Filed under: Celebrity News, News, The Economy
Filmmaker Spike Lee joined Education Secretary Arne Duncan in issuing a call Monday for more black men to become teachers, making their plea at the country's only all-male historically black college.
The two took part in a town hall meeting at Atlanta's private Morehouse College just a week after President Barack Obama urged more people nationwide to become teachers.
Duncan told an audience that more than 1 million educators are expected to retire in the coming decade and that federal officials are hoping to harness that opportunity to create a more diverse teaching work force, noting that less than 2 percent of the nation's 3 million teachers are black men.
"Everybody can't be a business major," Lee told the auditorium packed with male high school and college students. "We have to educate ourselves. We have to educate our young black men."
Lee, a Morehouse graduate, said he was influenced most -- outside of his own family -- by two of his Morehouse professors. Both educators attended Monday's gathering and were asked to stand up to be honored.
Duncan used the occasion to promote the federal TEACH campaign. The program was launched in the fall to persuade more minorities -- particularly males -- to enter education. The federal government has launched the teach.gov website, a one-stop-shop for anyone wanting to enter teaching, including professionals hoping to switch careers.
"If you want to make a difference in the life of our nation, if you want to make a difference in the life of a child, become a teacher," Obama said in a video address taped for Monday's event. "Our country needs you."
Read more about Spike Lee's call for more black men to become teachers on The Grio. As young black men are now experiencing a crisis in education, Spike's message comes at an important time. Teaching is a wonderful profession. There is not a teacher in the world who has not expressed the sense of personal satisfaction that comes from this career. What a great field for black men -- who are often emotionally stymied by society -- to get into. The issue of black male unemployment could be addressed with programs that help African American males claim this social role while providing our underachieving young men with role models, killing two social ills with the positive arrow of education.
The only obvious drawback to encouraging more black men to enter teaching is the current environment in education. Severe budget cut fever has already swept through the public sector -- and the call for more cuts is spreading nationwide. School systems across the country have been hobbled by the shrinking tax base caused by unemployment. Educators have been laid off in 80% of America's school systems because the money is not there to pay them. In all, this is not the best era to get into teaching for the sake of creating personal financial stability.
Hopefully our public school systems will be adequately funded in the near future. Increasing the diversity of our teaching pool with black men who can inspire troubled youth is a viable plan to improve our school systems while providing vital jobs -- but only if government agencies really step up to the plate. They must invest in the public school system overall. Otherwise, Spike Lee is encouraging black men to enter a field that is sadly doomed.
If we as a nation do not invest in education overall, we are ultimately dooming our future.