Raising a village: White male teachers as role models for African American male students

Journal of Negro Education, The, Spring 1998 by Shreffler, Michael R

An African proverb says, "It takes an entire village to raise a child." I first heard this proverb a few years ago when I began my secondary school teaching career at a virtually all-Black high school in the Everglades region of Florida. Since that time, I have often pondered the question, "But who will raise the village?" In the United States, most of our impoverished inner-city "villages" lack the qualities necessary for raising healthy, well-balanced children who are adequately prepared to meet life's challenges in positive, constructive ways. All too often the youth brought up in these settings find themselves in the midst of violence (domestic and otherwise), illiteracy, and poverty. Too many of these communities' young men lay dead in the streets riddled with bullet holes, while too many of their young ladies are strapped with two or three children by the age of 18. These young people often believe that somehow they can magically escape this negative realm and make new lives for themselves. More often than not, however, many of them emerge from high school (if they make it that far) with no clue as to how to achieve this or any other of their life goals. Those who do escape frequently find their ways back to the urban havoc in which they grew up, simply because they could not cope with the almost-foreignlike norms and expectations of the larger society. A few-a very few-do make it out, and when they do, they often vow never to return to the "villages" that were once their homes.

Growing up in a dysfunctional or abusive home and / or community can have a devastating effect on children. Couple this with a lack of self-esteem, a lack of belief in one's ability to succeed, the absence of positive role models, and an abundance of negative role models-and the equation results in an often deadly mix, especially for poor African American males. For these latter youth in particular, stable male role models are almost nonexistent; indeed, some have called such Black men an "endangered species" (Gibbs, 1988). According to Louv (1993), more than one half of the babies born in the United States in the 1990s can expect to live in a home where the female is the head of the household. In nearly 40% of these cases, the children have not seen their fathers in over a year. Louv further notes that men between the ages of 20 and 49 spend about seven years living with their children, a 50% decline over the past 30 years.

Given these dismal statistics, the probability of a poor, urban young Black male having a stable adult male role model in his life seems slim. When these boys and young men turn to the schools, they find very few males there, either. Female teachers make up 70% of public and 78% of private school instructors, while 86% of elementary school teachers and 61% of middle school teachers are women (McNergney & Herbert, 1995). In Palm Beach County, Florida, the 15th largest school district in the nation, of 3,056 elementary school teachers, only 345 are males (Profile, 1998). The field evens out slightly in the high school setting, but not much; of 2,889 secondary school teachers, 1,134 are men. Only slightly more than one-third of all Palm Beach County's school-based administrators are men, and more females than males are assuming administrative roles.

Respectable men from the African American community and society at large must step forward to fill vital role model positions for at-risk Black male youth. Male teachersBlack, White, and "other"-are in the most opportunistic position to do so, yet few Black men presently serve as teachers in inner-city schools. Thus, many would beg the question, "Can White male teachers serve as positive role models for African American male students?" The answer to this question, in my view, is a resounding "Certainly!"-if they are men of integrity in their own homes and communities, if they are willing to step into this critical role, and if they are willing to take the risks associated with doing so.

The effect of negative role models on Black male youth adds tremendously to their teachers' dilemma. For example, most of my Black male students idolize two groups of men: rappers and professional athletes. A number of notable figures in these fields, most of whom are African American males like my students, have failed drug tests, abused alcohol, and acted violently in public. Only a few of them contribute much in the way of constructive messages to these teenage boys. Some rappers glorify the degradation of women, preach that drug abuse is the only relief for pain, and sanctify gang violence, yet they are viewed as heroes and role models by many of the African American boys in my classes. When the rapper Tupac Shakur was violently murdered, several of my Black male students told me that they viewed Tupac as a martyr rather than as one who might have received his just desserts for being part of a violent gang and glamorizing the gangster lifestyle. I recently showed a news clip to my classes about a professional basketball player who assaulted his coach at practice and more or less got away with a mere slap on the wrist. My Black male students had already made up their minds that the player had "done the right thing" because the coach had "wronged" him. They overwhelmingly complimented the player and were pleased that he was allowed to continue his $16 million contract with the league.