Marvelous Vision: Building Upon the Cultural Epistemology of a Black Male Teacher

• In Event: Reframing Race and Gender: Perspectives on Black Male Achievement

Abstract

No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have accelerated conversations about academic achievement and teacher effectiveness with the apex of these conversations being the adoption of state standards for teaching. However, despite increasing conversations about the need for teacher practices and curriculum to be more inclusive of student diversity, conceptualizations of quality teaching continue to operate within mainstream paradigms. In order to disrupt deficit frameworks for educating Black students, particularly Black males, we must adopt alternative frameworks for understanding and relating to their students and the knowledges they bring with them. This paper explores a Black male teachers’ African-centered ways of knowing and being in order to inform frameworks for enacting culturally sustaining practices for Black male students.

Author

• Keisha McIntosh Allen, University of Maryland - Baltimore County