How mentoring can help African-American boys succeed
Posted on 08/15/2003 9:32:05 PM PDT by Luke Skyfreeper
YOUNG, BLACK AND ON TRACK
How mentoring can help African-American boys succeed
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By TAVARES STEPHENS
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
Tavares Stephens teaches English at Morrow High School in Clayton County.
I've seen African-American boys who, at age 14, were mastering multiple musical instruments while maintaining A averages. I've encountered young black men who became All-America athletes while remaining in the top 10 percent of their class.
In nine years of teaching and mentoring middle and high school students, I've watched African-American youngsters walk away from lives of crime to become law-abiding citizens and college graduates.
My students -- yes, my young African-American male students -- have become scholars, writers, entrepreneurs, solo pilots, martial arts champions, award-winning visual artists and honor graduates from high school at age 16. The list of achievements would be endless if I continued.
And yet, it's not a generalization to say that young black men are academic underachievers. It is, increasingly and depressingly, a fact.
As a teacher and an African-American man, this very discussion troubles me deeply. In a society barely one generation removed from Jim Crow and still grappling with its remnants, one would think that nearly 100 percent of school-age African-American males would enthusiastically embrace education as the means for them to become leaders, community builders. Yet too often, this is not the case.
What's the difference? What separates the proud scholars and high achievers I've seen from the boys who lost their way? Three consistent factors are almost always present in the achieving students' lives:
- Mentorship
- An understanding of the relevance of education
- The students' decision to seize opportunities to improve their own lives
Mentorship -- whether from parents, guardians or caring adult figures -- helps any child excel. With my African-American male students who have sought and found academic success, mentorship always seems to create an aura of confidence and self-worth that, when blended with their innate abilities, inspires achievement.
And the process inspires something else. Continued achievement leads to greater confidence, which leads to continued achievement, which leads to greater confidence.
These young men begin to recognize the value and importance of education. It feels good. It is empowering. It is, finally, relevant to who they are and what they want to do.
Thus, these young men learn to nurture ideals of achievement. They seek out and find ways to achieve during and after high school.
Of course, there are exceptions. Some students with support and mentoring still underachieve, and some students without such support do very well on their own. Yet more times than not, in the presence of mentorship, the student comes to understand education's relevance, and when he understands it, he conceives and attains meaningful academic -- and extracurricular -- goals.
Many of the answers to questions concerning the underachievement of African-American male students lie right in front of us. And if surveys were done, I would take an educated guess that the factors of mentoring and understanding education's relevance significantly affect the achievement levels of not only young African-American males, but young males of other races as well.
Our communities must accept the challenge of seeing all students as our own. We must realize that what our students achieve reflects our commitment to perpetuating vital, thriving communities. Of course, students must go the required and extra miles to make their own achievement possible. But they don't learn this on their own. Parents, teachers and the community at large must show them the way, and must walk those extra miles with them.
To coin a popular phrase, we can never afford to leave any child behind. Nor can we say that the problem of any groups' underachievement is not our own. To do so would not only be callous but also irresponsible.
For we must care about every child whether or not their reflection looks like our own. We must train and mold, even in hours where the students' will and effort seem to waver.
If we do so, the gain will be immense. If we do not, the loss will be greater. And then who will truly be to blame? The children who should be molded by the leaders of their society, or the society who should have taken time to mold its children into leaders?
How many men are there on Free Republic?
Suppose we were to get hundreds, yea, thousands of male Freepers -- yes, black, white, yellow, I don't give a flip what color or race -- to take up the task of mentoring ONE BLACK YOUNG MAN A YEAR for the next 5 years?
What might that do for such young men, and what might the eventual political reverberations be?
Or am I simply crazy?
I think this is the key point the author makes in this fine article. Kind of like AA, it won't work until the individual is willing to take charge of their own lives rather than drift to the direction of the cultural winds.
On your "radical thought", I second that and will adopt it to my personal circumstances of working in an inner-city career-technical school with a significant minority enrollment. Great post...thank you.
We've moved into a new subdivision which is unique in that respect. The developer is a Christian organization, Wellstone Properties. Wellstone has made it's way for many years building and developing churches across the nation, and particularly in the south.
My subdivision, Mt. Gerizim Crest, is designed to become a community, not just a place to lay your head. From the beginning of the occupancy of the first homes to about two years after construction is completed, a minister - a chaplain if you will - is employed by Wellstone to help see to the needs of the residents, and to guide them in creating that community.
As a part of that process, the minister has gathered the men of the community together to build a mentoring program for the boys in the subdivision. He pointed out that while there are many nuclear families like mine here, there are others with single parent households. Households where a positive male image is needed. And if you can't find that close to home, where else would you find it?
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Thus, these young men learn to nurture ideals of achievement. They seek out and find ways to achieve during and after high school.
This doesn't sound like anti-intellectualism to me.
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