Repost: You’re Not at Your Best When You’re Stressed

Recently, I was privileged to sit on a panel at a local independent school when they previewed the documentary, American Promise to students, parents, and faculty. The film by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson vividly captures the 12-year school experiences of their son, Idris and his best friend, Seun while attending the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan.

The account of these two Brooklyn boys as their paths diverged in high school provided the all-too-common story of young men—and others—having to transition daily from a familiar and beloved home community to a new setting with different norms, attitudes, language, behaviors and expectations. It’s not unlike the sometimes tricky high school to college transition for many students.

Like Idris and Seun, I too had to make a transition, albeit much later, when I was admitted to a previously all-white magnet high school on Long Island. My six-mile bus ride was a metaphor for the cultural distance I had to traverse, being assaulted daily with questions about my competence, my hair, or music. It was a strange new world in which I had to learn to function.

Not surprisingly, I struggled academically in my first year at the new school while trying to discover the written and unwritten rules, navigate new social dynamics, and suddenly having to examine my racial identity, all the while taking tough classes. It was an emotionally draining period.

The main lesson I learned was this:  You’re not at your intellectual best when you’re under social and emotional stress.

Ultimately, I graduated in the top 10 percent of my class, but I learned important lessons along the way that apply to any transition, especially the transition from high school to college.

• Gather Information about the School or College.

It’s striking how many students select a college sight unseen! These students who fail to do their homework are certain to struggle with their transition. It’s important to visit the school, spending as much time as possible meeting with professors, administrators and students. From home, follow student blogs; subscribe to the school newspaper and college Facebook page. Read everything students publish about their college experience. You’ll begin to paint a mental picture about the expectations and norms that make up the school culture.

• Form Strong “Vertical” and “Horizontal” Relationships.

Students who are successful making the transition report having good relationships with teachers (faculty), and also have a strong and supportive peer group according to my research and others. Finding one or more mentors on campus—an administrator from your home town, a teacher or faculty member with similar interests—is key to learning the rules and, most importantly, having someone to advocate for you.

Likewise, forming a posse that has your back, but who also will academically encourage and challenge you is critical. Here, forming study groups, joining a student organization and getting involved in campus committees are great ways to build your social connections and learn the rules, even if you tend toward introversion like me.

• Be Secure in Who You Are.

The school or college experience is not just about your intellectual development, but these institutions are also supposed to grow you emotionally, socially, and physically. That said, in my own research, students who are most successful in college are also most secure in their racial or ethnic identity. I’ll extend these identity qualifiers to gender, religious, and other characteristics that are important (salient) to you. In other words, students are less prone to suffer from stereotype threat—the under-performance that occurs when a negative stereotype about them is triggered (i.e., “you got admitted because of affirmative action”, or “girls aren’t good in math).

Being comfortable in your skin is an antidote to feeling that you have to prove something. You’re the only one you have to satisfy (and God, depending on your faith identity).

Epilogue

In the end, Idris graduated from the Dalton School, while Seun transferred to, and graduated from a public high school better suited for him. The boys and their parents learned to manage their transitions, and in Seun’s case, he moved to a school with lower cultural boundaries to cross.

Managing your transitions, whether by making the rules explicit through enhanced social connections, examining your motivations, or by bringing the worlds closer positions you to perform at your best.

For more information, check out my new book, “Working Smarter, Not Just Harder: Three Sensible Strategies for Succeeding in College…and Life.”

Share this post with others who are making transitions, and follow me at www.karlwreid.com or @educator2us on Twitter.

Hands Up? Sure, But I’m Also Fighting Back!

This week, I joined thousands in Washington, DC for the “Justice for All” rally and march organized by Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. With repeated chants of “Black Lives Matter”, “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police”, “I Can’t Breathe”, and “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” the multicultural and multi-generational show of unity was moving.

The marchers, and others like it in New York and Boston gathered to decry the recent police killings of unarmed black men and boys, the non-indictment decisions of the Grand Juries in Ferguson, Mo. and New York City, and to call on Congress and the Justice Department to make requisite changes to the criminal justice system to ensure that there is indeed justice for all, not just for some.

The rally and march were peaceful and purposeful, and yet watching the sea of humanity repeatedly hold their hands up in a sign of surrender started to rankle me. In my mind, something is wrong with a call to surrender, especially for this cause; especially now.

I don’t mean to diminish the importance of the “Hands Up” symbolism to the rolling national protest movement. Some witnesses to the Mike Brown shooting testified that his hands were raised to surrender when he was shot multiple times by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson after a brief struggle near Wilson’s squad car. (Others say Brown was charging the officer. We’ll never know the truth since the officer was never cross-examined during the Grand Jury proceedings.) The “Hands Up” mantra became a righteous symbol of the national protest movement against police brutality and biased criminal justice.

