Reality infused into Livingstone's teacher education program: early successes seen with African American male instructors - Livingstone College in North Carolina

Black Issues in Higher Education, Nov 27, 1997 by Craig T. Greenlee

"There's no way I would have gone [to college] otherwise," Johnson says. "The program gave me a solid foundation and I got a lot of help in preparing for the [National Teaching Examination].

"We also got a lot of support outside the classroom," he adds. "That was very helpful. We had weekly meetings with different school system recruiters from around the state. We always had up-to-date information on all the happenings in those school systems, so we always knew what was going on in the real world of education."

Giving back, explains Williams, who teaches middle school, has a lot to do with why he chose teaching as a career.

"Livingstone took a chance on a young man - me," he says. "Hopefully, I'm letting them see the fruits of their labor. If I can say something to direct a young man or young lady, then I've given back, not only to the Black community, but to the community at large.

"Teaching is a profession, not just a job," continues Williams. "That's why I must carry myself as a professional at all times. As a teacher, I could very well be the only role model for some of the kids in my class."

As a freshman, Williams picked up a lot of the nuances of the profession when he and his CTE partners served as counselors and tutors for a Head Start program. In Head Start, he faced the challenge of dealing with several at-risk students.

Head Start "really got our feet wet," Williams recalls. "At the time, we didn't know much about preparing students to learn. We know we can't reach everybody, even though we'd like to. But the key is being sensitive to the needs of the kids, many of whom are going through much tougher times than we did when we were kids. So the idea becomes: maybe if you can help one student, then you can help another, and another, and another."

RELATED ARTICLE: The Drawback of Low Salaries

In general, the long hours and low pay for public school teachers has been a turn-off for students when they begin making decisions about choosing a career. In North Carolina, rookie teachers coming right out of school can expect to earn $24,000 a year. But for those who have become teachers in spit of that, the satisfaction comes from helping youngsters reach their potential.

In the meantime, the state government in North Carolina realizes it will have to boost the salary structure to attract and keep the best instructors. To ensure that happens, the state has taken steps to implement incremental pay raises. According to most estimates, the North Carolina pay scale for starting teachers should match the national average (roughly $32,000 annually) within the next three years.

"For some people, pay is a big issue," says Mistor William, a graduate of Livingstone College's Center for Teaching Excellence who teaches middle school in Winston-Salem, N.C. "And some guys may feel that being a teacher is not masculine enough because there are so many women teachers. But the way I see it, you're more of a man to say, 'Somebody helped me when I was a kid, now it's time for me to do the same for somebody else."