To address ongoing teacher shortages and increase the diversity of the teacher workforce, the state of Mississippi has launched Grow Your Own (GYO) initiatives, according to a New America report.
The video of George Floyd taking his last breath was difficult for me to process. I experienced anger, sadness, fear, frustration, disgust, outrage, and betrayal. I can't express what I felt when Floyd begged the officer to remove his knee from his neck and called out to his deceased mother. Watching him being restrained in that moment, I imagined Floyd as a young child—no different from a child I teach—crying out for help. 
There's a new push to increase the number of men of color in the classroom. According to the nonprofit Early Learning Indiana, there's a major lack of ethnic and gender diversity in early childhood education.
For Black students in America, having a same-race social studies teacher is extremely rare. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), social studies teachers make up just 7% of the entire teacher workforce. And of all social studies teachers, roughly 94% are White (54% men and 40% women). Just 3% of America’s social studies teachers are Black men. And only 3% are Black women. 
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