Full disclosure here. My late father was a New York City police officer who rose to the ranks of detective during the 70s. Public servants like my dad put their lives in danger every day to serve and protect us. But as we’ve seen recently, not all police officers have the best interests of the public in mind. And when police officers have unconscious (and conscious) biases and can’t do their job objectively, their attitudes may have deadly consequences.

Like many other Black parents, my father counseled my brothers and me how to interact with police when stopped and questioned: “Always keep your hands where they can see them”; and “repeat every instruction they give you (‘OK, officer, I’m reaching for my license and registration.’)” His guidance may have saved my life several times when I was pulled over or questioned by police, each time for no other reason except “Driving While Black.”

And yet, while marching, I felt we’re past the time to surrender, even symbolically. For this movement to have a long term impact, it’s time we fight back, not with retaliatory violence, but with action!

Here’s how.

1. Push Congress to remediate the “Ms. Education” of Black males in school. It’s time to demand that Black males (and females) get quality education in elementary, middle and high schools across the country. Did you know that only 62% of African American 9^th graders graduate in four years? What happens to the 38% who don’t graduate right away? According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, high school dropouts are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested in their lifetime. Therefore, by increasing four-year high school graduation rates, we could lower the likelihood that our young boys and men will encounter the criminal justice system.
2. Require that all schools have access to critical math and science courses. Part of the educational problem is structural. For example, did you know that nearly half of African American high school students don’t have the full complement of math and science courses (4 years each) in their schools? Such an enormous opportunity gap prevents a large segment of young people ineligible to attend their state flagship university, never mind elite private colleges and universities.

But Mike Brown had graduated from high school and he was days away from going to college when he was gunned down. So there’re other structural problems for which to fight:

3. We need to push Congress to require and fund body and dashboard cameras for law enforcement professionals to hold even the bad apples accountable for their actions.
4. Let’s require police departments to surface and redress unconscious bias among their officers, while at the same time, weed out the bad apples before they even put on a badge.
5. And let’s push the Justice Department to require special prosecutors to argue Grand Jury cases involving law enforcement personnel to minimize the reality, or even the perception of favoritism and bias.

I’m thrilled to see the “Justice for All” marches and protests nationwide, sparked by our youth. But I’m done surrendering. Like Tommy Smith and John Carlos’ salute during the 1968 Summer Olympics ceremony, I’ve decided to fight back too.

Stand Your Ground! Challenging the Culture of Criminal Expectations for Black Boys and Men

A few years back, I led a workshop for 20 talented African American males who were about to graduate from high school. They were in Jack and Jill, a community-based program aimed at providing social, cultural and educational opportunities for youth between the ages of two and nineteen. Their grades, school leadership, and upstanding community service were about to earn them admission to some of the most prestigious and selective colleges in the country.

The workshop, What Is Your Brand, challenged the young men to examine and define their identity and understand how their self-concept influences behavior.

During one exercise, I asked the young men to describe in one word how they were perceived in public outside of familiar settings. Here are some of their responses:

How the World Sees Young Black Males

Thug. Womanizer. Thief. Athletic. Dumb/Stupid. Gangster. Rapper. Non-academic…

Then I asked them to describe themselves, again in a word. Here are some of the descriptives they used:

How Young Black Males See Themselves

Smart. Christian. Respectful, Athletic, Non-athletic. Good Student…

I was struck by the considerable contrast between the two sets of responses—how they’re perceived, and how they see themselves were polar opposites. Think for a moment about the tension to constantly appraise, play down to, or actively reject these criminal expectations in schools, malls, or, as we’ve recently seen, even in your own car. We saw this tension play out in the tragic encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin. And now  months later, two more African American male lives were senselessly taken stemming from incidents rooted in the negative perception of this population segment.

Like many of you, I am troubled by the unjustified and recent police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Any of these men could have been me–or my sons. My question is this: Would Mr. Castile have been shot and killed if he were a white man in the car with his fiance and her four-year-old daughter? And would he even have been stopped by police for an alleged broken taillight? I think not.

I too have had my fair share of “micro-aggression” moments. For instance, when I cross the street, I still hear car doors lock while waiting at a traffic light. Or when I’m at the airport waiting for my bags at Baggage Claim, I notice women moving their purses from one hand to the other—away from me—after they glance over her shoulder at me. I’m old enough to dismiss these misguided actions, but what about our boys and young men?

In an earlier post relating to the Trayvon Martin incident, I contemplated the impact of the Zimmerman verdict on the attitudes and behaviors of young African American males toward official institutions such as the courts, the police, and most tragically, their schools. How can we as parents raise our children—our sons—to thrive despite these views?

