It never fails - after giving a presentation on educating Black males some teacher will timorously approach me and ask, “How do I motivate young Black males to achieve?” There is no magic bullet, but there are strategies teachers can use that have been shown to improve achievement among Black males.

Provide Multiple Ways to Demonstrate Mastery of Academic Content
As educators we have to move beyond the traditional unit examination/test as the single measure of a student’s knowledge of academic content.  Demonstration and Performance measures should also be essential components of student assessment, and is likely a more valid appraisal of academic content knowledge.  Not only should students be expected to understand the content, they should be expected to apply the knowledge and skills they’ve learned to solve real-world problems.  Allowing for multiple ways to demonstrate mastery of academic content raises the expectations for African American males, but also makes the work more engaging and authentic.

Provide Multiple Opportunities to Demonstrate Mastery of Academic Content
In addition to providing students alternative paths to demonstrate mastery of academic content, multiple opportunities to do so are also vital.  Traditionally students are given a fixed amount of time before they are asked to show command of a topic.  Given that students process and learn academic material at different rates, these fixed timelines become prohibitive to some – students perform poorly and rarely have the opportunity to revisit academic material, hence gaps in knowledge emerge. If these gaps endure over the course of a year, we can be assured that students will not perform well on end-of-year State measures of achievement.  Allowing students to demonstrate mastery of academic content throughout the school year sends the message that student will be held accountable for learning the curriculum and not artificially planned timelines.

These are two promising practices teachers can use in the classroom to motivate and raise the expectation of achievement among young Black males. 

What are other promising practices teachers can use to increase the academic achievement among African American males?

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has consistently indicated that Black males in the 12th grade have the same reading levels as their White male counterparts in middle school. 

It is not a stretch to reason that much of the lack of achievement these young men experience is directly tied to their fractured literacy experiences.

There is no shortage of books delineating why Black boys have rejected reading.  Some argue that in school, reading and writing has become a threat to their masculinity, while others contend school literacy rarely meets the needs or interests of Black boys.

Tatum, in his book, Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males, takes us a step further and frames the social context of Black boys and its impact on their literacy experiences.

He suggests that young African American males feel alienated from their school literacy experiences because most school texts don’t speak to their life experience.

This coupled with the notion that there are few examples in families, the media, or schools of Black males engaging with texts, students don’t see literacy as a tool that can transform their world.

It is doubtful Black males will be successful in school if they continue to have fractured literacy experiences.  We know these young men can assess and understand complex situations and ideas.  The challenge is transferring this skill-set to their literacy experiences, so they see themselves as part of the classroom discourse.

How can communities support schools in moving Black males toward positive literacy experiences?