James Loy:

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast by the hosts and guests, may or may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Miami University.

James Loy:

This is Reframe the podcast from the College of Education, Health, and Society on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

James Loy:

Today, we are losing a generation of brilliant Black boys. According to Dr. Nathaniel Bryan, part of the problem is the ways in which cultural biases and stereotypes are still deeply, even unconsciously woven throughout the current school system. This has led to a generation of Black youth that he calls 'nobodies' or those who are seen as disposable by school and by society.

Nate Bryan:

Because there's this deficit narrative that surrounds Black boys in society writ large, it impacts the way they experience schools.

James Loy:

Nathaniel Bryan is an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at Miami University, and overcoming this deficit narrative is a key theme throughout his work, but he's also very focused on recruiting and retaining more Black male teachers. Those who could help support the academic and social needs of Black youth, and to help them navigate the cultural conflicts, and common misunderstandings that can occur when most of their teachers come from very different cultural backgrounds.

James Loy:

Today, only about 2% of all teachers are Black males. So one way to address these issues may be to start recruiting early, and through programs that can show students of color. Why teaching would be a great career? Students like Edward.

Edward:

I want to understand my students. I want to talk to them. I want to be someone that they can depend on, because that's what I wish I had when I was younger. I want to be the person that I wish I had when I was young.

James Loy:

We'll hear more from Edward, and from a few of his high school classmates who are involved in a new program called MU Teach at a high school in Cincinnati, as well as what we can do to start making schools, sites of healing for Black boys?

Nate Bryan:

I think we need to ask ourselves a fundamentally important question, and that's not the question about are Black boys ready for schools, but we should ask our schools ready for Black boys?

James Loy:

That's all coming up on this episode of Reframe.

James Loy:

There's a lot of reasons why schools may not be ready for Black boys, or at least why it's not working well for so many. When compared to their white counterparts, Black male students have the highest dropout rates, the lowest test scores, and the lowest graduation rates. They also have the highest suspension and expulsion rates, even though research has shown that their actions are very often either minor infractions, or sometimes even mirror those of their white peers. Black students are also underrepresented in gifted education and overrepresented in special education. And because of all this, Dr. Bryan says these failures lay not with the students themselves, but with a system that fails to understand and meet their academic and social needs. He also has a new book about this topic coming out this fall called, Toward a BlackBoyCrit Pedagogy: Black Boys, Male Teachers, and Early Childhood Classroom Practices.

James Loy:

Dr. Bryan, I wanted to ask just about how the school system can be so detrimental to black boys? How high are the stakes here, and what are the some of the problems and challenges that they face in schools, and where does it lead them later in life?

Nate Bryan:

I think because there's this deficit narrative that surrounds Black boys in society writ large, it impacts the way they experienced schools. So from the very onset, even as early, as early childhood education, Black boys are targeted in a particular way. In my own work, I argued that schools in particularly early childhood spaces, are what I call 'anti-black misandric spaces', which means that schools operate based on this particular distain and disgust of Black boys. That drives the way that teachers teach them, and interact with them in schooling spaces. So imagine being perceived from deficit perspectives before you even enter schooling spaces, and how that will impact you during your schooling experiences.

James Loy:

One of the quotes in one of your articles really stood out to me. I wonder if you can unpack this statement a bit, you've said that, "Black boys are blamed for the problems they inherit in schools." I wonder if you can talk about that a bit more. What are some of those problems and how do they define, or even predetermined some of the consequences they'll face?

Nate Bryan:

Right. So oftentimes the research literature constructs Black boys has not been ready for school. In other words, they are underachieving in a very important subject areas, including reading and math. There's this deficit construction of Black boys, and the ways in which they perform academically. But I think we need to ask ourselves a fundamentally important question. That's not the question about are Black boys ready for school? But we should ask, are schools ready for Black boys? And we know given that schools are anti-black misandric spaces, they are not ready to support the academic, and social needs of Black boys, and particularly in early childhood education where it is oftentimes the first experience that Black boys have with schools and teachers.

