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How to Fix North Minneapolis: No 11-year-old should be shot and killed!

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By Don Allen - Journal of A Black Teacher (2025) Author Note Don Allen is an educator, researcher, and writer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He founded the Journal of a Black Teacher and is a doctoral candidate in education leadership. He specializes in charter and public schools and community reform in historically underperforming and under-led learning organization systems in urban areas. Abstract This editorial addresses the tragic and preventable death of an 11-year-old boy in North Minneapolis. It challenges the performative politics of local leadership, particularly leaders of color, and the silence of historically influential organizations like the NAACP and Urban League. It calls for a public reckoning, a radical reimagining of public/charter school education, safety, and community accountability with a data-informed investment in the children and families of North Minneapolis. Editorial Opinion There is no excuse… none, for an 11-year-old to be shot and killed in his own neig...
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Editorial Opinion: How Urkel Made Science Uncool: The Politics of Identity, Cool, and the Rejection of Black Nerds

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What was the cost of Nerd stereotypes for Black Boys in the United States? ( Photo : Google Search, educational purposes - Fair Use.)  By Don Allen - Journal Of A Black Teacher (2025) In the 1990s, Family Matters, a Black sitcom about the bumbling, brilliant, and painfully awkward Steven Q. Urkel, was viewed by millions of American families. Urkel was TV's most recognizable face, known for his squeaky voice, oversized glasses, high-water pants, and irrepressible fixation on science and Laura Winslow. Yet underneath the laughs and the catchphrase "Did I do that?" There is a greater cultural implication: Urkel inadvertently caused science to be uncool among a generation of Black males. Urkel was not just a character—he was an ambassador of the "Black nerd," and not a likable one. He was solitary, pesky, emasculated, and continuously rejected. He was seldom cool, never heroic, and most frequently the punchline. During a time when Black male heroes on TV were few, U...
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Location: Minnesota, USA
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Editorial Opinion: Fruitvale Station and the Pedagogy of the Black Experience

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By Don Allen, Ed.S., M.A.Ed., MAT - Educator and Researcher As a high school and higher education English instructor, I ask my students to do more than decode texts; I ask them to interrogate systems. This includes looking beyond novels and into the visual language of Black storytelling, especially films that function as counter-narratives. Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station (2013) is one such text. It is not only a movie; it is a lesson plan, a curriculum, and a dissertation on the fragile state of Black life in America. And for the listeners, it is also an indictment of how education, both formal and informal, has failed Black children since the time of desegregation. The story of Oscar Grant is all too familiar. Young, Black, human, struggling. Yet, as with George Floyd in 2020, Oscar's humanity was destroyed in one violent, irrevocable moment. When George Floyd was killed by police just blocks from where I teach, it channeled the final few minutes of Fruitvale Station. That same...
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Location: Minnesota, USA
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The Parent Trap: Schools Continue to Bench Our Parent MVPs

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Creating equity between different groups of parents is not just logistical; it is ethical.  By Don Allen - Journal of A Black Teacher (2025) Editorial Opinion   In public schools, we believe that parent involvement is crucial for student success. In reality, however, schools sideline their best players, the parents, especially in low-income neighborhoods where help is needed the most. What we've referred to as "site councils" is now mostly pro forma. These old models were intended to insert parent voices into school decision-making. Today, they are mostly used as tools of compliance, meeting state mandates and district expectations, but not really partnering with families. In the majority of school districts, especially in inner cities like Minneapolis and St. Paul, parental engagement deteriorates the nearer you reach the poorest schools. This isn't by chance. Sometimes this exclusion is a strength, not a weakness; limiting parent participation in decision-making pre...
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Location: Minnesota, USA
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Editorial Opinion: What If George Floyd Died of Old Age?

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We are still waiting for a change that isn’t built on the corpse of another Black man. The evolution of our intellectual trauma continues.  The chart below is from Minnesota's Spotlight on Poverty https://spotlightonpoverty.org/states/minnesota/ By Don Allen, Journal of A Black Teacher (2025) The tragic murder of George Floyd under the knee of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin sparked global protests, forced America into a national reckoning on race, and ignited a multi-billion-dollar industry around social justice. But we must now, years later, ask a hard and perhaps uncomfortable question: Would Black society be any different if George Floyd had died of old age? The answer, while layered in nuance and painful truth, is not as clear-cut as the mainstream narrative would suggest. Since Floyd’s death in May 2020, hundreds more Black men across the country have been killed in encounters with law enforcement. According to Mapping Police Violence, over 1,000 people are ki...
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Location: Minnesota, USA
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Editorial Opinion: Why the IB and Montessori Models Belong Together in Today’s Schools

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For the fun of it, let's toss in a vertically aligned K-12 system.  By Don Allen - Journal of A Black Teacher (2025) In an increasingly interdependent and complex world, conventional education models might not be the best preparation for students to become global citizens and lifelong learners. Two models, Montessori and International Baccalaureate (IB), have become increasingly effective in creating independent thinkers, empathetic leaders, and deeply engaged learners. The merging of the two pedagogical approaches thus programs the promise of a learning experience that could be even more powerful than either on its own. IB and Montessori curricula can be deliberately used toward one aim: to support and deepen one another, creating an active and engaging child-led learning environment. Both models are inquiry-based and prioritize the holistic development of the child—intellectually, socially, emotionally, and ethically (International Baccalaureate Organization [IBO], 2017; Lillard,...
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What's the Weather Like? Thanks-No Thanks!

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By Don Allen, Journal of A Black Teacher - (2025) (Image generated by Canva, 2025) Lenses : Satire, Editorial Opinion I was enjoying my own pleasantly subdued Twin Cities Monday morning when the announcers began to rave—no, preach—about the Almighty Storm. “...Updates in the 6 AM hour on how you should prepare for the possibilities of heavy thunderstorms with a chance of hail and tornadoes.” Yes, I was caught up in the hype, too. This is how it starts. You could almost hear the timpani booming under the Doppler radar maps: an angry sky god was supposedly hovering somewhere over Iowa, deciding which of its favorite metropolises to annihilate. Cue shots of ominous purple blobs creeping in from the west and north, cue anchor-desk gravity, cue dramatic pauses worthy of Shakespearean portent. And like every other sensible Twin Citian who's been conditioned to believe that neon weather maps are the new Dead Sea Scrolls, I made a beeline for the nearest Cub Foods. There, in a tableau wort...
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Location: Twin Cities, MN, USA
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