Here are a few ways my wife and I intentionally prepare our sons (21 and 16) to thrive:

1. Value who they are as African American men, helping them recognize their family and racial history, understanding what others sacrificed so they can be secure and comfortable in their own skin, both literally and figuratively.
2. Live out their Christian faith in such a way that they know that there were no accidents, but rather, that they are here for a reason, with a purpose.
3. Not to allow their evolving beliefs about their race or faith preclude them from forging relationships with people outside of their reference groups (race, faith, sexual orientation, etc.). In other words, to be culturally fluent.
4. When they encounter racism, to help them make sense of it in a way that will lead them to a positive and reflectively responses to the apparent slight, rather than to react reflexively or destructively.
5. We intentionally choose schools and community settings where there is numerical diversity AND a culture of inclusion and high expectations, especially for AA males.

Parents and guardians can’t be omnipresent when it comes to protecting our boys and young men from the palpable culture of criminal and low expectations. What we can do is impart in them a will to Stand Their Ground regarding their sense of identity and purpose. Recognizing  negative perceptions and stereotypes is one thing. Having the resolve, tools, and success to prove others wrong is critical to dismantling societal’s racialized structures and perceptions one brick at a time.

 

* Image courtesy of http://www.lostateminor.com/2012/03/30/stand-your-ground-poster-by-tes-one/

Repost: You’re Not at Your Best When You’re Stressed

Recently, I was privileged to sit on a panel at a local independent school when they previewed the documentary, American Promise to students, parents, and faculty. The film by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson vividly captures the 12-year school experiences of their son, Idris and his best friend, Seun while attending the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan.

The account of these two Brooklyn boys as their paths diverged in high school provided the all-too-common story of young men—and others—having to transition daily from a familiar and beloved home community to a new setting with different norms, attitudes, language, behaviors and expectations. It’s not unlike the sometimes tricky high school to college transition for many students.

Like Idris and Seun, I too had to make a transition, albeit much later, when I was admitted to a previously all-white magnet high school on Long Island. My six-mile bus ride was a metaphor for the cultural distance I had to traverse, being assaulted daily with questions about my competence, my hair, or music. It was a strange new world in which I had to learn to function.

Not surprisingly, I struggled academically in my first year at the new school while trying to discover the written and unwritten rules, navigate new social dynamics, and suddenly having to examine my racial identity, all the while taking tough classes. It was an emotionally draining period.

The main lesson I learned was this:  You’re not at your intellectual best when you’re under social and emotional stress.

Ultimately, I graduated in the top 10 percent of my class, but I learned important lessons along the way that apply to any transition, especially the transition from high school to college.

• Gather Information about the School or College.

It’s striking how many students select a college sight unseen! These students who fail to do their homework are certain to struggle with their transition. It’s important to visit the school, spending as much time as possible meeting with professors, administrators and students. From home, follow student blogs; subscribe to the school newspaper and college Facebook page. Read everything students publish about their college experience. You’ll begin to paint a mental picture about the expectations and norms that make up the school culture.

• Form Strong “Vertical” and “Horizontal” Relationships.

Students who are successful making the transition report having good relationships with teachers (faculty), and also have a strong and supportive peer group according to my research and others. Finding one or more mentors on campus—an administrator from your home town, a teacher or faculty member with similar interests—is key to learning the rules and, most importantly, having someone to advocate for you.

Likewise, forming a posse that has your back, but who also will academically encourage and challenge you is critical. Here, forming study groups, joining a student organization and getting involved in campus committees are great ways to build your social connections and learn the rules, even if you tend toward introversion like me.

• Be Secure in Who You Are.

The school or college experience is not just about your intellectual development, but these institutions are also supposed to grow you emotionally, socially, and physically. That said, in my own research, students who are most successful in college are also most secure in their racial or ethnic identity. I’ll extend these identity qualifiers to gender, religious, and other characteristics that are important (salient) to you. In other words, students are less prone to suffer from stereotype threat—the under-performance that occurs when a negative stereotype about them is triggered (i.e., “you got admitted because of affirmative action”, or “girls aren’t good in math).

Being comfortable in your skin is an antidote to feeling that you have to prove something. You’re the only one you have to satisfy (and God, depending on your faith identity).

Epilogue

In the end, Idris graduated from the Dalton School, while Seun transferred to, and graduated from a public high school better suited for him. The boys and their parents learned to manage their transitions, and in Seun’s case, he moved to a school with lower cultural boundaries to cross.

Managing your transitions, whether by making the rules explicit through enhanced social connections, examining your motivations, or by bringing the worlds closer positions you to perform at your best.

For more information, check out my new book, “Working Smarter, Not Just Harder: Three Sensible Strategies for Succeeding in College…and Life.”

Share this post with others who are making transitions, and follow me at www.karlwreid.com or @educator2us on Twitter.

