Journal of a Black Teacher

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...

 “There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”  ~ Harold Pinter This is part one in an eight (maybe 10) part series on Twin Cities charter schools, human capital, organizational communication, problem-solving, and nuanced leadership to assist me in answering my dissertation question, “Why are Twin Cities charter schools failing Black Students? Is it a characteristic of charter schools in general, or is it something about how these particular Twin Cities charter schools are being run?” Photo: RAT.  By Don Allen - Editorial Opinion (Sunday, November 5, 2023 | Written for The Independent Business News Network-IBNN)      For anyone who knows me you know I enjoy looking into the blind spots. I have found in these blind spots a place to look at how school systems can coexist to achieve the maximum daily growth for...

A. This has nothing to do with white supremacy or race, sorry.   2023 : What will people think about our society 20 years from now? We should be looking at, answering, and taking action on this question. Admit it, the wheels are stuck, feelings are more important than the competition; nuclear waste in well water is ‘safe’ to drink; really? (Monticello, MN.). And the chicken wing shortage (seriously, somebody skipped math). The US has supported Ukraine in the war with the equivalent of enough money to pay every 12th grader in the United States $10,000+ to attend their senior year with enough left over to remodel most US schools. Why does the media get to decide who ‘caste’ leaders are? Why are the lowest common denominators in human capital priced at the highest value? ‘The View’ or the ‘Steve Harvey Show’ might not have my best interests at heart. We have an unbalanced power dynamic that gives most authority to those on top with a successful elimination of the middle (missing midd...

  By Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT A classmate challenged me to write “How to dismantle a bad educational system.” It would take 2 years at maximum velocity if we started in 2023 in the Twin Cities.   ( Note : This is a snippet; the students, families, and stakeholders are not the challenge - but under the current weaponized, anti-educational construct in district administrations, scholars become relics used for price points and funding streams - education is a second-tier non-concern.) Step 1 . Send curious information into the public domain  Step 2 . Showmanship - break agitators and reliance; they’d ride with you anyway just to get a front seat on the s-storm you will strategically produce to start the mechanical processes of change (it’s simple cause and effect.)  a. disrupt the ideas of superiority; b . let targeted subjects (systems) ‘dangle,’ eventually, parts of the system need to be thrown under the bus.  Step 3 . Speak freely  Step 4 . Use the data - ...