DENVER — A new fellowship program at Metropolitan State University of Denver hopes to provide support for Black male educators in the Denver-metro.
The Black Male Educator Fellowship — nicknamed "The Den" — just launched with the goal of supporting teachers within Denver Public Schools and Aurora Public Schools by providing access to meaningful professional development, networking opportunities and community.
“I know how isolating that it can be, particularly for Black men," said Dr. Rashad Anderson, director of the Call Me MiSTER program at MSU Denver, which is supporting the new fellowship. "In the Denver community, we're 6% of the population in the state, and for many educators, they're the only Black teacher in their school building, and sometimes, you know, just that feeling of isolation can attribute to those decisions to leave the classroom."
Call Me MiSTER is a nationwide teacher leadership program designed to help recruit and place Black male teachers, and the new fellowship is a collaborative effort between Call Me MiSTER, MSU Denver’s Office of Education Solutions, Denver and Aurora Public Schools, and the Colorado Men of Color Collaborative.
“One of the things that I realized very early on in my career, I coined it a term, the Black boy whisperer, where, when you're in a school and you're the only Black teacher there, and you just have this immense pressure for any student of color, that you have the fix for," Anderson said. "And so I remember as a teacher having the principal knock on my door and bring students to me like I was the administrator to fix them, and it's frustrating.
"Teaching already is a tough job, and so I wanted to build something that was almost a sense of like a brotherhood community."
According to the National Association of the State Boards of Education, 40% of school districts in Colorado do not have one teacher of color, and 62% of school districts do not employ a single Black male teacher.
Kaheem Heath, Call Me MiSTER program participant and aspiring teacher, said the fellowship and other programs are important mechanisms for recruiting future educators like himself.
“For my entire life, I've never had, specifically, a Black male teacher, and I feel like that struck me the hardest, like, I have to make a change for this, because a lot of these young kids, they don't have somebody that looks like them, especially males,” Heath said.
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MSU Denver welcomes program designed to recruit Black male teachers
Heath said Anderson has served as a powerful leader and source of inspiration for him.
"I just want to follow his footsteps as we inspire other Black men to join the program as well, to get into those classrooms,” Heath said.
Anderson said the fellowship serves an important purpose.
“Every single student benefits from having a teacher from a diverse background," Anderson said. "One of my soapbox things is that we talk a lot about racism in society, in the country. I think that one of the best things about racism is it’s a learned behavior and just how you learn it, you can unlearn it, and the best way to unlearn it is by having experiences with folks that don't look like you.
"The power of having teachers in school buildings where they don't look like the majority of the population, you're learning firsthand what it is like interacting with someone from a different ethnic background, and that will break down so many barriers in our society and will make America a stronger and better place,” he said.
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