Education is a vital part of the civilized world. The access to information and knowledge makes the difference between those who make informed decisions and those whose decisions inform them. While access to education is almost as easy as a basic need for some, others have to fight to get their right. Some students get the short end of the stick when it comes to education quality. This is because of the issues such as open bias, stereotypes, and poor learning history. According to Strand (2012), different kinds of upbringing often tend to result in different mindsets. The first impression every child has of their gender is born out of their encounters with the same sex parent or primary caregiver. This is a psychological type of programming that occurs automatically. The second type of impression that forms perception comes from the words a child continually hears. The kind of words that a child is exposed to determine the impression that he or she develops about themselves. A child will be assertive if his good deeds are praised and his mistakes corrected with love. But one who frequently hears that he is foolish or stubborn will begin to believe this. The behavior of black males as they relate to each other and those around them is also directly related to their beliefs on what being male means (Rusin, 2015). Robertson and Powell (2013) state that in the traditional setup, the role of the male was to provide and protect. The male is taught that men hide their weakness and flaunt their strength. From a very young age, boys are repeatedly told to "be a man" or "man up." However, they are not always told what being a man entails. Additionally, with changing gender roles, the male child is not sure how he can carry out this mandate in the new context. He therefore does not know what is expected from him especially if he is growing up without male influence. When he gets to school, this is the place where he expects more clarity on his role in life. He, like every other child, is a clean slate that needs life to engrave on it. Here the conflict between his home values and his school-based mandate begins (Thorp, 2013) Perception Institute presented a report to the public on the way black boys see themselves. The report details the fear that black boys have when it comes to self-expression. The boys are often aware of the public treatment of black men through media. News items that show police shooting black people without provocation or those displaying violence against black males trigger a sense of fear and caution to ensure self-preservation. Boys begin to fear acting in a certain way because they are sure that the consequences will be more severe than they should be. Mundy (2014) emphasizes that even those students who have a chance to excel academically may begin to put in less effort when their educators put them down. They become afraid to ask questions if they don't understand something and they reduce their interactions with other students when they are unfairly punished for typical childhood behavior (Johnston, et al., 2015). Lynch (2015) argues that many black students reduce their interactions with people outside their race because of the risk of labeling. Hellman and McCoy (2017) points out that this is especially true in public schools where a teacher will apply double standards. A white child who shoves another student during a confrontation may be cautioned and called headstrong. If a black child does the same thing, he is called aggressive, and he automatically becomes a candidate for suspension. These stereotypes that people judge children through are the source of a lot of psychological anguish because the child's outlook is formed by the perception of the adults around him (Mincey et al., 2017).
Mincey (2017) further explains that positive reinforcement is often why black students turn to sports. The educational sector agrees that black boys may have better outcomes with sports than with academic performance. It is human nature to gravitate towards the place where you are celebrated, and to avoid where you are put down. Some students therefore abandon their studies for better acknowledgment through sports. Though positive reinforcement in the field of sports should be a good stereotype, it makes academically strong children lose interest in learning. Furthermore, not everyone is gifted or interested in sports. This misconception shapes black boys perception, and as a result, some lose their purpose in life (Banks, 2015). Rodriguez (2017) argues that although over the years there has been an improvement in the transition rate between high school and college, these figures are not an accurate representation of the activity on the ground. The transition rate is not a good indicator of the success of the school system or of the state of the black child's progress. Black males often experience teacher's apathy towards them. It often begins at a young age. Special attention is given to weak students of other races while young black ones are left out. They may then lag behind in their studies. As this is carried into the next grade, less and less information is acquired. As a result, many black boys just barely manage to get a high school diploma. They finish school, but the knowledge base they have is just barely consolidated (Lane, 2017). The treatment by primary caregivers also shapes perception. Laing (2014) points out that parents and guardians who pay close attention to children's academic performance place a sense of importance on the child's education. When the child's progress is continuously monitored on a personal level, they realize that their success matters to someone. This conditions their minds to work hard and to put greater emphasis on their school work. Studies have shown that black children whose caregivers were actively involved with their studies showed better grades and higher academic success. This was regardless of the treatment they received from peers or teachers at school. These findings made it clear that the male's perception of education could be positive through close familial input and reinforcement (Knight, 2015). Studies across various K12 schools show that teachers are often not sure how to treat young black males. This is because they deal with a wide range of students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Additionally, each black male has a different social background. Some males come from a two-parent family, while single parents raise others. Some grow up in foster homes or with distant relatives. They also have primary caregivers with diverse means of income. However, after an extended period of teaching work, a teacher builds prejudice in their mind. If a majority of students from a particular cultural grouping behave a certain way, then teachers begin to associate that