James Loy:

You also say that schools are already culturally relevant and responsive to white children, but that they're culturally irrelevant and unresponsive to Black children. So what is it about the current school system that can be so disempowering? Maybe some of the obvious ways, and maybe especially some of the not so obvious ways, that race and racism and classism are all kind of threaded throughout even the earliest years of Black children in school?

Nate Bryan:

Right. So when we think about the curriculum, the curriculum is built on the experiences of white children. And for that reason, I argue that schools are culturally relevant and responsive to the academic and social needs of white children. When Black boys read, they're oftentimes reading stories about white children, which oftentimes discouraged them in terms of developing a love for reading. And not only the curriculum but the ways in which teachers teach. The pedagogical practices of teachers are often informed by white cultural ways and of knowing and being. In order to ensure that Black boys are well in schools, we have to disrupt and interrupt those pedagogical and schooling practices, that we know clearly are dehumanizing to Black boys. And so for that reason, it's important that teachers are prepared to teach in culturally relevant and responsive, in sustaining ways to better support the academic outcomes of Black boys in early child education.

James Loy:

How are they dehumanized? I mean, that's a very powerful way to state it. So, I mean, what does that actually look like on a practical every day, day to day way?

Nate Bryan:

Well, when we think about dehumanization, when students do not see themselves reflected in school curriculum. For example, I draw on the example early on where why a Black boys are oftentimes forced to read books about why children and their cultural ways of knowing and being, when Black boys aren't able to see themselves positively reflected in school curricular and practices. It's an act of dehumanization because what we're basically saying to Black boys, is that you do not matter. We do not value your presence in our schooling context. In order to push back against the dehumanization of Black boys, we have to center humanizing practices. Again, we must ensure that we're providing Black boys mirrors in which they can see themselves, and windows through which they can see the world. That's the way you humanize Black boys in early childhood classrooms.

James Loy:

Even discipline issues come into play here, correct? And I was really surprised at the way you described it, and how a lot of Black boys are perceived to be more aggressive than they really are. Even though a lot of their behavior is just in line with what normal, young rambunctious children do, but the cultural misunderstandings come into play. And then they're perceived to be more troublesome than they really are.

Nate Bryan:

Absolutely. The preschool to prison pipeline is a reality for Black boys. Oftentime, this pipeline is a reality because of teacher biases and stereotypes of Black boys, right? So it's the ways in which they read Black boy bodies. And we know that those bodies in society writ large are already socially constructed as dangerous and harmful. Those kinds of deficit descriptors are mapped onto Black boys bodies in schooling spaces. It explains why black boys in early childhood classrooms are suspended and expelled three to five times more than their white counterparts. In my current work, in a book that should be released this fall titled, Towards a BlackBoyCrit Pedagogy: Black Boys, Male Teachers, and Early Childhood Classroom Practices. I highlight a story of a Black mother, Mrs. Tunette Powell who shared that at the age of three years old, her son was suspended from his preschool learning experience, which is unconscionable that we're suspending and expelling Black boys in early grades.

Nate Bryan:

What can a young child do that warrants a suspension and expulsion from school. It's just unconscionable and we have to better prepare teachers to ensure that they're not engaging in those white supremacists practices, that dehumanize Black boys in early childhood school spaces. There are consequences for suspending and expelling Black boys. Think about the ways in which they're being impacted academically, when they do not have opportunities to engage in lessons that are going to help them navigate the schooling experience in other grade levels. For example, middle and high school, we know that early childhood education is foundational to the learning experiences of all children. Imagine when that experience is interrupted, but the kinds of damage that we do to Black boys. Then there's this conversation about an academic achievement gap, which is this comparison between the academic outcomes of Black children, writ large and their white counterparts.

Nate Bryan:

We argue that Black children in particularly Black boys underperformed, but we don't talk about the ways in which they are pushed out of school. And the ways in which teachers target them, and the ways in which teachers are not able to teach and culturally relevant in responsive ways. So we really should not be talking about an academic achievement gap. We really should be talking about opportunity gaps, right? Who has the opportunity to remain in school, despite the ways in which they behave or misbehave in schooling spaces? Who have opportunities to teachers who are able to meet their academic and social needs? Those are the critical questions that I encourage, not only my pre-service teachers should think about, but also in-service teachers who make an impact a long-term impact on the live and schooling experiences of Black boys in and beyond early childhood education.

