MenTeach E-News
July – August 2018
1) Scholarships for Minority Males in California
2) Summer Bridge Program Cultivates Future Male Minority Elementary School Teachers
3) Pre-to-3: Young black men explore a pathway to early-childhood education
4) I’m one of the few male nursery teachers. There should be more of us
5) Possible key to black boys’ academic success: Hire black men as elementary school teacher
6) New program in Illionis to create a pipeline of black and Latino male teachers
7) Scholarship Program To Recruit Male Teachers Of Color Launches in San Antonio, Texas
8) Two cofounders of The Fellowship: Black Male Educators for Social Justice just scored national recognition
9) Making a difference keeping and recruiting men teachers in Canada
10) Dallas math teacher more than just a teacher: ‘He’s kind of like a father figure to me’
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1) Scholarships for Minority Males in California – Future Minority Male Teachers of California
What is F2MTC?
The goal of the F2MTC project is to improve the pipeline for male teachers of color throughout the California State University system so that elementary age students of color will have increased numbers of males of color serving as teachers, mentors and role models, thereby helping to close the persistent achievement gap between white students and students of color. Read the article to find out about scholarships: /node/3288
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2) Summer Bridge Program Cultivates Future Male Minority Elementary School Teachers
There was a simple question asked to the room of eager students and mentors: “May I teach?”
The audience answered confidently: “Teach on.”
This question was posed by Darryl McKeller, a teacher with 20 years of experience in inner-city schools in LAUSD. His primary audience included a group of seven students of various ages, participating in Future Male Minority Teachers of Color (F2MTC). The program’s mission is to create a pipeline for male minorities to become elementary school teachers.
From June 25 to 29, California State University, Northridge hosted a group of high school students and one college student for F2MTC’s summer bridge program. The event featured several workshops, including McKeller’s, which focused on topics such as mentorship, defending a position and teaching methods. Another workshop combined hip-hop and social justice to show the importance of teaching and mentorship through creating various rhymes with positives messages. Read the article and watch the video: /node/3339
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3) Pre-to-3: Young black men explore a pathway to early-childhood education
Eric Horsley didn’t come from a family of educators, and he was the first in his family to walk across the stage to receive his high school diploma. But it hasn’t taken him long to pick up the language of the teaching profession.
He talks about examining assessment results, choosing the students he will tutor based on that data and finding books that target the particular early literacy skills where children need help. “I can see the growth,” he said in an interview.
A 2017 graduate of Eastern Senior High School in Washington, D.C., Horsley has spent the past school year working in a pre-K classroom at Neval Thomas Elementary School as part of the Leading Men Fellowship, a project of The Literacy Lab designed to attract young black males into early-childhood education and support them as role models in their communities.
“We want them to see this as a college and career pathway,” said Ivan C. Douglas Jr., a program manager at The Literacy Lab. Read the article: /node/3345
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4) I’m one of the few male nursery teachers. There should be more of us
A few years ago, when I started to seriously consider a career in teaching, the possibility of specialising in teaching the under-sixes didn’t even cross my mind. For me the choice was whether to train as a secondary English or primary school teacher.
After much thought, I applied for a primary place on the Teach First Leadership Development Programme and, to my surprise, was offered early years – back then, I wasn’t even entirely clear what “early years” meant (it’s from birth to age five). But after some research into the play-based ethos of the curriculum for the under-fives, I chose to accept. A year or so later, I stood nervously at the gates of the east London nursery and children’s centre, at which I was to spend the first two years of my career.
My choice didn’t go unchallenged. More than a few people raised concerns with me about the pitfalls of being a man working in early years. These pertained primarily to an irrational culture of suspicion surrounding such men, and I was warned a number of times that I’d have to be “extra careful”.
It didn’t help that around this time I watched Thomas Vinterberg’s powerful drama The Hunt, about a Danish kindergarten teacher wrongly accused of abusing a child in his class. I also had anxieties about whether there would be sufficient opportunities for career progression, and the extent to which I would feel adequately challenged. Read the article: /node/3347
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5) Possible key to black boys’ academic success: Hire black men as elementary school teacher
Near the end of his freshman year at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Ja’Waun Williams heard that a dean there had been a member of the fraternity Williams was pledging.
