If schools want more black male teachers, principals will have to let them be teachers — not security guards — writes Durrell Burns.
Durrell Burns
When he started teaching, he was “excited to make a difference,” he writes in Education Next. “But I often felt pigeonholed into stereotypical roles, asked to serve as a disciplinarian for young Black boys or to teach more basic, non-academic classes.”
“A 2017 study found that low-income Black students who have a Black teacher for at least one year in elementary school are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to consider college,” Burns writes.
As a result, man state are trying to recruit, retain and train teachers of color. However, it won’t work if black male educators are seem as “muscle” rather than “brain,” Burns writes.
He teaches English and Public Speaking at Harrisburg High School in Pennsylvania.
The National Center for Teacher Residencies has a new report out on its Black Educators Initiative.