Posted on 04/08/2007 5:38:41 PM PDT by blam
Black fathers urged to be 'better role models'
By Graeme Paton
Last Updated: 1:10am BST 09/04/2007
Black fathers must take greater responsibility for their children's education to stop teenage boys turning to gun crime and gang culture, according to Britain's biggest teaching union.
The National Union of Teachers said parents in Afro-Caribbean communities, particularly fathers, must become better role models to stop their children being "engulfed" by damaging influences.
The warning is contained in a report to be launched today at the union's annual conference in Harrogate. One of the report's authors described the poor academic performance of black boys as "nothing short of a national scandal".
Today's report, Born to be Great, comes amid escalating fears over the extent of gun crime in Britain's inner-cities. In the report, the NUT warns that the poor academic performance of Afro-Caribbean boys at school is pushing hundreds towards a life of crime.
It says parents must play a bigger role in raising young boys, who increasingly get their cultural lead from older brothers, films and rap artists who glamorise gang membership and the carrying of firearms.
Gus John, visiting professor of education at Strathclyde University, who co-authored the report, said: "It would be foolish not to place responsibility on parents. Many parents themselves who have children at school have been socialised in a culture of low expectations and low aspirations."
The report said that there needed to be "an open discussion on the role of black fathers -- for example, black fathers could potentially serve as key role models".
Steve Sinnott, NUT general secretary, said: "Dads - live up to your responsibility."
Billy Cox, 15, was shot in his home in his Clapham home on Valentine's Day. He was the third teenager to be shot and killed in the capital in a fortnight.
The NUT said many of the problems were caused by the educational underachievement of black boys at school.
Last year, only 45 per cent of Afro-Caribbean pupils gained at least five good GCSEs compared to 57 per cent for white pupils. They are also much more likely to be expelled.
The report recommends that lessons should be tailored towards Afro-Caribbean pupils, with more black history taught.
Baljeet Ghale, the NUT's new president, told the conference that politicians used racism to cover up their own failings by targeting particular groups in society.
"I have no doubt that for some behind notions of what it means to be British stands the shadow of racism," she said.
"For them this is not about integration, participation and pride in the country in which you live but more about a failure to assimilate, or indeed who should be here in the first place. To demand that people conform to an imposed view of Britishness only fuels that racism."
Liberalism makes this impossible
There is no "potentially" about it !!!
Fathers ARE key role models, for good, for for ill.
Being gone, drunk, jailed, or beat up is still a role model.
This is such an un-PC thing message.
Unfortunately, in many cases the fathers ARE the “damaging influences”.
I hope Britain has better luck with this than we have. We have been telling Black fathers they need to do better for the last 30 or 40 years and they havent stepped up yet. 75% of black born in this country are illigitimate.
They step up for the sex ,but not the kids.
Marriage and raising kids is just so ... so ... white. Can't be doin' ya know that white thang man, knowhaumsayn!
“fathers could potentially serve as role models.” Wow! What a concept! Why didn’t someone think of this sooner?
>>The report recommends that lessons should be tailored towards Afro-Caribbean pupils, with more black history taught. <<
Sounds like what we’re doing here. With equally, if not more dismal results, I might add. Though lots of black history is being taught...
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