"Break It Down": One of the Cultural and Stylist Instructional Preferences of Black Males

Abstract

Interviews with students at an all-Black, all-male school in a major northeastern city revealed that a significant proportion of the participating students had a strong preference for practical, demonstrative explanations of new concepts and information that are directly related to their everyday experiential realities. These findings suggest that the participating students would benefit greatly from problem-based teaching strategies and culturally relevant instructional techniques. Like, my math teacher, she is really like a hands on teacher. She do things, like look at something and she'll show us how to do it, like something we will definitely see. Like something we will do in real life and relate it to real life. Cause other teachers just put it on the board and tell us to do. Like, we like, what do this have to do with the rest of our lives, we don't need to use it. My other teacher did that and it was really helpful. -Black male high school student This article will focus on Black male high school students revealed in one-on-one interviews about their unique preferences for how new information and concepts are presented to them by their teachers. African American students are overrepresented in special education classes and underrepresented in gifted classes (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). However, the situation is significantly more devastating for Black males. Eighty percent of the African American children in special education classes are African American males (Kunjufu, 2001). African American males are more likely than other males to be identified as learning disabled and be placed in special education classes; not to participate in advanced placement courses; not to perform as well as other boys in math and science; and to perform below grade level on standardized tests (Gurian & Stevens, 2005). Much of the current research is concerned with closing the racial achievement gap and pushing African American youth to achieve educational parity with White youth. While using comparative data to establish the relative condition of Black male academic achievement within the American context is helpful, this investigation is not concerned with achieving parity with White students. Because this is an Afrocentric investigation, it is primarily concerned with determining how the learning environment can be optimally structured to maximize the full potential and social and educational achievement of African American students in general, and African American males in particular, so that they may increase their capacity to be of service to their own communities first. The paradigm for education in America as we know it is a Eurocentric cultural product that is an extension of the values, ideology, and ethos of Western civilization. In many cases, students' individual cultural differences go unrecognized in the traditional American classroom setting (Lee, Lamotey, & Shujaa, 1990). Too often educational institutions in America take a one-size-fits-all approach to the teaching of students in America, including African American students, with little regard for cultural or stylistic differences (Williams, 2003). Such an approach ignores the complexities of how individuals of different backgrounds (e.g., racial, cultural, and ethnic) learn. In the context of globalization countries are encouraged to meet me demands of modernization by thinking globally and acting locally (Walter, 2004). This article is focused on how the teachers of Black males may frame tiieir instruction within the local, social, and cultural experience of the Black community while imparting critical skills and knowledge. This issue not only affects the educational experience of Black males, but also their engagement in society at large. The existing literature reveals the multitude of variables that impact on African American student learning styles, achievement levels, and their teachers' teaching styles. …