I am from a place where being home before the streetlights came on meant just that. I am from a neighborhood in Detroit where drugs and guns were more common than schoolbooks. I am from a place where milkcrate basketball hoops brought out the best in us. I am from a place where my past informed my “why” for becoming a Black male teacher. I am a Black male teacher from here to eternity.
On a fall day in 1997, I walked into a classroom with 25 eight-year-old Black children from the same neighborhood in Detroit. Their eyes looked like mine. Their hair looked like mine. Their potential looked like mine. Yet — I was the first Black male teacher they had ever experienced. Those moments as a Black male teacher in the classroom will live forever in my heart. My students taught me lessons about resilience and faith and demonstrated daily that their brilliance was more than a standardized test performance — something deeply rooted in their eternal optimism, despite tremendous odds. Now, years later as a Black male educator, I have found myself talking to a new generation of Black male teachers who teach in early childhood classrooms. I find myself talking as a friend, mentor, advisor, and researcher. Certainly, CONTINUE READING: The Journey of Black Male Teachers in Early Childhood Classrooms - Philly's 7th Ward