Travis Bristol, MA '04, PhD, describes the professional development program he established in Boston: "The theory of action was that professional development focused on addressing the unique challenges of male teachers of color would help them develop tools and strategies to navigate their school environment."
Dennis Sangister, a veteran black male middle school teacher, re- counted with great frustration sitting in on department meet- ings and having his comments about how to address the social- emotional and academic chal- lenges facing students of color
discounted by white colleagues on the faculty. For Sangister — and many of the other 26 black male participants in a recent study of black male teachers’ school-based experiences — these recurring experi- ences led him to believe his colleagues saw him as intellectually inferior (Bristol, 2014).
Another teacher in this study, George Little, de- scribed having to serve in more disciplinary roles when compared to his colleagues. Administrators assigned him and the other black male teachers to administrative duties such as monitoring or “polic- ing” the school door during dismissal. Like the other black male teachers in the study, Little believed that administrators and his colleagues saw him as a be- havior manager first and as a teacher second.
Combine Little’s observation with research indi- cating that black men have one of the highest rates of turnover in the teaching profession (Ingersoll & May, 2011; Sealey-Ruiz & Lewis, 2011), and we are left with the question of how schools and districts can better support black male teachers.
Read the entire article(PDF) on the Phi Delta Kappan website.
