Karen Bouffard, Detroit News, Nov. 3, 2008
As a black gym teacher in the mostly white Monroe school district for 33 years, Selma Rankins taught more than physical fitness.
All of his students learned about famous black scientists, writers and doctors. And for the minority students who were black, he was a special mentor and friend.
Rankins, now retired, has been visiting Downriver school districts this fall to encourage them to hire more black teachers at a time when most Michigan colleges have few African-American students learning to teach.
“You have black kids, but not one teacher that looks like them,” Rankins, 65, recently told members of the Trenton Board of Education; he’s also addressed school boards in Flat Rock, Gibraltar and Southgate, and plans to bring his message to as many districts as he can.
Blacks made up less than 1 percent of the faculty in 38 public school districts in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties this past school year, including 16 that had no black teachers, records from the state Center for Educational Performance and Information show.
The future seems grim as well, with Michigan colleges turning out fewer African-American students who want to teach. And with most black teachers taking jobs in urban areas, few recruits are available to teach in suburban communities.
It’s a gap that robs children of powerful role models and diverse perspectives, experts say.
Students from districts with few black teachers may lack preparation for the diverse cultures they will experience when they enter college or the workforce, according to Dorinda Carter Andrews, an assistant professor of teacher education at Michigan State University who has studied how race and equity affect the learning process.
“For many of my white students, I’m the first black teacher they’ve had, and that’s at the college level,” Carter Andrews said. “The disadvantage is that there is a lack of exposure to a racially diverse perspective on life, education and learning.”
Suburbs lack black teachers
This past school year, 19.5 percent of Michigan school children were black, but 8.4 percent of teachers were African-American. And slightly more than half of the state’s African-American teachers are employed by the Detroit Public Schools—4,796 of Michigan’s 9,358 black teachers.
Drama teacher Randy Taylor, one of six black teachers in the East Detroit Public Schools district, said he believes some African-Americans may be hesitant to apply for jobs in newly integrated suburban communities.
{snip}
Grosse Pointe is among a number of districts that are trying to catch up with their growing black populations. Administrators set aside a portion of every administration meeting to talk about diversity issues. They’re studying the book “Courageous Conversations About Race,” by Glenn Singleton. And Thomas Harwood, assistant superintendent for human resources, said they’re working on diversifying their staff.
{snip}
Original article
(Posted on November 4, 2008)
Comments
If black students need black role models, what of white students?
If a black student can’t learn self-esteem from a white teacher, can a white student learn self-esteem from a black teacher?
The solution is obvious: each race to their own schools. Problem solved.
The obvious solution will not even be considered. Instead, an expensive and lumbering bureaucracy will be set up to move the world and destroy lives in the process all under the lie of progress.
So, the moral of the story is: Black students can only “learn” from black teachers. But, white students can “learn” from not only white teachers but also need to be around black teachers for “diversity” sake. Once again we get to see how blacks constantly harp about “diversity”, but diversity is only for whitey.
Public education is a well-paid job with many benefits, and public schools in desirable neighborhoods have a remarkably low turnover rate. Most of the teachers in any suburban school today were already there 20 years ago. Openings for new teachers are hard to find and during times of shrinking budgets the demand is far less than the supply.
If public schools under an Obama administration are required to meet racial quotas in hiring new teachers, it’s not hard to imagine that with so many people applying for so few jobs, almost all of the new positions will be taken by black and Hispanic affirmative-action applicants and few or none will be left over for the many hopeful white students currently attending teacher education programs.
We always hear that it’s for the benefit of the students, but it gets harder to believe. It especially infuriates me to hear of public schools in overwhelmingly nonblack southwestern states traveling hundreds of miles in order to attract more black teachers to their schools while ignoring better-qualified white applicants who are native to the area and often speak fluent Spanish.
Just more drivel from blacks. They can teach or do anything they want anywhere they want, but they don’t because they feel better around their own kind just like all groups. But with blacks, they’ve got to whine about something all the time, so they might as well whine about there not being enough black teachers throughout a given state. I don’t think anybody really listens to this type of thing anymore. The blacks have gone to the well once too often with this baloney.
