The Challenges of Educating Black Males

Last week our class reviewed the Supreme Court case regarding affirmative action plan and their impact on education. We also learned and relearned more facts about No Child Left Behind Act. Dr. Jaime placed several questions regarding NCLB around the class room and we had to go around in groups adding thoughts about each question. This experience was interesting because many of us in our little groups started brainstorming about the obvious effects this policy had in our schools. We also talked about the effects this policy had in our education system and how it still affects today. Many of us brought awareness about the need of parent involvement in our schools and how most parents assume that the teacher is liable for each student.

 

The word that I mostly thought of as I was reflecting on this week’s reading was “suffering”. I have read and watched movies relating to black history but never have I been encouraged to consider black history in such way. I was fascinated with the entire article because every section gave me a different perspective of black history in ways that I never even imagined. The section that most relates to word I selected in representing this reading is “Family Unit”. In this section you learn the reason and history of why blacks have the highest unstable family unity.  Throughout history blacks are portrayed as unsteady, uneducated, violent, and socially dysfunctional. In this section it summarizes the disruption black families suffered while being slaves. Mothers often times where forced or pressured to separate from their infants and allow other women to care for their babies. Children were prevented from being raised in a family circle that consisted of a father and mother, parents were often times forced to separate and produce more children in other areas for slavery production. Enslaves were not allowed to marry and form family circles. Such deprivations have influenced how their cultural group raises and views family. Not many of us realize that ancestry has significance on how a civilization develops its customs. In this section an argument is sited which I believe has much meaning, “Those who constantly direct attention to the Negro youth’s moral weaknesses, and compare his advancement with that of white youths, do not consider the influence of the memories which cling about the old family homesteads. . . . The very fact that the white boy is conscious that, if he fails in life, he will disgrace the whole family record, extending back through many generations, is of tremendous value in helping him to resist temptations”. Again, this is very true, a civilization can only emphasize what they have been taught throughout history. I will continue to keep in mind that every cultural group has reasons or ways of doing such things that may not necessarily make sense to one but one has to still invoke respect and understanding without prejudice assumptions.