Improving African American Male Achievement in College: It’s Not Rocket Science

 

Much has been written, pontificated, and deliberated about the plight of African American males in a variety of societal segments including criminal justice, employment, healthcare, and family responsibility. But few topics have surfaced the collective angst about their fate like education. Without question, education has been a failing domain for many African American males, a population that is chronically underrepresented in gifted and talented programs, and over-represented in lower-ability groups and special education classes.

The fact is, our young men are an endangered breed, particularly as they advance through ever-higher educational levels. The Schott Foundation in their report Yes We Can: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and African American Males 2010 reports “the national percentage of African American males enrolled at each stage of schooling declines from middle school through graduate degree programs.” Witness any high school graduation in the country and you’ll observe this phenomena first hand: When it comes to recognizing the academic exemplars – valedictorian, salutatorian, honor society inductees – it’s rare to see a young African American male take the stage, even in schools with high concentrations of this group.

It’s no surprise then that the share of African American college degrees conferred to African American men are declining, a trend that began almost 30 years ago according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. African American men earn just a third of all bachelor’s degrees conferred to African Americans, and only one-third finish college within six years, compared to nearly 50 percent of African American women. Indeed, the same Journal ominously predicts the unlikely, yet mathematical possibility that by 2097, African American women will earn all degrees received by African Americans!

These reports, and the myriad that preceded them rightly raise the alarm about our young men. Yet, with few exceptions such as the Schott Foundation report and the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s (UMBC) Meyerhoff Scholars Program, rarely do they counterbalance the doom and gloom accounts by illuminating successful models and programs that have dramatically improved the achievement and outcomes of African American males.

Before joining UNCF, I spent five years honing a residence-based freshman seminar at MIT. The seminar was required of all freshmen who elected to live in this all-male living group, a small section of a co-ed dormitory comprising mostly (but not exclusively) African American and Latino undergraduates. The seminar design was informed by my emerging understanding of what it took to foster success of African American males in college from my doctoral studies and dissertation research that I pursued in parallel.

Rather than adding to the well-worn discourse about “what’s wrong” with these guys, my research and subsequent work took on a “glass half-full” approach. In other words, I wanted to know what works for high achieving African American male undergraduates – those with a GPA above 3.0. I studied African American males attended five predominantly White public and private universities located in the northeast, the mid-Atlantic, and the south.

What I discovered was not rocket science. Successful African American male undergraduates had the following characteristics in common:

• They had high confidence in their academic ability.
• They had strong relationships with faculty.
• They were more socially integrated in the campus community.
• They possessed a strong “internalized” racial identity.

Since joining UNCF two years ago, I’ve visited over 30 historically Black colleges and universities and participated in national workshops and roundtables about African American male achievement, the most recent hosted by the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network gathering of experts and university practitioners in Atlanta. Building on my research and others, and reviewing the most successful programs, I distilled five common features and institutional belief systems that can easily be replicated at high and middle schools to improve the performance of African American males (and of all students):

• They own the responsibility to improve outcomes of all students, and especially their African American males, with faculty who feel that they can and are empowered to influence their collective outcomes, and whose institutions, from the President on down takes ownership of the challenges, rather than just talking about them.

• Universities like UMBC that are intentional about building the academic self-confidence of African American males by facilitating early success, communicating high expectations, and providing positive role models and formal mentors to support their academic pursuits.

• Programs that facilitate opportunities to increase informal contact with senior administration and faculty through roundtables, membership on institutional committees, co-curricular and extracurricular activities that allow faculty to see students outside of the classroom context, and collaborative research projects.

• Good programs increase faculty and counseling staff awareness about racial identity schema and subsequently attend to the racial identity development of African American male students which may dictate their circle of friendships, their emotional responses when confronted by racism, their predisposition toward non-white faculty and counselors, and willingness to take on unfamiliar intellectual risks. Successful institutions like Morehouse College are infusing topics about identity across the curricula and thus foster holistic development that leads to healthy senses of self.

• Finally, colleges like MIT increase opportunities for African American males and other students to develop the necessary “habits of mind” that ensure that they can deploy effective learning strategies such as leveraging study groups, office hours, reading and writing workshops, and to understand that lack of effective effort is typically the cause of low performance, and not lack of ability as Jeff Howard’s Boston-based Efficacy Institute has created.

These findings and strategies are not particularly novel. They don’t constitute significant new educational thinking distinctive for African American males. No, they are just solid, proven educational practices from which all students can benefit. And yet, tragically, “good practice” and “education” are typically not systematically juxtaposed when it comes to African American males. To do so, to take successful models to scale requires vision, resolve, new policy incentives, targeted investments, and a groundswell of grass roots support to demand that the nation’s educational institutions across the P-16 spectrum do something about it. After all, it’s not rocket science.

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An adaptation of this article was published in 2010 in the Grio and other online journals: http://thegrio.com/2010/11/19/what-colleges-are-doing-right-for-black-male-students/