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There is a national shortage of teachers of color; only 21% of teachers are from an underrepresented group (16% Black and/or Latinx), while 79% are White (National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES], 2019). While there are not a lot of teachers of color in today's classrooms, there is an even lower number of Black male teachers (approximately 2%) (NCES, 2022). These percentages do not mirror the K-12 student population, with 52% identifying as a student of color (NCES, 2019). Research informs us that having teachers of color, such as a Black male yields academic success, decreases suspension rates, increases college matriculation, and provides representation of positive role models for the K-12 students of color as well as White students (AACTE, 2019; Carter-Andrews et al., 2019). Teacher Preparation Programs must implement culturally responsive strategies to recruit and retain Black males into teaching. This chapter will share effective practices for recruiting, retaining, and advising Black male preservice teachers.

In this chapter, we discuss teaching physical education to Black male students in urban schools. We present a brief account of the history and status of physical education and specifically examine school physical education, particularly for Black male students in urban geographical contexts. We also offer strategies to counter the narrative of Black male school failure and present strategies for addressing the needs of urban teachers and Black male students.

There is limited discussion in the teacher education literature about the experiences of pre-service black male teachers generally and the ethnic diversity among black male pre-service teachers specifically. Thus, this paper aims to explore the experiences of Frank, a black male refugee health education major attending an historically black college and university (HBCU).

This research study is theoretically guided by selected tenets of Bush and Bush’s (2013) African American male theory and Goodman et al.’s (2006) transition framework and uses a qualitative approach to explore Frank’s transition experiences when coming to America, attending college and engaging in his student teaching experience.

Frank experienced some difficulty transitioning to America, as a result of not having a strong financial foundation. During his college transition, Frank believed that the HBCU environment was nurturing; however, he encountered numerous ethnocentrically charged hostile confrontations from US-born black students at his university because of his accent. While he had some disagreements with the US education system in terms of discipline, Frank believed that his accent served as an asset during student teaching.

This study adds to the burgeoning research that explores the intersectional identities among pre-service black male teachers. As we argue in this paper, researchers, policymakers and practitioners cannot treat black male teachers as a monolithic group and must contemplate the unique supports needed that can attend to the racial and ethnic needs of black male teachers.

The paper discusses a partnership between Huston–Tillotson University (HT), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and the Austin Independent School District (AISD), a minority-serving school district, both in Austin, Texas, with a grant provided by Apple Inc. (Apple). The purpose of the partnerships is that valuable relationships can increase the number of African American male teachers in primary and secondary education in minority-serving public schools. The African American Male Teacher Initiative (AAMTI) at HT was created as an innovative approach to recruit and select 20 African American males each year of a four-year grant provided by Apple.

This paper reviewed the literature on the lack and need for African American male public school teachers. Once the data is established during a three-to-four-year period, a mixed-method approach will be utilized to examine data retrieved from interviews, surveys, demographics of student participants, numerical data and retention and graduation rates. This will establish whether strategic partnerships can successfully increase the number of qualified African American males in public education.

This paper proposes and provides research evidence that African American male teachers can positively impact all students in the classroom setting.

There is limited data to test a hypothesis on the effectiveness of a partnership between the university and public school to increase the number of African American male teachers through recruitment – selection and retention efforts. Therefore, follow-up research is needed for the first graduating class of 2024.

The broader impact of this paper is to show that partnerships between universities and public schools with corporate sponsorship can positively increase the number of African American male teachers prepared to teach in public schools through strategic recruitment and selection efforts.

This paper can serve as a model for universities and school districts to implement. High placement of prepared Black male teachers in public schools can reduce the school-to-prison pipeline and juvenile homicides and defeat generational poverty.

Much research highlights the problems associated with a lack of African American male teachers. This paper includes the challenges but offers a sound basis for practical solutions.

Black Panther depicted a positive representation of Black culture. The film transcended Black minds to believe in power, excellence, and intelligence. Black youth posted images on social media using the Wakanda pose as a symbol of pride. The film not only countered the stereotypical generalized ideologies of African culture, values, and customs, but it capsized false narratives by including the historical context of Black scientist with a female character. Articles summarizing depictions of Black Panther and its influence on Black youth assert that the character of Shuri and her perfection of the sciences contributed to pathways for young Black girls to join science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs. Other factors contribute to the increase of Black girls in STEM programs, but the image of Shuri's character in a position of power of the sciences pinpoints representation as key to cerebral pictures and reflections of Black female excellence in the sciences. However, representation is minimal among Black male youth in STEM programs.

