Teacher Voices: Teaching Young Men of Color

Twelve teachers from diverse geographic and ethnic backgrounds and academic disciplines came together to talk about the role that gender plays in their classrooms. They identified barriers to learning, suggested ways to overcome them, and submitted successful teaching ideas. The report presents the teachers' messages in their own words, as well as classroom assignments they have found effective in teaching young men of color.

• Gender — along with factors such as race, language, and socio-economic status — plays a critical role in the teaching and learning process. Tweet
• Effective classroom practices for teaching young men of color are plentiful. Some are tied to the fundamentals that undergird all good teaching. Others are specific to particular populations. Tweet
• We cannot overlook gender and its impact on teaching minority males. If we do try to avoid how gender influences learners and learning, we might as well try to ignore culture and disregard identity altogether.... If we want to reach all of our learners, identities must be a beginning. Tweet
• For many [Hispanic male students], the opportunity to be a teenager with fewer responsibilities and burdens occurs in school; it makes it that much easier for them to fall into seeing school as a social haven rather than a place of discipline and hard work. Besides, they have that already at their paying jobs. Tweet
• At the beginning of the year, practically everyone tries. It’s a new year, and no one wants to disappoint. For most of my male students their culture asks males to be the providers, so many of them see education as secondary or tertiary or even further down the list of main concerns. Tweet