One of the many rewarding aspects of participating in RFA’s participatory action research (PAR) pilot cohort in 2023 was the opportunity to deeply explore Black educators’ commitment to teaching. As a Black teacher myself, I was actually wonderfully surprised to discover the extent to which Black teachers truly love their jobs despite the many challenges they face in the profession. For many Black teachers, teaching is more than just a job, it’s part of their identity. Many reported their classrooms as joyful fugitive spaces where the whole child’s physical and mental health is prioritized.
Regardless of the joy Black teachers find in the classroom, there are numerous reasons they chose to leave. Among them are the experience of disrespect and not being valued by the district, administrators, colleagues, students, and parents; desire for increased compensation; curricula challenges; and lack of preparation.
Many Black teachers in both cities described a lack of support from the larger community. “We’re not valued,” said one Philadelphia teacher. “It’s the most disrespected position on the planet,” said another Detroit teacher. “I don’t feel like we are appreciated,” reported another Philadelphia Black teacher. Indeed, lack of appreciation was one of the most common challenges that we discovered in our data collection. One teacher even described Black teachers as being “dispensable.” Black teachers desire (and deserve) to be understood and recognized for the fullness of the humanity they bring to their school community.
Additionally, one significant cause of Black teachers’ sense of dispensability was salary. Black teachers simply want to be compensated for their worth. “We’re educating you and you want to give us crumbs. Really?” asked one Detroit teacher. All teachers’ general desire for a better salary is well known, and yet still little is done. Moreover, this often feels like an extra burden for Black teachers who face the realities of anti-Blackness and the generational economic wealth gap. Many Black teachers often have side “hustles” or jobs to help supplement their professional income. Teaching is physically and emotionally draining, and the extent to which Black teachers are not paid enough and have to seek outside income is an indicator of how Black teachers are taken advantage of.
However, it’s not just a Black teacher’s (lack of) paycheck that drives them from the classroom. The Black teachers we interviewed shared their frustrations with standardized tests, prescriptive curricula and the resistance to culturally responsive curricular approaches. Teachers spoke of wanting to empower Black students through teaching truth. “We are dealing with children who are whole human beings and we have yet to embrace a curriculum that highlights that part of their humanity” reported one Black teacher. Another spoke of the “fear in this wave of critical race theory hysteria.” These conditions impact teachers’ sense of autonomy and their ability to assert their own agency in what is best for their classrooms. In his introduction to his book Fugitive Pedagogy, Jarvis Givens writes, “Black people’s political clarity meant they understood their teaching and learning to be perpetually taking place under persecution, even as they created a learning experience of joy and empowerment.” Black teachers frequently feel the burden of wanting to empower their students, and yet are often beholden to curricula that do not reflect the students’ identities and experiences.
Another challenge that arose in our findings was the lack of preparation. Several Black teachers reported that their pathway to teaching did not adequately prepare them for the real world challenges of the classroom. One teacher stated “no one can be prepared for teaching because it’s not what you expect.” While many Black teachers felt academically prepared to teach, many of them were unprepared for the challenges of classroom management, and how to develop positive relationships with students and parents.
To retain and sustain Black teachers in the classroom, existing education systems need to level up, and new systems need to be developed too. The Black teachers from Philadelphia and Detroit agreed on three action steps to keep Black teachers in the classroom. The first was to develop a Black teacher mentorship program where veteran Black teachers would take on 8-10 Black teachers to mentor throughout the school year. The second was advocating school administrations and school boards to have more Black teachers at the table when significant teaching decisions were being made. Lastly, teachers in Philly and Detroit called for a narrative shift, one that recognizes the important contributions of Black teachers instead of a deficit narrative that questions their professionalism and dedication. Many of these ideas are still in development. RFA and several Black teachers are still committed to action, and hope to combine and collaborate with other organizations doing similar work.
As this important work continues, we must continue to listen and respond directly to exactly what Black teachers are saying. As one Black teacher who was interviewed appropriately stated, “It’s always this. What can we do better? Why didn’t this work? They’re not really asking us. They’re not really asking us. And that’s one of the things that makes the job so difficult.”
Other articles –
High Morale of Black Teachers
https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/50824463/black-teachers-student-impacts-and-teacher-shortages
On message sent to students
‘Never Get Into Teaching’: The Message We Need to Stop Sending Students (Opinion)
Because of what Black teachers bring to the classroom, they should be made to feel as one Detroit teacher argued as “revered.” As Betina Love argues, the best way for schools to improve Black teacher retention is to “stop recruiting Black teachers until they have the infrastructure to keep them, protect them, value their labor, affirm their Blackness, and stand up for our culture, history, and communities.”