Teach!

Teaching our children is very important because as a parent you must send your child to school young black males often grow up and single parent homes and then they go to school and get taught life lessons by women. Parents are speaking out about the shortage of black male teachers; Black men make up 5 percent of Jackson-Madison County Schools' 1,140 teachers. Only four black men teach on the elementary level, while there are 36 in the high schools, according to the school system's human resource department. Black men and women make up about 28 percent of the teachers in the system, while about 60 percent of the student population is black. Educators say it is important for black students, particularly boys, to see positive black role models in the classroom. Black male teachers are important mentors, and in some cases father figures, to black male students. The relationships the teachers build can help curtail behavioral problems and keep students and track toward graduation and academic success, educators say. It is time for Black men to become teachers in order to provide the positive examples that our community needs this is a big void that desperately needs to be filled.