Tom Iron…
“All of his students learned about famous black scientists, writers and doctors”
“Yeah, so George Washington Carver came up with a recipe for peanut butter. Now hit the showers!”.
I’m curious to know who these famous scientists, writers and doctors were and how it relates to physical education.
As a white teacher, I fully support more black teachers for black students. In fact, based on my observations of the abysmal behavior and dismal academic performance of most black students, I support black teachers for ALL black students. Perhaps then I can get on with the task of teaching white students who can learn and want to learn.
That’s because they can’t pass the teacher certification exams. I took my state’s teaching exam. It was ridiculous. 6th grade math and reading. But blacks still can’t pass these tests no matter how much they are dumbed down.
“It’s a gap that robs children of powerful role models and diverse perspectives, experts say.”
There was one black teacher in my children’s elementary school. She was known as the meanest teacher in the school. She scowled and snarled at the kids, was verbally abusive and behaved like the standard black female smouldering volcano of hatred and testostorene.
Every year the parents asked the principal to move their kids out of her class. He always said no, claiming it would lead to charges of racism and discrimination.
But the kids learned from real life experience about blacks from that virago. Quite a contrast to the tripe they were brainwashed with during black history mlk celebrations.
“For many of my white students, I’m the first black teacher they’ve had, and that’s at the college level,” Carter Andrews said.
I’m sure they all take comfort in knowing they really didn’t miss out on anything.
“The future seems grim as well, with Michigan colleges turning out fewer African-American students who want to teach.”
So Blacks don’t want to teach. Why is this the fault or problem of Whites????
It is tragic to think that there are still millions of white parents who think it’s a good idea to send their children to an American public school.
“So, the moral of the story is: Black students can only “learn” from black teachers.”
Yeah, they need black teachers to learn but they must be in school with white children for this to be effective.
I was surprised to see that Grosse Pointe is listed as having a “growing black population.”
My recollection is that Grosse Pointe was one of the wealthiest communities in the country, containing many of the top executives of the auto industry. How such a place can now have a growing black population is a bit of a mystery.
On a news show this morning, a group of journalists were discussing the Obama win. One black was still gripping about “race.” A black man has reached the top - the highest office in the land and we continue to have complaints that racial injustic still thrives in this nation. What would make them happy? King? Pope? I have a feeling that if I returned in 100 years, there would be a Jesse or an Al stirring up racial divisiness.
There is one reason to have a black teacher of white kids. To make a black presidential candidate electable.
What we saw yesterday was a well-executed coup d’etat that was being prepared for last four decades: a civilized, non-violent version of Bolshevik revolution in slow motion.
Too bad that so many of us tolerated small but steady advances that “liberalism” was making in America. Now, they marked their territory with a visible symbol of their power.
It’s up to us to decide if this is the beginning of the end of America as we know it or just a lost battle against the potent enemy within.
I agree that it is a plus for students to learn from someone they identify with, however, learning has nothing to do with phenotype. If a child (or adult in the case of many of these posts) lack the mental faculty to learn from someone because of they’re skin color or brain size they are simply perpetuating a system of belief that is robbing them of a real learning experience. Learning trancends physical appearance and in my humble opinion a natural ability. The prejudices and long held beliefs that are imbeded in childrens mind are real and subtle with implications and consequences that continue past the grave touching many a generation. With so many Christians in the world, I would believe that we could look past what our flesh desires (seperation and domination) to a more intellectual and united front. Teaching people to be better is a eternal process with peaks and valleys the catapults the teacher and leads students to steps of enlightenment. Each One Teach One
To Reader-1:
There are 5 Grosse Pointes. Groose Pointe City, G.P.Woods, G.P Farms, G.P. Shores, and G.P. Park. Grosse Pointe Park is immediately adjacent to the City of DIEtroit. ANY Grosse Pointe address is a status symbol here in Michigan.