James Loy:

Are Black girls afflicted similarly or targeted similarly, or is there something particularly severe about Black boys?

Nate Bryan:

That's a really great question. There is a growing body of research literature on Black girls that suggests that much like Black boys. They experienced similar schooling realities, where they are also being disproportionately suspended and expelled. Oftentimes, Black girls are considered loud, disrespectful, and those misnomers define the ways in which teachers interact with Black girls and in schooling spaces.

James Loy:

Culturally relevant teaching is a very strong theme throughout a lot of your work. When you talk about how school turns Black boys into nobodies, or even how they're spiritually sick, and how this can lead to a spiritual murder through the personal and psychological injuries, that can happen because of the system. So what benefits can culturally relevant teaching bring the Black boys, or how can it help mitigate or help them avoid that fate that they might otherwise face?

Nate Bryan:

Right. So culturally relevant teaching or pedagogy was introduced by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings in the mid- 1990s. She argues that in order to ensure that black children are academically successful in schools, teachers should center Black cultural ways of knowing and being in their teaching styles and schooling practices. Oftentimes most teachers are very deficit using in ideologies relating to Black communities, but there's so much cultural wealth in Black communities that can be used to teach Black children in school. So culturally relevant teaching ensures that those community practices, those community histories and literacies are part and partial of the schooling project.

James Loy:

And I don't know if flip side is probably not the right word, but it's at least another crucial component of how you think we can help Black youth to better thrive in schools. And that is to attract more Black male teachers and get more Black male teachers at the early childhood education level, and just in general in schools. what are some of the biggest challenges and barriers to doing that? How could we start attracting more Black males to become teachers and then keep around?

Nate Bryan:

Another really great question? I think one of the challenges to recruiting and retaining, because I think we need to talk about recruitment and retention. One of the challenges to recruiting and retaining Black boys is that many Black boys experience school in a very negative way, in a very dehumanizing way. So if they are experiencing K-12 schooling in very negative ways, it's a way to discourage them from considering teaching as a professional option. Why would I want to return to a place that dehumanize me for 12 years or more? And so it doesn't become an attractive profession when Black boys feel like they do not belong in school. So that in and of itself interrupts the recruitment and retention process of Black boys to the teaching profession. In my work, I also argue that the recruitment and retention of Black teachers start as early, as early childhood education, right? Because Black boys are experiencing school, right? If you're experiencing school in a particular way that sour their interest in the schooling process, they may not consider teaching as a professional option.

James Loy:

So there's a clear need to recruit and retain more Black male teachers, but also just to have more teachers in general, who are prepared to teach in culturally relevant ways. Because of his ongoing work and deep thinking about these issues, Dr. Nathaniel Bryan has already helped establish and lead a new program called MU Teach as a partnership between Miami University and Aiken High School in Cincinnati. MU Teach is just one example of the kind of program that is designed to help address these issues. Miami even has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Cincinnati Public School District, where once these students complete their university degree, they already have a job waiting for them as a Cincinnati public school teacher. Here's Rachel McMillian. She is currently a PhD candidate at Miami and the teacher who leads MU teach at Aiken High School.

Rachel McMillian:

So this class, we started it about, oh guys, when did we start this? Three years ago now? Um, recruiting eighth and ninth graders, students of color who are interested in teaching as a career. Now, sophomores and juniors. Through this class, we're preparing them to become students at Miami. That's one part. And then also preparing them for what a teaching career will look like in the future, but in a way that it looks different from what we see now in schools.

Rachel McMillian:

I always try to make sure that the students are aware of their surroundings, aware of what teachers are doing in classrooms, aware of the curriculum that's being taught in classrooms. I always try to make sure that the students are aware of that. I think that's the most valuable aspect of the class, just teaching that awareness so that when they actually enter into their own classroom in the future, they already have that knowledge.

James Loy:

This past semester, her students focused on Black love and Black joy with aspects of Black history and Black culture perpetually woven throughout various projects and lessons. And I spoke to a few of the MU Teach High school students to get their thoughts on school, the kinds of experiences they've had, why they may want to become teachers and what culturally relevant teaching means to them. Here's Edward.

