Educating the African

American and Latino

Male Child
by Jawanza Kunjufu
Aaron Shelby
Descatur Potier
Danny Lora
Rebecca Johnson
Tufts Colleagues with Dr. Jawanza
Kunjufu
Professions
NBA
Doctors, Dentists,
Engineers or
Teachers
84%
African American
Other 1%

NFL
African
Americans
Other

67%
African American
Other
NBA: What are the odds?
 1,000,000 boys and girls  What’s your back up
wish to be in the NBA plan?
 400,000 make their high  What’s your back up
school basketball team career?
 4,000 play in college
 35 make it to the NBA
 ONLY 7 starters
 Average NBA career is 4
years
African American Males in Penal
System
1600000 1,500,000

1400000
1200000
1000000
800000
600000
400000
100,000
200000
0
1980 Today 70% drug
related
Difference in spending
 United States
 Europe

$28,000 annually  $6,000 on drug

per prisoner with treatment
85% recidivism programs with 66%
efficacy
What’s the cost?
 In Maryland…

 Mentoring one youth in a one-to-one program for

$1000-$1500 per year
Vs.
 Spending up to $80,000 a year to house one
youth in a correctional or rehabilitation facility.
Raising expectations
for every student
Curriculum
 Create culturally relevant curriculum for all
students in the classroom.
 Use current trends and ideologies to your
advantage in terms of lesson plans.
 Have students play an active role in
creating curriculum.
How should you create your
lessons?
 Tailor your lessons to the characteristics and
needs of the young, Black male children:
 High activity
 Hands-on learning
 Non-verbal and verbal communication,
 Colorful language
 Link it to social context
What else should be in your
lessons?
 Character education must be included in
the curriculum

 Teachers must know the students are

intelligent
Avoiding Special Education
 Assessing for right brain learners and plan a proportional
amount of lessons them
 If 50% are right-brain learners then 50% of lessons should be right brain
lessons

 Non-traditional forms of assessment

 Oral presentation of knowledge for projects rather than written testing of
knowledge
 Teach how to study in groups
 Looping Teachers
 Incorporate Multicultural Curriculum
Application in School
 Multi-cultural history courses as electives
 Incorporate multicultural perspectives into
lessons when missing from current curriculum.
 Help plan and teach a non “white man’s history”
course. Focuses on the contributions of African,
African American, and Latin societies.
Application in School
 Cut achievement or curriculum gap?
 Replace questions with predetermined
answers with open ended questions in all
classes, not just the honors and AP classes
 Multicultural friendly atmosphere in school
office makes parents more receptive to
involvement.
What is the schools’ job?
 PSAT/NMSQT in the10th and 11th grades
 Assure curriculum back mapping from
high school to middle school
 instructional supports first time AP
students
 professional development for middle
and high school teachers
Exposure to positive
male role models
Mentoring Programs
 Be developmental in nature
 Provide for the presence of competent adult
Black males (mentors)
 Capitalize on the strengths of African
American families
 Incorporate African/African American culture
 Include a Celebratory/"Rites-of-Passage"
experience
What should be in the
Rites of Passage Program?
 Culturally relevant curriculum that empowers
students
 Teachers must re-teach what it means to be a
man
 Developmentally appropriate
 Responsive to cultural diversity
 Provided by high-quality teachers
 Nurtures social-emotional competence
Nguzo Saba
 Unity
 Self Determination
 Collective Work and Responsibility
 Cooperative Economics
 Purpose
 Creativity
 Faith
Results of Mentoring Program
 Better attendance
 Improved academic performance,
 Positive relationships with peers and adults
 Reduced criminal acts, substance abuse,
and suspensions from schools for youth
who participated in mentor programs
How to support mentoring
programs?
 Become an ambassador for mentoring
 Create a mentoring program through a club,
association, fraternity/sorority, Faith-based
institution or place of employment
 Hold National Mentoring Month events on
campus
 Hold a Job/University Shadowing Day
 Consider supporting mentoring programs with
financial or in-kind resources
Mentorship
 Call Me Mister Program
 The Call Me MISTER program is an effort to address the critical shortage of African
American male teachers particularly among the State's lowest performing schools. Program
participants are selected from among under-served, socio-economically disadvantaged and
educationally at-risk communities.
The project provides:
 Tuition assistance for admitted students pursuing approved programs of study at
participating colleges.
 An academic support system to help assure their success.
 A cohort system for social and cultural support.

