Choosing Discipleship Over the Veil

Abstract

Teachers are more than just instructors. Teachers are counselors and mentors; teachers guide students and prepare them for the world. Part of that preparation includes being transparent about the challenges that await them in addition encouraging students that they are capable in overcoming them all. Preparing students in that way requires teachers understand both the socioeconomic and sociohistorical psychology of their students, which impact their experiences and circumstances. For African American male students, an African American male teacher provides a natural harmony of understanding these very experiences and circumstances. This is not to say that only an African American male can teach African American male students, rather the unique experiences central to the Black male experience in America require educators who desire to speak of those experiences in the classroom in an attempt to both equip students with the necessary academic and interpersonal skills for their success in life. In the case of the African American male teacher, he not only can speak to the Black male experience in America, he lives it daily. This testimonial is from an African American male teacher who believes that as an African American male who teaches, he has the unique opportunity to mentor and disciple his Black male students through honesty and transparency rather than through “protecting” them from the realities that await them.

Citation

Miller, R.R. (2013), "Choosing Discipleship Over the Veil", Lewis, C.W. and Toldson, I.A. (Ed.) Black Male Teachers (Advances in Race and Ethnicity in Education, Vol. 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 219-231. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-2317(2013)0000001020

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