Journal of a Black Teacher

(Photo: Fairfield University ) The following question is presented for an academic response. While the situation might be real in some school districts, this example was created for academic leadership to think, then write about the direction of crisis communication they would use in these cases.   Case Study #1 Todd is taking an Honors World History class at Sherburne High School in Central Minnesota. Todd's parents were shocked to find that his history book has a chapter called "The Rise of Islam in the Middle East." They were horrified to see that a section of the chapter had the title "The Elements of Islamic Belief."  They immediately called you - the principal – with a threat to sue the school board, superintendent, and you personally "for teaching Muslimism." The district superintendent is golfing with the school's attorney this afternoon, and neither can be reached. Based on this week’s readings, how will you respond to the parents’ complai

By Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT Response to professor for 2022 Summer - GED 8101-1 - Human Relations in Organizations (Hamline University School of Education - Superintendent Licensure) Now that we know, now that our data is hanging out there for everyone to see and talk about (during and post-pandemic), what will propel our educational systems in the Twin Cities into systemic change? Malcolm X, MLK, Jr., John F. and Robert Kennedy, Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, and the late Ronald A. Edwards (a local civil rights activist that wrote the book, “The Minneapolis Story” parts 1 & 2, and died broke) were all individuals that pushed systems into change for the benefit of the whole. The unfortunate thing is each one of these men (and many women) lost their lives horribly by zealots that didn’t want change. I mean look at Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX; it’s not gun control we need, it’s people and society control which has been ineffective for generations. I’m not talking about the big brother piece, it&

                         Photo: MSNBC " For eugenic sterilization victims, belated justice . ( Fair Use ) By Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT - Editorial Opinion        After each year goes by unaddressed, our Black children sink further into the depths of not knowing important life skills and the importance of well-rounded education. Education and life-skills are an at-home and at-school combination of real-time experiences sometimes replaced with human trauma and the need to survive their circumstances. Many of us have watched the television programs and read the New York Times about how many Black American children and other BIPOC kids in the United States have to walk to school with guns because they are not safe in their own neighborhoods (Read: Black Mothers are the Real Experts on the toll of Gun Violence).  Activating premature independent learning without the ability to discern (undeveloped brain) in a dependent learner with no apparent experienced self-actualizations is what star

By Don Allen, Educator and Truth Teller  The Black Lives Matter fundraising movement left the Twin Cities with $90 million dollars (plus) ignoring the need to address systemic racism, institutional racism, education, and economic justice in the Twin Cities. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) saw to it that the local (Minnesota) organization Feeding Our Future quickly scaled up during the COVID-19 pandemic, and received $193 million in federal grants in 2021 after having gotten $307,000 three years before. The rapid rise came crashing down in January (2022) when dozens of federal agents raided locations owned by subcontractors who have been accused of stealing millions of dollars (Fox 9 News).. Of course, we don’t know where the money went, nor can we find a family that was saved from this mysterious agency funded by MDE.  When Black Americans in Minnesota lose, our losses are monumental, devastating, mostly man-made, a

  Click here to read my report . 

By Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT  “ As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task. ”   ~Diogenes Laertius, (c. 404—323 B.C.E.) Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, Chapter 35. He “Diogenes of Sinop, (Turkey)-School of Cynicism ”, is labeled mad for acting against convention, but Diogenes points out that it is the conventions which lack reason citing that most people, he would say, are so nearly mad that a finger makes all the difference. “For if you go along with your middle finger stretched out, someone will think you mad, but, if it’s the little finger, he will not think so” (Diogenes Laertius).  Logic and common sense scare many good natured foundational folks in education. When you look at challenges in our public educational system, it’s even more scary to see the actions of good natured people that have generationally ignored best practices outside of their own cultures and just simply put, b

  How can understanding the “continuum” be helpful to planning Culturally Responsive work with individuals within your organization? When I opened up chapter five to start reading, the pull-quote by Ellis Cose from his book, The Rage of a Privileged Class has me rethinking everything, and I cannot move past it; he wrote, “If we tell ourselves that the only problem is hate, we avoid facing the reality that it is mostly nice, non-hating people who perpetuate racial inequality”  (Cose 1998, p. 20). In my organization, as well as in the state of Minnesota, we know the ‘nice’ people are at the center of some of the most horrific, disabling, and learning-killing proposals and policies from the Minnesota Department of Education granting over $245 million to a non-existent agency for feeding children and families during the 202o COVID-19 quarantine, to its lack of diversity, inclusion, and color in the agencies upper leadership . These ‘nice’ people make sure the status quo is never disrupted