After bonding over their shared affection for Alpha Phi Alpha, Dean Alfred Tatum persuaded Williams to shift his academic focus. Instead of preparing to teach high school math, Tatum suggested, why not major in urban elementary education?
Modest as it may seem, that change is an example of what supporters say could help solve daunting challenges confronting African-American students, particularly boys, across the country. Spurred by Tatum, UIC’s dean of the College of Education, the school aims to invest about $1 million in an initiative to recruit and train male elementary education majors of color, similar to how universities recruit and train star athletes.
“I felt that it was great that they were pinpointing that demographic,” said Williams, a 19-year-old Chicagoan and graduate of Hillcrest High School in Country Club Hills. “It’s amazing. There’s definitely a need for them.”
Nationwide, 2 percent of public school teachers are African-American males and 2 percent are Hispanic males, while students of color make up about half the nation’s public school enrollment from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Read the article: /node/3348
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6) New program in Illionis to create a pipeline of black and Latino male teachers
Jawaun Williams always felt a void growing up on the South Side, going to schools with a predominantly black student population.
When he graduated from high school, he was one of the top 15 students in his class and in the honors society.
Still, something was missing.
“I’ve never had the opportunity to be taught by someone who looked like me. I never had any male black teachers,” Williams pointed out.
“I’ve only had one black teacher in my life. It was something I was used to, but as I’ve grown older, I realized that it is pretty weird that black men weren’t in my field.”
Though he wasn’t taught by many black men, Williams saw how influential educators could be in a young person’s life. Read the article: /node/3350
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7) Scholarship Program To Recruit Male Teachers Of Color Launches in San Antonio, Texas
Three out of four teachers in the San Antonio area are women, and just four percent are black, according to state data.
My Brother’s Keeper San Antonio is accepting applications through Aug. 7, with the aim of placing 30 men in internships at area schools this school year while they obtain alternative teacher certification through Education Service Center Region 20. They need to have their bachelor’s degree to qualify.
State Representative Barbara Gervin-Hawkins recruited Toyota to pay for the first phase of the scholarship program.
“If you don’t see yourself in a particular field, then you don’t pursue it. So we’ve got to be very much more intentional, much more deliberate with our young people as we open the doors of career fields for them,” Gervin-Hawkins said. Read about the scholarship: /node/3352
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8) Two cofounders of The Fellowship: Black Male Educators for Social Justice just scored national recognition
It’s an oft-shared statistic in the education world: Only 2 percent of America’s teachers are Black men.
And, according to Philly.com, 54 percent of students in the Philadelphia School District are Black, yet only 5 percent of their teachers are Black men.
Following the adage “You can’t be what you can’t see,” an organization called The Fellowship of Black Male Educators for Social Justice (BME) was founded in Philadelphia in 2014 as a membership and activist organization dedicated to promoting and recruiting Black men as teachers.
BME started an annual conference this past October to convene that 2 percent. The event’s goal: to give those teachers hope and motivation, and give them a chance to thrive in a field lacking representation. Read the story: /node/3353
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9) Making a difference keeping and recruiting men teachers in Canada
Just wanted to share a quick story that impacted me at our recent MECE (“Knights at the Kids Table”) conference in Canada. During one of the breaks during the conference a gentleman came up to me and shared this story. I have to admit that I didn’t recognize him as our paths have not crossed in decades but I was so encouraged by his story. I wanted to share it with you folk to remind you that each and every time you speak up or show up at an ECE event or conference the same kind of thing could be happening without you knowing it. This is the story as I reported it to the funder who paid for Bryan to speak at our conference. Read the report: /node/3355
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10) Dallas math teacher more than just a teacher: ‘He’s kind of like a father figure to me’
It’s National Teacher Appreciation Week, and many people are honoring those educators who have made a positive, significant, impact in their lives.
Students and staff at Clara Oliver Elementary School in Dallas are giving a special salute to math teacher Joseph Francis.
“He’s so intelligent,” said fourth grader Shanterria Woods.
Mr. Francis has become very popular with his students. They call Francis a man with a knack for making math fun.
“He explains things to me how I understand them,” said fourth-grader Tory Robertson.
Francis admits he adds a certain level of cool to the classroom.
“I do,” the teacher said. “I’m a jokester. I’m a jokester, I always incorporate sports.”
He says multiplying ways to connect with the kids on issues they are interested in is an important factor. Read the article and watch the video: /node/3356
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