There has been a small influx of affirmative action blacks moving in to “The Pointes”, as they’re so referred. These are blacks who hold affirmative action placements in advertising and auto-related businesses to include the auto companies themsevles.
There are narrow streets that are embedded in the Grosse Pointes, and the homes there are small, nice and old. This is where the “help” once lived; those people who provided services to the wealthy such as gardeners, waiters, valets, and such. Still, even these small homes today are very pricey due to the surrounding wealth, safety, and superior city services that all the Pointes provide. The homeowner’s taxes are, however, out of sight. A 900 sq. ft. home will pay an average of 5 grand a year in taxes for the priviledge of living in Grosse Pointe. In exchange for the high taxes, you get the aforementioned excellent city services, beauty and safety.
If you put an old applicance out on the curb for pickup in the Pointes, the city will haul it away, and that, right away - no waiting for trash pick-up day.
DIEtroit blacks still hold Grosse Pointers in perpetual contempt, but they want to live in their cities.
Blacks hate “the rich”, but they are primary purchasers of lottery tickets; throwing money over store counters in hopes of getting rich. One black state representative (Pontiac) said that they should get more state money due to black’s huge spending habits on lottery tickets.
It’ the black mindset: “We hate all things white to include their prosperity, but please, don’t leave us. If we don’t have you to hate and displace personal responsibility then we’ll go at each other as is done in Africa, the motherland”.
I never had an Indian schoolteacher but did just fine, as have many other Indians in the U.S. It’s not a lack of “role models” but intelligence and culture.
Here in England, we hear the same argument - how can you expect black kids to learn when there are so few black teachers? But we have almost no Chinese teachers, and yet, strangely, this does not seem to hold back Chinese kids, who come out top of every ethnicity-based breakdown of educational achievement. Makes yuh fink, dunnit?
It’s not just Asian students who lacked “role models” in the schools. The Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews, Greeks, Swedes and many others faced schools lacking teachers who shared their ethnicity. Yet they turned out fine.
Quote: That’s because they can’t pass the teacher certification exams. I took my state’s teaching exam. It was ridiculous. 6th grade math and reading. But blacks still can’t pass these tests no matter how much they are dumbed down.
I wouldn’t blow to loudly about such matters, many white people in the teaching profession wouldn’t be there either, if it wasn’t for those low standards. In fact there would be a shortage of teachers without them, because whites are far from as smart as they always think they are. Nothing more disturbing as getting classes from an teacher, who basically is only half as smart as you are. The result is that the very few with real intelligence end up being lazy goofballs.
Bet he also taught that fictional history of famous African scientists, astronomers, physicists, surgeons, researchers that populated Central and South Africa before the event of the White Man. Not forgetting, of course, to describe those incredible universities and institutions of higher learning Blacks had in those simpler days. Before, of course, the Evil White Europeans razed all those institutions and claimed Blacks were only marginally above a Stone Age culture.
I understand that any race would want to be remembered and not forgotten. I understand that any race would want their own accomplished ones admired. I understand that any race would want a domain, a place, a system, and so on of their own. What I don’t like though is that if we had white teachers stressing the importance of white teachers teaching white culture, then everyone in the world is viewing a news special on racism immediately after. Its a pure motive to make our youth kneel to others, and we let it happen on the homelands. The best ways to respond to any affirmative action, ADL propaganda, SPLC whining, and so forth are by speaking up no matter your fear. Say this when challenged, “Well, great we can all learn diversity, and we can even get up to Norse Culture, so that blacks know where we come from since we’ve studied Africa so many times now”. Heres another, Make comments about the accomplishments of Pure European heroes and leaders that fought for us and our nations. Tell your children to speak up and admit that they feel different by saying, “I wasn’t there so how do i know what happened in history”? or saying “Who is behind the printing and financing of all US School books again Mr. or Mrs. So and so”? And dont the conquerors write history? We have intelligent and civil ways to comment or question without looking like uneducated white trash and/or violent. We can actually use their sources and information to learn what tactics and drama they use to conquer debates,etc.
