we can’t see the solutions before us. While we recruit teachers from other places let’s put a plan in place to “grow” our own right here in this community and beyond.