This shortest month of the year is typically filled with history reports, pageants, guest speakers, cultural fairs and the like. Seldom a day goes by that we don't hear the names of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Madame C.J. Walker, George Washington Carver, and so on.
When my daughter pulls hard on the heavy glass doors of the Martin Luther King Jr. Laboratory School and races upstairs into her fifth-grade classroom, she is living my dream.
A white educator reflects on this reality: Most teachers in the United States are white, which means that many children of color don’t have academic role models who look like them.
Jacqueline Jordan Irvine is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Urban Education in the Division of Educational Studies at Emory University. Her specialization is in multicultural education and urban teacher education, particularly the education of African American students. Her books include Black Students and School Failure, Growing Up African American in Catholic Schools, Critical Knowledge for Diverse Students and Culturally Responsive Lesson Planning for Elementary and Middle Grades.