 Booker T. Dubois Role Model Program

 Schools can provide a time and space for Black and Latino
males from a variety of professions to speak to and mentor
students.
 Identify outside organizations and businesses to work with the
schools in regards to a mentor/tutor program.
Understand your
students
Culture
Learning Strategies
Is this the Ideal student?
 Quiet
 Can sit still for a long period of time
 Works independently
 Long attention span
 Likes ditto sheets
 Left- brain learner
 Passive
 Teacher pleaser
 Mastered reading before second grade
 Neat
 Well developed fine motor skills
 Well organized
 Likes multiple choice exams
 Mature
 White
 Female
 Middle-class
 Two parent home
 Mother works at home
Post- Traumatic Slavery Disorder:

 Is there a correlation between internalized

racism (self hate) and black on black
violence?
 If so, how are schools as institutions
perpetuating a “white is right” and or white
is the norm culture?
Hip Hop VOCAB: Can you identify
at least five of these words?
 Bling Bling  Glory
 Audi  Jimmy Hat
 1812  Of the hook
 Benjamins  Crash
 Buggin’  Dog
 Crew  Frontin
 Five finger discount  Ill or illin’
 Jack  Forc’in
 Juice  Step off
 Wack  Up North
Hip Hop: Rank’in or the Dozens
 Yo mama so fat when she has wants someone
to shake her hand, she has to give directions!
Oh ok…
 Yo mama so fat she got to iron her pants on the
driveway
 Yo mama so stupid that she tried to put M&M's
in alphabetical order!
Hip Hop: N…word
 Latin word for “Black.”
 Used during slavery and Jim Crow by whites
to insult African Americans.
 Adults have not properly taught history so
that is why HIP HOP artists use the word.
 Hip Hop has tried to embrace the word as a
term of endearment.
Hip Hop: N…word
 You know enough about  Questions:
the word to stop those  When people outside of
outside of the race from the black race use the
using it! word, why do they feel
 You use it to refer to comfortable enough to use
people you don’t like, it?
which is the same way  Do you think you have the
white people used it 200 right to use it?
years ago.  Should you use the word
in front of your elders?
 Program Breakdown in Schools
African Americans in School ... in Special Education
... in Gifted and Talented

African
American
African Youth
American
Youth
3%
African
17% American
Youth
Other

Other
Other
41%
Staff Training
 Role Play Exercises
 Black Intelligence Tests/Teacher Opinion Survey
 As a staff, discuss and cultivate the strategies of a Master
Teacher
 Reflect on personal beliefs versus your own practices
 Books to read: Black Students Middle Class Teachers and
Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys (Vols. I-IV)
 Characteristics of at Risk Schools
 Develop a Fourth Grade Intervention Team
 Discuss solutions
What is a Master Teacher?
 Knowledgeable about subject matter
 Provides congruent lessons plans between pedagogy and
learning styles using written, oral, pictures, artifacts, and fine arts
 Bonds, motivates, enhances self-esteem, listens to students and
is in close proximity to all students
 Décor of classroom is inspirational and culturally reinforcing.
 High level of self-respect; therefore, students are not distracting
or sleeping.
 High expectations transcending race, income, gender, and
appearance.
 Equitable response opportunities for all students.
What is a Master Teacher
 Maximizes time on task
 Assertive, consistent, complimentary and clearly
established rules and consequences.
 Provides cooperative learning experiences.
 Attempts to make curriculum relevant, provides practical
experiences, field trips and role models.
 Students ask more questions than the teacher.
 Develops critical thinking skills by asking open-ended
questions.
Characteristics of At-Risk
Schools
 Ineffective administrators
 Low expectations
 Incongruence between pedagogy and learning styles
 Irrelevant and inaccurate curriculum
 Tracking
 Lack of parental involvement and support
 Low student self-esteem and motivation
 Negative peer pressure
 Lack of African-American male teachers and role models
 Lack of safety
“Judge the success of your
schools based on the success
of your African American and
Hispanic male students.”
- Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu
The Mis-education of the Negro
 “If you can control a mans thinking you do not have to
worry about his action. When you determine what a man
shall think you do not have to concern yourself about
what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior,
you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior
status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think
that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him
to the back door. He will go without being told; and if
there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.”

 Dr. Carter G. Woodson

Critical Points
 Understand your students
 Culture
 Learning styles
 Raising expectations for every student
 All students graduate at college entry level
 Exposure to positive male role models
Resources
 https://www.education.umd.edu/institutesandc
 Hip Hop Street – Curriculum: Author Dr.
Juwanza Kunjufu