It's Not Cute No Matter How You Spell It Or Say It

The photo below appeared in a post on my Facebook timeline. My response below the photo is this blog post. 

"If We Begin To Direct Our Children's Attention To Strong Images Like Themselves, They Will Grow In Self-Respect"

The title of this post is a direct quote from the book Breaking The Chains Of Psychological Slavery written by Na'im Akbar, Ph.D. Dr. Akbar has been described by Essence magazine as "one of the world's preeminent African American psychologists and pioneer in the development of an African-centered approach to modern psychology. 

I write this post the day after the passing of a living legend, Congressman John Robert Lewis and two days subsequent to the passing of yet another legend, the Reverend Cordy Tindell (C.T.) Vivian. While not a betting man, I am willing to wager that our children, particularly our African-American children do not know who these two African-American heroes are. I would be willing to bet that if you approached an African-American high school senior who just graduated in June of 2020 or perhaps even an African- American Class of 2020 college graduate and asked them about these two gentlemen, they would not recognize their names much less tell you anything about them or what they did. Why??? Because they were never taught about them, that's why. They were not taught about them at home or at school. 

While I love the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (and I do), our children must learn about more than just him and Rosa Parks. It is incumbent upon us as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, teachers, principals, superintendents, pastors, and preachers to direct our children's attention to strong images like themselves in order for their self-respect to develop and grow. According to Dr. Akbar, we must honor and exalt our own heroes and those heroes must be people who have done the most to dignify us as a people. I could not agree more. Your average Caucasian or African-American child can only name Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks when pressed to name an African-American hero. In most instances, you will get the name of an athlete or entertainer. Quoting from Breaking The Chains Of Psychological Slavery again: 

"Entertainers and athletes are the popular heroes of the African-American community. Physical prowess or comic exploit are the only characteristics Black heroes are permitted to express. Intellectual acuity, prophetic vision, moral integrity, technological know-how, and managerial efficiency are characteristics seldom, if ever, portrayed."

The African-American community must do a better job to educate its own children. Black history curriculums, Amistad laws, and teaching mandates have their place; however, they do not surpass the teaching that is handed down from generation to generation from parents, grandparents and great grandparents.  We [African-Americans] must help our children connect the dots between themselves and their ancestors. 

Last week I visited for the second time in a number of years the Ferncliff Cemetary in Hartsdale, New York. It's only about 30 miles away from my home and a nice little drive just to relax. There are many notables buried in Ferncliff including Malcolm X and his wife Betty, Paul Robeson, James Baldwin, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Adolph Caesar, Whitney M. Young, Jr. and Northern J. Calloway (I visited all of their gravesites). Many more notables such as Judy Garland and Cab Calloway are also entombed there. As I visited each grave, I literally felt connected to each one even though I had never met any of them in person. 

I placed flowers on the grave of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and his wife Betty. As I visited each grave, I reflected upon his/her contribution to the world. Now I know for some of you reading this, it may seem strange to walk around a cemetery, however, for me, it is an experience of connecting with my ancestors. I know the spirit speaks because the very next day someone posted on Vero - True Social, a social media platform similar to Instagram, a debate between Malcolm X and James Baldwin (see below). 

I had literally been at the gravesites of those two men one day prior to the post and whoever posted that post on Vero did not know me from Adam's housecat, yet that post appeared. It was as if Malcolm and James were letting me know that I had visited them the day before. 

Carter G. Woodson stated:

"to handicap a student for life by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless, is the worst kind of lynching. It kills one's aspirations and dooms him to vagabondage and crime."

I'll wager another bet that most of the names that I listed above would not be familiar to a teenager in 2020. Maybe Malcolm X and that's a maybe. Folks, we must do better in educating ourselves and our children in terms of where we have come from and the great contributions that African-Americans have made to the world. By doing so, the self-esteem and self-respect of all of us and particularly our young African-Americans can do nothing else but increase. Let's get out there and make our ancestors proud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"What Did He Score on His State Assessment Test?

During today's edition of THE READING CIRCLE w/Marc Medley, I had a wonderful interview with School Administrator; Author; Hospice Volunteer; Advocate and Activist, Frances Shani Parker. Ms. Parker's latest book is Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes.

Both of us being school principals in urban school areas, she in Detroit, Michigan and I in Paterson, New Jersey, of course began talking about the current state of affairs of education today. Ms. Parker brought up a satirical analogy that said it best; she said "Johnny could be driving his car down the street with his mother in the trunk murdered by him, and when he is caught we would ask what did he score on his state assessment test." I laughed heartily at her comment and at the same time was saddened because of just how accurate her statement really was. I agreed with her 1000%.

As an educator, I constantly see children who are confronting so many issues in their young lives, that the last thing they can focus on is if two plus two equals four or if their sentence structure is correct. Many of these children have seen more sex, drugs and death by ten years old than I have seen in my entire forty plus years on earth. They come to school hungry, sleepy, and unkempt passing drug dealers, gunfire and prostitutes along their way and we are still driving ourselves crazy over the state assessment test score.

We must really wake up and understand that these children are never going to score well on these tests until the other variables are addressed with as much vigor as we attempt to address the accountability variable. We have taken away the arts and social sciences that help to make a well rounded person in an effort to increase his or her ability to read and count. On the surface and on paper this move makes sense, but the fact of the matter is, we have taken away the home economic; wood shop; print shop; music; and art courses and the children are still not reading or counting any better. In fact, according to our state assessment test scores, they have become worse. Why? Because the social issues have increased.

For education to function properly, the parent, the child, and the teacher must all work to achieve success. If any one of these players are missing, the chance of achieving the greatest success begins to wane. Parents cannot expect the schools to do everything and the government and school districts cannot expect teachers to fulfill the role of policeman, counselor, parent, preacher, social worker, food and clothing provider (the list of hats educators are expected to wear keep growing everyday) disciplinarian and obtain adequate yearly progress (AYP).

We will need to be realistic and creatively teach in ways that meet the children where they are. When having this discussion with a staff member, she said then "I might as well say to Hell with the book," and my response to her was yes, say to Hell with the book if that is what is necessary to get your students to learn. I've written in a previous Critical Thinker that we have gone through several ages (agricultural, industrial, machine, technological, information) and we are still operating in the educational arena like we did in the agricultural age.

The combination of the social issues many of these students experience and the pressures placed on educators to achieve high standardized test scores is in my opinion killing the educational process. We must come up with something (and I am not talking about some program that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars purchased by school districts that only make the book or publishing companies richer) that will address both the social and educational issues these children so badly need. Maybe that something is just plain old fashioned LOVE and COMPASSION and not so much a test score. I would be willing to bet that if more love and compassion combined with some good old fashioned parenting were shown, we would begin to see our test scores go up. I am willing to bet that if we can get our children to love themselves and others, our test scores would go up, I am willing to bet that if we moved away from the same old lecture, textbook and blackboard approach that a child would not attempt to spell "Thurgood Marshall" with "3rdgood Marsher."

Oh for the beloved standardized state assessment score.........................

The Critical Thinker