Op-Ed: Educators: Understand the past and empower black students

This February, students across the country celebrated Black History Month. They read books by black authors, wrote research papers on civil rights activists, memorized Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech and watched videos about the Underground Railroad. And as they learned about the struggle of the past, many began to recognize it in their own present — when a cashier squints suspiciously as they walk into a store, or when they turn on the news and see another person who looks like them lose his life to senseless violence. These lessons are anything but history. 

In the face of this reality, we have no time to waste. This school year marked the first in which the majority of public school students are minorities, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Our generation has a responsibility to work to ensure that each and every one of them is moving through a system that affirms their identities, shows them they’re valued and allows them access to the opportunities they have been denied for far too long.

While the “whites only” signs of the ’60s have come down, the reality of separate and unequal endures. Alongside glaring gaps in educational, employment and economic opportunity, people of color in this nation face a variety of subtler, no less damaging assumptions. A successful black lawyer hears whispers of affirmative action. A young black boy on a corner is seen as “lurking,” whereas his white peers “hang out.” A black college student is asked to give “the black perspective” to a seminar full of white students who are never asked to speak on behalf of their entire race.

My students in Camden felt the effects of these stereotypes every day. Though they were bright and talented, they often heard messages — both subtle and overt — that they didn’t have what it takes to succeed. When they looked around, they didn’t see enough people who looked like them excelling. So when it came to school, it was hard to see the point. They often missed class or didn’t take the work seriously because they had been told, implicitly and explicitly, that it didn’t matter much anyway. 

But I knew that it did matter, and my job was to prove it to them. To get us started, I created and implemented a program at the Camden City Accelerated Academy, and then at the Creative Arts Morgan Village Academy, called SWAG — Students Will Achieve Greatness — that incentivized students to reach their goals and made classes more fun and engaging. I brought doctors, lawyers and business professionals who looked like them into the classroom so they could see what was possible for their own futures. I brought them to a symposium on a Saturday at Arcadia University, where they got to set foot on a college campus, share their stories and dream big.

Once my students saw that I was holding them to high expectations and taking their education seriously, our work together changed. Attendance improved. Homework was completed. Students applied to college. They focused more in class. They proved what I knew all along — that they were capable of greatness. Along with their parents, fellow educators at my school and a loving community, I became one more person who believed in them. Our kids need as many of us as we can muster. 

I joined Teach For America in 2011 because I believe that, as a black man with a college degree, it is my responsibility to empower and support kids who look like me. All kids deserve to feel that they are valued and that they have potential — because they are, and they do. 

We have a long way to go as a country before we truly achieve justice for all. To fix the systemic oppression that has created the gross inequality of the present will take the hard, dedicated work of countless leaders and change-makers — many who have experienced it firsthand and others who bear witness to it from further away. We must work toward these long-term changes as well as the immediate, urgent opportunities to change the way our students view themselves and their futures. 

As teachers, we can play a central role in this. Every day, we can remind our kids that their thoughts, ideas, identities and opinions are important. We can share our own stories so that when our kids look to the front of the room, they see a little bit of themselves reflected back. We can remind them that they matter, that they always have and that they always will.

Jamil Alhassan is a 2011 alum of Pitt and Teach For America-Philadelphia. He is currently a medical student at Pitt.