BLACK BOYS INTERRUPTED
showed that black male pupils performed comparably to boys and girls of all races on first- and second-grade standardized math and reading test. But by fourth grade, African American boys experienced a sharp decline in their scores. More recent national studies have shown similar findings: In 2008, fourth-grade reading scores of African American boys lagged behind those of all other groups at the same grade level, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. It’s sobering to think that any group of kids as young as eight or nine years old can lose interest in school. But a number of experts have been making this observation about black boys for more than two decades. (Although the performance of black girls also declines around the same age, the dip isn’t nearly as pronounced and is often recouped in later years, researchers say.)“I first saw the drop-off syndrome when I started working in school development back in the late sixties,” says Dr. James Comer, director of the Yale Child Studies Center and an educator who has been in the forefront of black child development and school reform for nearly 30 years. “It was especially noticeable among students from low-income families, boys in particular.” Why do boys flounder more? “Around third and fourth grade, there’s a shift in the way teachers instruct kids,” says Harry Morgan, an early childhood development professor at the State University of West Georgia who has also spent over 29 years training teachers and conducting research on classroom behavior and learning styles. “In the earlier years, teachers encourage social interaction,” he says, “but by the fourth grade, classrooms become more of a static, lecturing environment.”
This change in teaching approach, from an informal, learning-by-doing style to the more structured, sit-down-and-listen setup, is toughest on male students, who tend to be more active than girls in the elementary grades. And for black boys, a teacher’s reactions to these high energy levels may be compounded by racism. “There’s often an undercurrent of fear or tension between black male students and many white teachers, and even some black ones,” says Morgan, who served as one of the early developers of Project Head Start in 1965. “This fear can be triggered over something as minor as a black boy walking around the room. On some subliminal level, the teacher is afraid to have even a very young black male defy the simplest rule. She’s afraid his defiance will escalate.” 
Since some teachers are likely to resent a student who doesn’t seem able to sit still and cooperate, a troubled relationship can easily develop; the child might be perceived as a troublemaker or a slow learner, for instance. By fourth grade, this child may have already given up on school, especially if he hasn’t yet learned to read, according to Spencer Holland, an educational psychologist in Washington, D.C. In one of the largest studies of black male students ever conducted, New Orleans public schools found that while eight out of ten black parents believed their sons expected to go to college, only four out of ten teach. When it comes to expectations of black boys, some African American parents believe that stereotypes creep into many teachers’ perceptions. Last year, Keith Jenkins was a newcomer at a public elementary school in an Atlanta suburb. For the first few weeks, Keith, a large ten-year-old with a baby face and a disarming smile, would stay late to help his math teacher. “I want to be an engineer or a podiatrist,” Keith would tell him. The instructor always seemed to reply obliquely before changing the subject: “Why don’t you go out for sports?” he’d ask.
“Keith kept complaining to me that the teacher only wanted to talk about football,” says his mother, Debra. Over time, the teacher’s continued dismissal of Keith’s real interests upset the boy. “It’s like he doesn’t want me to be smart or something,” he would tell his mother unhappily. “Like I should be playing sports because I am black.” [Fearing reprisal, Debra wouldn’t reveal the name of Keith’s teacher, who may have been unaware of the effect his remarks had on Keith.]
Soon Keith no longer stayed after school, and in a few months, the normally sunny-natured child began telling his mom that he had to lose 30 pounds. “I’m too big,” Keith would tell his mom. “If I’m skinny, they won’t pressure me to play. I can just be myself.” A lot of teachers, his mother believes, hold fast to certain assumptions about how black male students are supposed to behave. “If they have a kid who doesn’t fit into their stereotype, they put that kid down,” she says.
What does the future hold for African American boys who are struggling in our nation’s classrooms? Without help from caring adults at home, in the community, and in the schools, those black boys may never be able to rediscover their sense of wonder about learning-indeed, their sense of hope. When that happens, the entire nation loses: “School failure can lead to life failure-including dependency and crime and all the things we don’t want to have to pay for as a society,” says James Comer of the Yale Child Studies Center. By recognizing these possibilities, we’re also acknowledging the responsibility we share to bridge the racial gulf that divides our country. No doubt our children are smart enough, resilient enough, and openhearted enough to meet the challenge. The question is, are we?
For more information or if you need help for your child here are some helpful websites:
That’s pretty sad, a lot of schools don’t want to see our black students especially males succeed.