While a college education is vital to achieve great lengths in the workplace and in life, the quality of time spent in the classroom years before determines whether a person will excel in higher education.
This school of thought was deeply expressed during the second annual United Negro College Fund Education Summit: Transforming K-12 Education- Leadership, Innovation and Collaboration, held this weekend in Pasadena, Calif. The summit — which was conducted in conjunction with the Evening of Stars, honoring Smokey Robinson and Nancy Wilson — focused on issues and solutions pertaining to low-income minority students, particularly African-Americans across the nation.
Panelists included Ann Best, executive director for Teach for America; Darryl Cobb, chief learning officer for the KIPP Foundation’ Dr. Henry Tisdale, president of Claflin University; Lata Reddy, vice president of the Prudential Foundation, the summit’s sponsor; and Hill Harper, actor and author of Letters to a Young Brother.
One issue which was heavily addressed was the lack of positive role models for African-American male students. Call Me Mister, a program spearheaded at Claflin University in South Carolina, is designed to recruit more African-American males in choosing a career in elementary teaching. The program has seen great success since 2000, Tisdale says.
“If you go into the schools, you will see how scarce the African-American male teacher is,” Tisdale says, adding that the men who do become teachers are, indeed, ahead of their class. “These young men are passionate, and enthusiastic about classroom management.
“We can be successful if the effort is there to influence who teaches in our schools,” he says.
Harper added that creating a buzz that “teaching is cool” will also entice young Black men to choose education as a career.