Although it is true that African American male youth have Black male representation in media through sports figures, rappers, and hip-hop artists, inquiring minds need to know that Black male representation in the sciences and mathematics is the formula to how young minds view themselves and their relation to the world. Accordingly, this underrepresentation of Black male youth in STEM programs leads to the big “what if” question. If LeBron James conducted a critical analysis using physics and mathematics to make a 3-point shot, then what is the likelihood that young Black males' interest in the STEM programs would increase?

In response to the crisis affecting black boys in public schools (skewed numbers of black boys out of school on suspension and referred for special education services, as well as low high school graduation rates), the researcher sought to amplify the voices of black male teachers who serve as walking counter-narratives for the boys they teach and with whom they interact on a daily basis (Lynn, 2006). This narrative study focuses on the interviews of four black male K-12 teachers, born between 1972 and 1987. The researcher listened to these teachers’ stories, observed selectivities, and silences (Casey, 1993), and looked for the patterns that arose among the educational, experiential, and cultural experiences that these teachers have had. Four themes emerged that addressed the influences on these men’s decisions to become K-12 teachers: the separate becomes connected, and the self is transformed; Black woman as inspiration; it takes a village; and transforming society by fighting students.I walk into the facility, and there was a little kid. He walks up to me and he, like he hits me on my arm, and he said, you know, uh, “Come and help me with my homework.” The kid doesn’t know me; I don’t know who this kid is and uh … I walk over, and I begin to help the kid with his homework, and when I started doing that, it was like, almost like immediately I knew for the first time this was the thing, this was the area I really wanted to be a part of … uhm … words can’t really explain it, but it was like something within myself I really knew this was the thing I’ve been missing. You know, this was the part that’s been missing for a while. This was the avenue that I been searching for. –Mr. Matthew Jamison

This chapter describes a precollegiate course designed to encourage high school students of color to explore teaching and presents the findings from case studies on two Black male students enrolled in the course who are now preparing to pursue a career in teaching. The research questions guiding the two case studies include: (a) What factors influence Black males to consider teaching? (b) What roles do race, ethnicity, and school experiences play in Black males’ exploration of teaching? and (c) What aspects of the course are most influential in Black males’ exploration of teaching and related fields? The results of these case studies expose the complexity of effective recruitment of Black male teachers. The insights provided by these two teens can provide substantial guidance for the improvement of educational policy and practice in order to increase the recruitment and retention of Black male teachers.

Much of the extant research literature on the initiatives to attract, inspire and recruit Black males to the teaching profession has focused on middle and high school students. Black boys’ socialization into dominant narratives regarding who can and cannot become teachers occurs as early as in early childhood classrooms; however, little attention has been given to ways to attract, inspire and recruit them to the professional teaching ranks where a paltry 2 per cent are Black men.

This paper explores the concept of imaginative play experiences with respect to Black boys and unearths possibilities for future Black male teachers through culturally relevant play.

Based on findings from the literature, this conceptual paper makes connections between the early childhood play literature and the Black male teacher recruitment and retention literature to create possibilities to inspire Black boys to enter the teaching profession.

This paper presents a nuanced integration of imaginative play and culturally relevant pedagogy with specific attention to Black males.

This paper aims to examine how a Black male teacher made sense of the ways racism and white supremacy function in schools and constrains his practice by addressing the question: How does a culturally relevant Black male teacher engage a racial perspective in his pedagogy and make sense of the socio-political context of his practice?

This qualitative case study draws its data from semi-structured interviews and participant observations and was situated within a transfer high school in the Northeastern region of the USA.

This study elucidates the ways in which a Black male teacher’s racial literacy enabled him to make sense of the socio-political context of his school, the profession and help his Black male students negotiate how they are racialized in schools and society.

This paper closes with a call for additional research that further examines the relationship racial literacy plays in retaining teachers of color in the profession and for racial literacy to be positioned as a vital component of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in both teacher education and professional development.

This study contributes to the literature on critical Black male teachers by forwarding a framework that helps us to understand how they engage in transformative work within assimilationist educational spaces.

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.