group with that recurrent trait According to Kevin and Neal (2016), a common example is the classification of kindergarten children. Black boys who join kindergarten are more likely to be placed in special education classes. This is because sometimes teachers associate a disadvantaged child with slower mental ability. This stereotype is reinforced by the student's inability to fully relate to the teacher. This creates a scenario where black boys are punished more often and more severely than other students do. This is regardless of the presence of an indiscipline record. Statistics show that despite the fact that only 18% of student body populations are black, more than half of students suspended are black. National records show that out of all the suspended students, 67% are black boys. This statistics is even worse in Chicago where black boys make up 75% of all arrested public school children (Mcknight, 2017). Cherry (2015) explains that when black boys misbehave, as all children do, teachers and administrators are quick to criminalize their behavior and suspend the said students. Anything as simple as a tantrum from a four-year-old may result in a suspension if the boy is black. This becomes a pattern of excessive punishment and discrimination formed at an early age, and the young black male begins to withdraw socially. He protects himself by being less active with his peers and keeps classroom participation to a minimum. By now, the class has progressed to the upper grades, but his passion for school is gone. The new teacher once again classifies him as unresponsive and having learning difficulties. This is how many young black men end up in special education classes (Yu et al., 2017). This occurrence has been named "The fourth-grade failure syndrome." Young black boys are exposed to negative talk daily. Unfortunately, children believe what you tell them. So when educators are repeatedly telling them that they poorly behave or that they do not play well with others or they are not very intelligent, they are likely to believe it. Harry Morgan who is a child specialist explains that this phenomenon occurs around the fourth grade because of the forms of learning change from interactive and generalized learning to individualized learning and grading (Quimby et al., 2017). The kind of cultural bias that this children experience lowers their enthusiasm and expectations of school and their interest in learning is stifled. 105,000 students participated in a 1990 study in Maryland Prince George's County. The school had 65 % of black students. The study showed that black boys did as well as the other children during the first and second grade. By fourth grade, the same boys were showing a significant decline in their math tests as well as a sharp drop in their reading outcomes. A 1994 national study that was carried out by the National Center for Educational Statistics showed the same results. Researchers claim that this trend has been observed over the last 20 years. Children who were hit the hardest were those from families that were deemed a low income (America, 2017). Black, 2015 (2005) argues that the teacher's attitudes are formed because of fear. They are programmed by society to believe that black males are violent by nature. They think that if the black boys are allowed some bit of leeway like the other children, their behavior will escalate into violence. A Washington based educational psychologist named Spencer Holland attributes "the fourth-grade failure syndrome" to poor learning outcomes. The average black boy will have spent his earlier years in suspensions and facing other disciplinary measures. Little time is left for him to learn to read. When he gets to fourth grade, he cannot read so he acts out in class or simply does not pay attention. The teacher interprets this as defiance or low intelligence (Badawy et al., 2017). Stereotypes then cloud this teacher's minds. While they want all their students to succeed, they believe that their black male students will only thrive in sports. Some teachers who spend a great deal of time with the children begin to nudge them into taking up sports as a way of life. Soon the children are more inclined to focus on sports because they believe that is what they are good at. The past president of National Association of Black Social Workers, Morris Jeff attributes this behavior to societal expectations that rubbish the capabilities of the black male. This perception creeps into schools and the teachers no longer place educational value on the black child. When an intelligent child is ignored, he is likely to act out to get some attention which in the end is perceived as a learning disability. And the cycle of misdiagnosis continues (Black, 2015). Black (2015) attributes all these problems to social justice. He breaks it into three basic defines. The first is relational justice, where participants in a relationship are willing to recognize and respect each other's cultural backgrounds and treat each other as such. The second is distributive justice. This means that resource allocation is not used as a means of discrimination. Everyone from every cultural background gets an equal share of resources. This has not been the case where black students apply. A random check on the academic qualifications of educators who were placed in predominantly black schools showed this. Only slightly more than 40% of educators had met all the academic requirements for teaching. This was against a national average of over 65%. Additional bias was recorded in the distribution of learning aids and the stocking of public school libraries. This is an example of distributive justice or its lack thereof (Black, 2015). The last type of social justice is associational justice. A person with a well-developed sense of associational justice can freely express himself or herself without fear of reprimand. This expression could be in an outward expression of their culture or defense of misrepresentation against them. Black males lose this aspect at an earlier age when they are harshly punished for any misdemeanors observed. This type of injustice is the worst because it robs an individual of their voice. When a person is unable to defend or express himself or herself, they may lose their will to thrive or at least try to thrive. Research among educators has shown that teachers do not always observe or practice social justice in their interactions. Furthermore, because social justice is a personal and individual approach to relationships, it becomes impossible to set up mechanisms to monitor and enforce its compliance. It is therefore unlikely that any educators will be punished for lack of social justice skills.
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References
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