Edward:

Culturally relevant teaching is teaching in a way that acknowledges just to this culture, less than know more about themselves, lets them relate to the world around them. It makes everything way easier to comprehend.

James Loy:

Do you feel like it's helped you connect to school better, or learn better or to just enjoy the process more?

Edward:

Yes, it has. Every time in my history class I'm like, "That's not how that happened. You're missing a little something there." And I get to correct my the teacher in front of the whole class. Which is hilarious.

James Loy:

Other students had some thoughts on some of the more negative experiences they've had in school. It may be times where teachers didn't really understand them, or didn't quite know how to relate to them. This is Teriana.

Teriana:

Recently. I had a teacher and I felt she wasn't a bad teacher at all, but I felt like the way that she did teach, she was trying to be something that she wasn't. She was trying to relate to us kids, that she would try to act like us, talk like us and like using our slang stuff like that. And while, like I said, she was a good teacher. It just made me feel uncomfortable because I knew that's not who she was because sometimes she would need to act like that. I felt like it didn't... I understand her trying to relate, but there's other ways that you could have went about it and I feel like it made me uncomfortable.

James Loy:

What would you recommend for someone who is trying to relate? How would you suggest they do it?

Teriana:

I mean, get to know your students instead of trying to be like them. I'm talking to them...

Rachel McMillian:

Well, you know what, so she was trying to be like you based off of what? Like stereotype, right?

Teriana:

Yeah. She was using stereotypes of what the average Black kid would sound like or do. Whenever she sent us in the hallway, how we would act, and it was like...

Rachel McMillian:

You can say hood.

Teriana:

She was trying to portray us as we was real hood and that's not what we were, like, I'm not saying some of the kids aren't, but it was like, we're in school. If you're a teacher, there's a professional way of trying to be close to your students or trying to relate to your students. And that wasn't it for me.

James Loy:

Do you want to be a teacher? Is that why you're taking this class?

Teriana:

Yes.

James Loy:

What kind of teacher do you want to be? Or why does it sound like an interesting job? I'd even just want to be a teacher.

Teriana:

Because whenever I was in elementary, I feel there were a lot of kids that were named the bad kids and they weren't, they just needed time. I didn't like this. So I felt like I should. There's something I could change.

James Loy:

I also asked the students about some experiences they've had, that were positive in school. Some of the good teachers they've had. Here's Diego.

Diego:

Personally, I haven't had too many cultural relevant teachers outside of me being ... like, one teacher in elementary and maybe two in high school. So the way they've helped me, like one of my favorite teachers, he never lied to us. He taught us the real stuff in life. They also gave us tools to help us inside and outside of the classroom.

James Loy:

Why are you interested about maybe becoming a teacher someday?

Diego:

Because students, it's like you got a classroom full of 20 to 30 students. How great will they become in the future? Is the question. What can you put in now to make them become, want to become more than. More than maybe a teacher, maybe like a judge or something? What can you do to help the community grow?

James Loy:

I also asked the students how they thought more teachers could help? What they could do or how they could just better engage students of color in general? And Edward had more to say, here he is again.

Edward:

And when you said how can the teachers help?

James Loy:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Edward:

I was like, you know what they can do? Stop. They can stop trying so hard. Because when you try too hard, it starts being offensive. It just makes me feel uncomfortable. Like don't try to be Black. Don't think that Black is a personality. Think of it as a characteristic. It's not everything. Talk like us, when you try to act like us based on stereotypes and I'm not even like that. I'm from the suburbs. Yeah. It's just like when they try to generalize us, it hurts more than it helps.

James Loy:

How often does that happen?

Edward:

That happens surprisingly often. When they try to say, "Oh, I know you guys are going through this" And no, not all of us are. "I know all of you all had done this before." No, all of us have, because some of the things that happened in black culture, I'm not really a part of. I haven't taken part in all of that stuff.

Edward:

At some point it becomes pandering. And I think that they should like be very careful on not crossing that line, be courteous, show equity, but don't start pandering to us. It makes us feel less.

James Loy:

What is this class teaching you about, or how is it helping you kind of figure out about the kind of teacher you would like to be one day?

