[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.91″ custom_padding=”0px|0px|0px|0px” next_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px|0px|0px|0px” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_video _builder_version=”3.20.1″ src=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0M7Kfsz83cA&feature=youtu.be” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ custom_padding=”2px|0px|37.9062px|0px” prev_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px|0px|18.9531px|0px” custom_margin=”10px|||” _builder_version=”3.0.92″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”News Story” _builder_version=”3.20.1″ custom_margin=”0px||0px|”]<\/p>\n
Derrick Hearn, a fourth-grade teacher\u00a0at A.C. Moore Elementary, wants his young students to understand that black men can be teachers too.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times students just don\u2019t have that teacher that looks like them or can connect with them and ultimately help change their education experience,\u201d said Hearn.<\/p>\n
According to the U.S. Department of Education, only two percent of the teachers in the United States are black men.<\/p>\n
This statistic leads to many African American students not seeing educators who look like them at the front of the classroom.<\/p>\n
In South Carolina, the public school system is expected to have about 49,000 teachers, but only a little over 1,000 are black men, according to the South Carolina Department of Education.<\/p>\n
Waylon Gibson, a fifth-grade teacher on the same faculty with Hearn at A.C. Moore, believes black men will re-enter the education career field if some changes are made across the state and the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to have to increase some pay,” Gibson said. \u201cWe are also going to have to make teaching and make this atmosphere, almost in a sense, more conducive for black men.”<\/p>\n
If black men continue to enter into the education system they will have an overall positive impact on the students across the nation, Gibson said.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Clyburn Reed, director of the Center for the Education and Equity of African American Students at the University of South Carolina, said low diversity statistics within the state are not helping the overall growth of the educational experience for the children in the public school systems. Changes in diversity levels could have a ripple effect in the classroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents that see themselves with someone who looks like them at the front of the classroom have a 36 percent less chance of dropping out,\u201d said Reed. \u201cDiscipline also falls so you are looking at two major entities, negative entities, that we could eliminate if we just diversify the teaching force and I think that is worth doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reynard Jefferson, the assistant principal at Burnside Elementary, said although teachers make less money than many other professions, teaching is a profession that creates the foundation for many opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is still important that they see teachers of all faces, of all facets, said Hearn. \u201cAnd not just African American teachers, just teachers of different cultures that can actually expose them to those different backgrounds, personally as they matriculate through their education.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within the state of South Carolina, there are many programs to get black men involved in a career in education. They include the Call Me Mister Program that originated at Clemson University and the Apple Core Initiative at the University of South Carolina.<\/p>\n
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Black men in South Carolina represent about 1,000 of the state’s total teachers. Two of those teachers, Derick Hearn and Waylon Gibson, try to represent diversity each day to their students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":21318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"
Students across the nation, are constantly looking for guidance from the educators leading their classrooms.<\/p>
Derrick Hearn is a fourth-grade teacher from A.C. Moore Elementary. He is one of the black men in education shattering the national statistic by representing black men teaching in the classroom.<\/p>
\u201cA lot of times student just don\u2019t have that teacher that looks like them or can connect with them and ultimately help change their education experience,\u201d said Hearn.<\/p>
According to the U.S. Department of Education, only two percent of the teachers in the United States are black men.<\/p>
This is statistic leads to many African American students not seeing educators who look like them at the front of the classroom.<\/p>
Directly, within the state of South Carolina, the public school system is expected to have about 49,000 teachers, but only a little over 1,000 are black men, according to the South Carolina Department of Education.<\/p>
Waylon Gibson is a fifth-grade teacher at A.C. Moore Elementary and believes black men will re-enter the education career field if some changes are made across the state and the nation.<\/p>
\u201cWe are going to have to increase some pay, said Gibson. \u201cWe are also going to have to make teaching and make this atmosphere, almost in a sense more conducive for black men in a way.\u201d<\/p>
Gibson is a firm believer if black men continue to enter into the education system they will have an overall positive impact on the students across the nation.<\/p>
Jennifer Clyburn Reed is the Director of the Center for the Education and Equity of African American Students at the University of South Carolina. Reed expresses how the low diversity statistics within the state are not helping the overall growth of the educational experience for the children in the public school systems, but if some changes in the numbers of diversity are made, it could have a ripple effect in the classroom.<\/p>
\u201cStudents that see themselves with someone who looks like them at the front of the classroom, thirty-six percent less chance of dropping out,\u201d said Reed. \u201cDiscipline also falls so you are looking at two major entities, negative entities that we could eliminate if we just diversify the teaching force and I think that is worth doing.\u201d<\/p>
Reynard Jefferson, the Assistant Principal at Burnside Elementary, says, although teachers make less money than many other professions, teaching is a profession that creates the foundation for many opportunities.<\/p>
\u201cIt is still important that they see teachers of all faces of all facets, said Hearn. \u201cAnd not just African American teachers just teachers of different cultures that can actually expose them to those different backgrounds, personally as they matriculate through their education.\u201d<\/p>
Within the state of South Carolina, there are many programs to get black men involved in a career in education. They include the Call Me Mister Program that originated at Clemson University and the Apple Core Initiative at the University of South Carolina.<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[497,452,181,99,817],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18009"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18009"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21621,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18009\/revisions\/21621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}