Journal of a Black Teacher

A personal narrative about looking into the blind spots.  by Don Allen, M. A. Ed./MAT       ​I consider myself somewhat of a league civil rights activist in the early 90’s. I felt that my upcoming visit to the Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights Museum, would be my pilgrimage to what I considered my Mecca.”      ​1992 had been a good year. I had had stories published in two Minneapolis newspapers as well as other work published in Denver, where I used to live. I was always very critical of the way the mainstream media presented the civil rights struggle and the plight of Black Americans in the United States.  At the same time, I was critical of the Black community itself.  While it was not a popular view, I believed firmly that a significant number of the problems faced by those in the black community were exacerbated by privileged members of the Black middle class more concerned with personal enrichment than with carrying out the work of Dr. King.   Every year, the Church of

In 2023, you’re either on board or off track.  (Note: This is a snippet from chapter one of The Justification of Splitting Minneapolis and St. Paul Public Schools Districts in Half  - By Don Allen (2023).  1. All the bad stuff about education is perpetual; it had NOTHING to do with the death of George Floyd or the COVID-19 pandemic.  2. Parents realized in real-time during distance learning that if an educational construct (5-12 Twin Cities Public Schools) could not maintain a policy to save the children during this time of reactionary buffoonery, where is learning really happening?  During the pandemic (2020-21), many of my students in secondary had their babies in my (our) classrooms. In the photo below, the child is six months old; the father is in grade 10, and the mother is in grade 9. Let me make it clear: adults failed these children, and it’s not the fault of the young parents when the local education system continues to fail them. The parents, forced to live as adults (yes, a

January 11, 2023 My institution, Hamline University, a small liberal arts college located in St Paul, Minnesota, has been in the news lately. The New York Times ran an article leading with the headline, “Prophet Image Shown in Class, Fraying the Campus.” The article reports on an incident that occurred on our campus in October, where an adjunct instructor, teaching a class in art history, showed an image of the prophet Muhammad to a class attended by a number of Muslim students. And when a Muslim student objected to its showing, to quote the Times, the adjunct “lost her job.” Various so-called stakeholders interpreted the incident, as reported in various media, as one of “academic freedom.” The Times went so far as to cite PEN America’s claim that what was happening on our campus was one of the “most egregious violations of academic freedom” it had ever encountered. It begs the question, “How?” Because Hamline University is now under attack from forces outside our campus, I am taking t

Note: While this piece is fictional, the art is real-life. " Police killed a Black Army veteran outside his home. His family wants answers"  (Griffith, 2021) NBC News .  Not knowing he was born both a success and a target, 23-year-old Army veteran John-Terry Lucine returned home from the service ready to live his life to the fullest, unaware of what could happen to an unarmed man in today’s society. Life, so he thought, awaited him.   By Don Allen -  All Rights Reserved.       T he Army was great. I did my three years – got out, came back here. Captran County is hot, filled with people running from one side to another. Suburban neighborhoods with names like Mars, Lunar One, and Apollo have popped up out of thin air. This is the big city, not the city I left three years ago.       Momma put me to work right away. She asked me to get some paint and fill in the letters on the old wooden mailbox out front of the fence. It had been weather-beaten while I was gone, and the family n

(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