Last night, the
Campaign for Black Male Achievement (CBMA),
The Fellowship: Black Male Educators for Social Justice and Education Post teamed up to host a Twitter chat focused on
#BlackMaleEducators. We chatted about the importance of Black male educators, their impact on students of color and how the U.S. can increase the number of Black males in classrooms. We kicked things off asking folks how many Black male educators have they had during their educational careers. https://twitter.com/edu_post/status/918265946124546048
The responses flowed in quickly, many of them noting the rarity of having a Black man lead their classrooms, and the ways that they were limited because of this deficit. Nationally, Black men make up only 2 percent of the teaching workforce. https://twitter.com/KPBurroughs/status/918267460608020482 https://twitter.com/Everything_STEM/status/918267745552257024 https://twitter.com/S_C_park/status/918476123931070464
Oklahoma educator Nehemiah Frank noted how mind boggling it is how few Black male educators we have in this country. https://twitter.com/nehemiah_frank/status/918270553751982080
What keeps Black men from entering and staying in the teaching profession? https://twitter.com/edu_post/status/918268188256821248
The Fellowship, an organization dedicated to recruiting and supporting Black men in the teaching field, had an answer. https://twitter.com/BMECFellowship/status/918270324499611648
Others brought up the cultural and social expectations. https://twitter.com/MitchellBrookns/status/918283427140521985 https://twitter.com/nehemiah_frank/status/918270212260147200 https://twitter.com/MrDevyDev/status/918271540151705600
The third question got into the concrete ways schools and districts have brought more Black men into the fold. https://twitter.com/edu_post/status/918270184745562112
The answers were, unfortunately, not especially encouraging all the time, but there were some signs of hope at times. https://twitter.com/Optimism_Prime/status/918271524397776896
So what keeps Black male teachers in the classroom? https://twitter.com/edu_post/status/918272050556436480
It struck a chord and got some great discussion going. https://twitter.com/Everything_STEM/status/918275472819130368 https://twitter.com/BusinessAggie/status/918274313098276864 https://twitter.com/BusinessAggie/status/918274313098276864
We wanted to know what’s the biggest challenge facing #BlackMaleEducators. https://twitter.com/edu_post/status/918273960994856960
The responses were enlightening. https://twitter.com/fight4theyouth/status/918276010906337280 https://twitter.com/Optimism_Prime/status/918277385031741440 https://twitter.com/UncleKeviKev/status/918279898371887104
So with all that said how can we better incorporate Black male educators into classrooms? https://twitter.com/edu_post/status/918276130305662978
“Listen to what they have to say about the world, schools and other topics.” https://twitter.com/jdm1906/status/918281077818580993 https://twitter.com/MrDevyDev/status/918279485585346561 https://twitter.com/UncleKeviKev/status/918278491015122944
Missed the Twitter chat? It’s never too late to add to the conversation using #BlackMaleEducators.
Photo by Education Post.