Should Teachers Best Serve African American Students

In some schools there has been an issue of white teachers and students treating black students differently. This issue has been going unnoticed or ignored and needs to be addressed.

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

As we asked before who has the right to think? And as we all answered, everyone has the right to think; so now think about this: Knowledge, Power, and Race. If black studies is the epistemology of studying black people in the world- such as their history, culture, sociology, and religion, then why raise the question of who should teach black studies?

Williams (2012) conducted a study which explored the perceptions and lived experiences of African American male teachers. Using purposeful sampling, the researcher conducted interviews with 15 African American male teachers from elementary teachers through high school in a southeast Georgia school system having 19,000 students. The ethnic diversity of the school system included about 50% African American, 40% Caucasian, 5% Hispanic, 4% multiracial, and 1% Asian students. Fifty-six percent of these students were considered economically disadvantaged and received free or reduced lunches. About 35% of the school 48 teachers in this system were African American which is five times higher than the national average (Synder, 1999 as cited in Williams,

For centuries African Americans have fought for equal rights, one of them being an opportunity for the chance to get an equal education. Many people believe that African Americans have an equal or better chance at getting an education than other students. This is not the case when in fact, it is actually harder for these three reasons: African American students tend to come from harsh, poverty stricken atmospheres. Shattered family lifestyles that make it difficult to pursue a higher education because they have not received the proper information. Secondly, just because African Americans are minorities does not mean that they receive a vast amount of government assistance or financial aid to pursue a higher education. Lastly, African

African Americans are not the only ethnicity group to be singled out with behavior. Racial and ethnic minority students report experiencing low teacher expectations, having less access to educational resources, being placed on lower educational tracks, and being steered toward low-paying employment (Kozol, 1991; Olsen, 2008).This low expectation is causing

After conducting the interviews and analyzing the data I have to come to the conclusion that it takes every stakeholder, parents, teachers, and administrators, to be involved for African American students to be successful. We can no longer point the blame at one party. Teachers can not blame parents and parents can not blame teachers, we all have to work together. There has to be an open line of communication between home and school. We have to all remember it is about the student, the child, and we have to do whatever is necessary to ensure they are successful.

The first test that I took on the website was the “Race IAT” test. As I was answering the first few questions I was finding it to be a little racist. The reason why I found it be racist is because, of how they said whether I agree or not if African American children have a negative effect on European American children in schools. My answer was no, African American children do not have a negative effect on other children because, their only kids going through an education and every child has their own view points. In a way children can be influenced by other kids but, having a certain race in the class doesn’t automatically influence other children to bad. While I read the questions given to me I started to feel a bit of anger because, I have

One of the biggest problems Africans Americans faced in America is Segregation, discrimination, racism, prejudice, rebellion, religion, resistance, and protest. These problems have helped shape the Black struggle for justice. Their fight for justice marks a long sequence of events towards their freedom. Provisions of the Constitution affect the operation of government agencies and/or the latitude chief executives and legislatures in the creation and implementation of policies today. The rights and passage of Amendments granted to African Americans in the Constitution serve as a source of “first principles” governing the actions and policies of elected and appointed public servants across the United States. The 15th Amendment Equal Rights: Rights

Education is an integral part of society, School helps children learn social norms as well as teach them to be successful adults. The school systems in United States, however are failing their students. In the world as a whole, the United States is quickly falling behind other countries in important math and reading scores. The United States ranked thirtieth in math on a global scale and twentieth in literacy. This is even more true in more urban, lower socio-economic areas in the United States. In West Trenton Central High School was only 83% proficiency in literacy and only 49% of the students were proficient in math. These school have lower test scores and high dropout rates. Many of these students come from minority backgrounds and are often form low income families. There are many issues surrounding these urban schools. There is a severe lack of proper funding in these districts, and much of the money they do receive is sanctioned for non-crucial things. Schools also need a certain level of individualization with their students, and in many urban classes, this simply does not happen. While there are many factors affecting the low performance of urban schools, the lack of proper funding and distribution of funds, the cultural divide between teachers and students in urban districts, along with the lack of individualization in urban classrooms are crucial factors to explain the poor performance in these districts. Through a process of teacher lead budget committees and

Ever since the establishment of equal education in the United States, there has been a disparity in academic success between children of different races. The education of African American children has become a prime example of this. As discussed in the historical text, A Letter to My Nephew, which was written during the time of the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s, African Americans were not given equal opportunities to succeed educationally and could do little to change their futures for the better. They had to work much harder than whites to receive even a portion of the recognition and success that whites achieved (Baldwin 1). Although many today believe America has overcome this problem, it still remains a pressing issue in many aspects of society, arguably the most important being education. The racial achievement gap, an important term to familiarize with when discussing this topic, refers to the disparity in educational performance between students of different races (National Education Association 1). As of now, although the education achievement gap has been narrowing, there still remains a large disparity between African Americans and their racial counterparts. According to a study by Roland G. Freyer and Steven D. Levitt, professors at Harvard University and W.E.B Du Bois Institute, respectively, African American students enter kindergarten already significantly behind children of other races, and their test scores continue to drop

African American students account for the larger majority of minorities in public schools in the United States. Most areas in the northern part of the United states and coastal areas are ethnically diverse. However, down south this is not the case. Students of color will experience a harder time in the education system. African American students meet the obstacle of educators who will not want them to succeed based on a preconceived thought. In fact, Caucasian teachers make up for 85% of all

As referred to earlier in this discussion, Greek mythology has much overlap with other mythology from other cultures including Egyptian mythology. Our class spent a great deal of time studying Greek mythology over the course of this semester by examining key concepts of Greek culture that break down and attribute to its mythology. Egyptian culture can also be examined in this same manner by initially focusing on the basics of beliefs, gods, and religious practices. Due to the similarities of mythology across cultures, this class could be structured the same way and replace the Greek topic with another such as Egyptian or Roman. Using this class as a template, it can be used in the same structure to inform about other cultures both in class

My interest in science started when I took my first biology course in high school.  My biology teacher took a few students and I on a field trip to a biology conference; I remember the speaker talking about a possible medicine that could be used to prevent transmission of HIV. That conference led me to change my favorite subject from art to science. In 2009, I started my undergraduate career at Montgomery Community College majoring in Life Science. At one point, I struggled to keep up with school, work, and the hardships of life.

Currently, as we have seen in our class studies, there are many diverse topics and issues related to today’s changing workplace. These include advancements in technology, global markets, social media, evolution of unions and human resource, and Public Private Partnerships.