Edward:

I want to understand my students. I don't want to like pander to them. Like I was mentioned earlier, but I do want to understand where they're coming from. I want to talk to them. I want to be someone that they can depend on, because that's what I wish I had when I was younger. I want to be the person that I wish I had when I was young.

James Loy:

Racial stereotypes and cultural biases. Even those that don't seem that harmful or those that are even used good intentions as just a way to try to connect with students of color, can still have harmful and even devastating effects in the long run. At best, they make students feel uncomfortable or less, as Edward said. At worst, they can lead to a negative feedback loop that even in the earliest schooling years can relabel normal rambunctious behavior as troublesome conduct, which can lead to more punishment, which can lead to missed academic opportunities and lower test scores and a general disinterest in school. And perhaps even to dropping out or straight to the school to prison pipeline. But ending this cycle will not only help more black youth be successful in school. It may even encourage them to return to school as teachers themselves one day.

James Loy:

That's where more Black male teachers and culturally relevant teaching can help. But practically speaking classrooms will not only be teachers of color, teaching students of color. What about most classrooms today? Those that are more mixed, or becoming more mixed or even those that are all white? Can they benefit from culturally relevant teaching as well?

Nate Bryan:

I believe all children need experience with culturally relevant teaching, and culturally relevant teaching is especially important for white children. We know that white children are more likely to become our future decision-makers, right? So they will perhaps hold some kind of power in the future, and they need to understand too Black cultural ways of knowing. Culturally relevant teaching is extremely important for all students, especially white children, because it can help them shift their deficit views of Black people, and help them to become better humans themselves.

James Loy:

What advice would you have for maybe current early childhood education teachers, or just even teachers who have been teaching for a while now, regardless of their cultural background? I mean, a lot of teachers love their job because of how much they're able to help students be successful. Maybe some may hear this and not realize it's as much of a problem as it was, or maybe they're wondering how they too can do more help than harm.

Nate Bryan:

I think it's important that current teachers and in-service teachers spend time in communities that may be different from their very own. Again, most teachers are white middle-class and female. So they oftentimes do not spend times in communities that may be culturally diverse. Spending time in communities, also listening and hearing the experiences of Black children is a way to really help them improve their practices in schooling spaces. I think those are extremely important. Practices that teachers need to engage in. They also need to check themselves too. They need to consider their own stereotypes and biases, and work to interrupt those biases and stereotypes to better support the academic and social needs of all children to be honest.

James Loy:

I loved how you phrased one of your articles with your vision for what school it could be. And you say you desire to see schools as sites of healing for Black boys. So what would that look like? What is your ideal version of how society and schools could be if we could transform them into this vision? What would that look like?

Nate Bryan:

Absolutely. That's another great question. I think oftentimes we have a tendency to focus so much on the ways in which Black boys are oppressed in school. But I think in terms of healing, we need to begin to recognize the potential and possibilities of Black boys in schools. I think if we highlight the joy of Black boy hood in schools, by allowing them to be fully human in early childhood and other educated spaces, then we will begin to see this healing that is needed. And we would begin to see this desire and for boys to continue to be interested in the schooling process.

James Loy:

Yeah. And that gets straight back to that idea of how we're losing a generation of brilliant Black boys, and that kind of showcases how things could be instead.

Nate Bryan:

Exactly. When teachers began to recognize that all Black boys are brilliant, it will encourage them to better support Black boys. It will encourage them to meet Black boys where they are. It will even encourage them to find the joy in teaching Black boys, which most teachers struggling, because they are oftentimes focused on the negatives, the deficit. But when we begin to acknowledge the brilliance, the potential and the possibility of Black boys and that's the way we recruit and retain more Black male teachers. Changing the conditions of school waiting for them to ensure that schools are healing spaces rather than dehumanizing blacks.

James Loy:

Dr. Nathaniel Bryan is an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at Miami university, his new book, Toward a BlackBoyCrit Pedagogy: Black Boys, Male Teachers and Early Childhood Classroom Practices will be out this fall.

James Loy:

We'd also like to thank Rachel McMillian and her students at Aiken High School for their participation as well. And this is the Reframe podcast. More episodes are available wherever podcasts are found.