CMS Teacher Highlighting Need For More Black Male Teachers And Representation

CHARLOTTE, NC —  Everyday Paul Brown greets his students with a smile. 

“I always come daily with energy and with a smile on my face because I don’t know what their life is like outside of my classroom,” Brown said. 

It’s just one way he connects with high school students in his English class at Phillip O Berry Academy of Technology. 

For 17 years Brown has been making an impact in the classroom, but he’s one of a small group of black male teachers. 

Nationwide they make up only two percent of the nation’s more than 3 million public school teachers . 

“To my students I’ve also had those conversations here and there throughout the years about how many black male educators they had teaching them and it’s been very very few, Brown said. 

A teacher shortage is affecting schools nationwide and getting black male teachers in the classroom is even harder. 

Brown says the low pay is a factor and also the struggle to attract young black men to the field. 

“The  industry of education has a lot of holes in it. One of them being how education is marketed to younger folks and the support system in place at the university level to  produce great teachers,” Brown said. 

He hopes that he can be part of giving students a different perspective and an example of a black man achieving success. 

“Someone who regardless of circumstance and their background and history they are able to reflect something that does connect to achievement, that does connect to success,” Brown said. 

He said that and the impact he has on his students is what’s most rewarding. 

“I just hope that I can be a great representation of what my students see everyday and that they matter and that people out here care about them and how they do,” Brown said.