The best teachers not only educate their students academically but also mentor, nurture, and inspire them. When they pour their energy into supporting the whole student — not just growing their intellect — they plant seeds that may result in those students going on to become teachers themselves.
That’s especially critical given both the shortage of Black teachers across the nation and the impact having a Black teacher has on students. As Sharif El-Mekki, the founder and chief executive officer of the Center for Black Educator Development, recently wrote for Word In Black, “Research shows when a Black student has one Black teacher by third grade, they’re 13% more likely to enroll in college. With two Black teachers, that jumps to 32%. For Black boys from low-income households, their on-time high school graduation rates soar by almost 40%.”
RELATED: Black Teachers Want (and Need) Mentors
That’s why we asked several Black teachers nationwide a simple question: Tell us about an educator from your past who left an unforgettable mark on you. This is what these educators had to say about the teachers who inspired them to become teachers:
Name: Akouvi Nakou
Job: IB program coordinator and French teacher
City: Atlanta
Nakou describes her former teacher, Chantal Edjang, as a “dynamic woman who moves with intention, a smile, joyful pride, and talks constantly with her hands like her emotions can’t be expressed just with words.”
“The first time that I visited her first-grade classroom, I was exhausted just to see her in action. The kids were everywhere. There was laughter, uproarious laughter and jumping and dancing and singing,” Nakou says about her former teacher. “To my biggest surprise, they were all speaking French.”
Nakou says Mengueme, who is retiring this year “changed the trajectory of my life. I have been a teacher for nearly 20 years thanks to her.”
Name: Danielle Green
Job: Teacher
City: Flint, Michigan
“My kindergarten teacher was extremely inspirational to me as a child. My mother was often late picking me up due to her working,” Green says. “It became a routine for Ms. Crockett: she kept me in her classroom, fed me Honeycomb cereal, and made sure I was taken care of.”
Green says she recently ran into Crockett and all she could do was “hug her and thank her for always being there for me.”
Name: Angela Berry
Job: Third-grade teacher
City: Philadelphia
Berry says one of her high school teachers was her inspiration — for more than one reason.
“I didn’t know I could be a teacher until I met Mrs. Gwendolyn Reed,” Berry says. “Mrs. Reed was my first encounter with an African American teacher, and as a young Black girl at a predominantly white high school, her presence was vital.”
Berry says Reed helped her develop character, with an emphasis on the importance of Black pride.
“She was fair and always provided her students with a safe space for discussion, especially with sensitive topics such as race,” Berry says. “Because of her mentorship and guidance, I was able to become a peer group leader and was a recipient of a headmaster’s award during my senior year. Mrs. Reed was the type of teacher who invested in each student who was blessed to register for her class.”
Unfortunately, Reed passed away and never got the chance to see Berry become a teacher.
“I will forever be grateful for all the love she poured into me,” Berry says. “She was one in a million.”
Name: Dominique A. Foster
Job: Pre-kindergarten teacher
City: Washington, D.C.
Foster chose a former peer and mentor, Ms. Chase, as her unforgettable educator.
“Ms. Chase was the art and music teacher at the school where I began my teaching career,” Foster says. “She had been working in education for over 30 years and was the most creative educator I had encountered. Foster says Ms. Chase “taught me how to be resourceful and how to use the things and people around you to create magic for and with students. The way in which I teach and approach learning is largely due to her.”
Name: Antonio Griffin
Job: Elementary music teacher
City: Ferguson-Florissant School District, Missouri
“My biggest inspiration for being a teacher came from my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Taylor. He was the only black male teacher I ever had,” Griffin says.
“I think I connected with seeing someone who looked like me, but he also carried himself with such passion. He was never upset. He never yelled, but he was able to speak with such conviction every time he was talking. He also was the first person to push me to think creatively and look at the whole world. He would draw a shape and ask us, “What do you see?” And then turn it into something completely unexpected. He would be able to tell how our days were going just by how we tied up our shoes.”
The post 5 Black Teachers on the Educators Who Inspired Them appeared first on Word In Black.