Unlike the media would have you believe, most black males find great value in education. They want to believe that they have a special gift and that they can make a difference in the world. The problem is that they have ill feelings about how society has deprived them of the most qualified teachers and the best ways to be engaged in their own education. As a consequence of repeatedly being marginalized, criticized, and put down by society and teachers, they do not feel motivated to attend school or to produce outstanding academic work. The Secrets for Motivating, Educating, and Lifting the Spirit of African American Males contains essays that center on how to help educators and parents to equip young black males with the drive necessary to craft fulfilling lives for themselves so they don't slip through the cracks in the educational system. "Historically, we are still dealing with what happens to the image of Black people in the minds of white people. A book like this helps to make certain that the information teachers provide to all students-regardless of their race-will help them understand that the history of this country has made generation after generation of black students see themselves as academically and socially inferior to white people. Most importantly, it's the teachers-not just black teachers, but all teachers- who have to understand the power they have to change the mindset of society. Changing how society thinks about Black people, particularly Black males, is a task teachers can truly accomplish because they have the power to create lesson plans that challenge how students think about each other. For such lessons are important for changing the attitudes and beliefs of the entire community in which we live." - Reverend C.T. Vivian, A Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement, Author, Educator, and a Close Friend of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "This book provides a fresh perspective for understandi

The Secrets for Motivating, Educating, and Lifting the Spirit of African American Males

By Ernest H. Johnson

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Ernest H. Johnson, Ph.D. and the Champions for Peace Mastermind Institute
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-4642-3

Contents

Preface.........................................................................................................................................................................................................xiEditor's Introduction: Answering the Call for Help..............................................................................................................................................................xviiChapter 1: Why Focus on Black Males? Mychal Wynn...............................................................................................................................................................1Chapter 2: Closing The Widest and Whitest Gaps: White Female Teachers and Black Males Ernest H. Johnson, Stephon Hall, and Stephen Hall........................................................................22Chapter 3: Transformational Teaching: Practices for Ensuring That No Black Boys are Left Behind Tavares Stephens and William Green.............................................................................46Chapter 4: Using Character and Culture to Close the Achievement Gap: A Special Message for Beginning Teachers Chike Akua.......................................................................................69Chapter 5: Honoring the Culture of African American Males Through Storytelling Obakunle Akinlana and Madafo Lyold Williams.....................................................................................98Chapter 6: Addicted to Success: The Secrets for Turning Academic Excellence Into a Habit Ernest H. Johnson.....................................................................................................126Chapter 7: Early Exposure to Reading and Positive Male Role Models Pryce Baldwin, Jr...........................................................................................................................164Chapter 8: Using Poetry and Spoken-word to Motivate Black Males Jerold M. Bryant and Phillip "Professor Pitt" Colas............................................................................................193Chapter 9: Why Is It Important to Cultivate an Interest in Creativity In Black Males? Anthony Goldston and Vandorn Hinnant.....................................................................................225Chapter 10: The Impact of Mentoring and Critical Thinking Skills on Achievement Tavares Stephens...............................................................................................................250Chapter 11: Why We Must Encourage African American Males to Become Financially Literate Entrepreneurs Winston Sharpe and The Champions for Peace Mastermind Institute..........................................273Chapter 12: Holla If You Hear Me: Giving Voice to Black Male Youth Through Hip hop Danya Perry, Mervin "Spectac" Jenkins, Patrick "9th Wonder" Douthit, and Chris "Dasan Ahanu" Massenburg.....................302Chapter 13: Breaking Through the Barriers to Excellence Kenston Griffin and Christopher Land...................................................................................................................326Chapter 14: What Society Gains by Ignoring the Sexual Development Of Black Boys Morris Gary III................................................................................................................357Chapter 15: The Role of Resiliency in Achieving Against the Odds Winston Sharpe................................................................................................................................381Epilogue: The Covenant For Motivating and Educating African American Males The Champions for Peace Mastermind Institute........................................................................................407The Contributors................................................................................................................................................................................................421Notes...........................................................................................................................................................................................................431

Chapter One

Why Focus on Black Males? By Mychal Wynn

Every 5 seconds during the school day, a Black public school student is suspended. Every 46 seconds during the school day, a Black high school student drops out. Every minute, a Black child is arrested and a Black baby is born to an unmarried mother. Every 3 minutes, a Black child is born into poverty. Every hour, a Black baby dies. Every 4 hours, a Black child or youth under 20 dies from an accident, and every 5 hours, a Black youth is a homicide victim. Every day, a Black young person under 25 dies from HIV infection and a Black child or youth under 20 commits suicide. Marian Wright Edelman, The Children's Defense Fund

African-American Males—Black Males While the title of this book reflects the culturally appropriate term, "African-American" referring to Americans of African descent, the terminology, `Black' will also be used throughout the text. Whether Black American, Black Caribbean, Black Bermudian, Black Canadian, or Black African, the issues confronting Black males, and their parents, wherever they live, are very similar across cultural and socioeconomic lines. These boys, young men, and men who share a cultural frame of reference, are adversely influenced by peer pressures, frequently struggle in classrooms, are the students most likely to be disciplined, and are likely to matriculate through an educational system which fails to affirm their cultural contributions or connect them to their historical past.

My mother, bless her soul, when told of my plans to visit Africa, asked, "Son, why are you going to Africa?" When I told her, "Mama, Nina and I are going on a tour of Egypt and Ghana to trace our roots," she responded, "Boy, you ain't from Africa; you were born in Alabama!" However, when I saw firsthand the statues and artifacts in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt; when I went into the pyramids, temples, and tombs in Giza and Luxor; when I journeyed along the Nile to a Nubian village; when I witnessed the monuments and statues in Abu Simbel; and when I flew by airplane across the Sahara, landing in Accra, Ghana and witnessed at the airport the thousands of Black people who looked like the Black people pictured on the walls and chiseled in stone throughout Egypt, I knew, despite thousands of miles and hundreds of years of physical and cultural separation, the Ghanaians, the Nubians, and those portrayed in the temples and tombs of Egypt were "Black like me" and I was in fact home.

African Black males, Bermudian Black males, Canadian Black males, Caribbean Black males, and Black males from Alabama face similar challenges in education, maturation, college matriculation, and, in gaining full access through the glass ceilings into the ivory towers of business in their respective countries, states, islands, and communities. Subsequently, the strategies set forth in this book, are pertinent to the raising, teaching, nurturing, and empowering of `Black' males whether they live in the United States, Canada, Bermuda, Africa, or on one of the many islands in the Caribbean.

Addressing the...