Fall

Fall

Final Paper
KENDRAYA CHESTER
Looking at Tyrell and all the Tyrells of the world.

08
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In the novel Tyrell, we meet a young boy with a troubled life.

Tyrell is forced to grow up and make adult decisions before he should
have to. He becomes the man of the house when he is forced to
become an adult. His mother does not have her priorities in line, his
father is in jail, and he is forced to take responsibility for his younger
brother. Tyrells family is struggling so much that they end up staying
in shelters and run down motels. To many, this novel seems like a sad
story that they would never have to experience. But, for so many this
is a harsh and true reality. Too many of todays youth are forced to
grow up extremely fast. These children must find a way to provide for a
family that is really not their responsibility to take care of. Tyrell tries to
find ways to support his family by any means necessary. The plan he
comes up with may not be the best, but he does what he has to for his
family. There are still many Tyrells in the world, but some of our young
Black males are finding ways to do better for themselves and their
families while others are still struggling with finding their way. That is
when it becomes a community issue and we have to work together to
try our best to keep these boys on the right path.
In this paper I will look at how todays Black males compare to
the character portrayed in Tyrell. We will also look at the achievement
gap, what it is, and programs that have been created to help those
struggling Black males. With so many incidents occurring in the Black
community with teenage and young adult males it seems as if the odds

will forever be stacked against them. At a young age, a lot of Black

males are taught that they have to be a man and take care of the
family if dad is not around at all or if he is just gone for a short period
of time. We teach our boys that they have to be that much better in
the world we live in. As an African American in general, it can be very
difficult growing up and navigating your way into adulthood. We are
taught that we have to work twice as hard to be the best and to be
accepted. Often times, growing up can be even more difficult for an
African American male. There are always so many odds stacked
against them. One of the first challenges, and one that continues all
through school for young Black males is the impact that their home life
and environment have on their education. This is one of the most
important and possibly detrimental parts of the childs schooling.
When in school, teachers are always looking to meet with their
students parents. They want to make sure they have an open
relationship with those parents. But what happens if the parents are
non-existent? What impact and weight does this place on their child?
More times than not, those students who do not have a parent involved
in their schooling are the ones that tend to act out the most. These
children are looked at as the bad kids or troubled students. The
question is, how many teachers actually stop and take the time to get
to know their students and whats going on at home? It is a known fact
that Black males perform low in academic areas. Home life plays a big

role in the success or failure in school for Blacks males. According to

Wright and Tyler, authors of The Effects of Home-School Dissonance on
African American Male High School Students, fifty-two percent of
African American male students who leave high school prematurely
have prison records by their 30s. In Wright and Tylers study they look
at the impact that the home life has on Black males in school and what
happens in school from what happens at home. There are a good
amount of families in the Black community that do place a high
importance on education, but you also have those families that are
struggling with everyday life and that never had education be
important to them growing up so they dont place an importance on it
with their own children. In the Black household the Black male is
looked at as the man of the house, especially in single-family
households. It becomes his job to take care of the family. Students
from all grade levels experience dissonance when the cultural values,
beliefs and norms of their home are incongruent with those found in
the school. (Brown-Wright, p. 126) This quote from speaks volumes. In
the Black household some value is placed more on other beliefs and
norms that are not the same as the ones at school. Because of this,
many factors impact the Black male and hinder his education at
school. Things like motivation, academic goals and cheating, and
classroom behavior are all things that are impacted by the lack of
home involvement.

When looking at these Black males struggling in school their

behavior is the first thing that we see and look at. These males tend to
act out or either retreat and become non-existent in the classroom.
These young men are often the ones we are always sending to the
principles office or the quiet ones we tend to forget about. In my eyes
these are the boys we need to look out for and reach out to because if
not, they will go down a long path of bad decisions. With these boys,
they fall into the wrong crowds because they are looking for something
that is lacking at home. They are trying to fill a void and that void is
not always filled with positive things.
A study by Melissa Roderick from the University of Chicago looks
at whats happening to these boys in Chicago, one of the toughest
cities for the Black community. Too often, however, the high school
years are a time of decline in student motivation and engagement.
There is a common perception that African American adolescents,
particularly males, are the most likely to turn away from school and
form peer groups that discourage them from working hard and
succeeding. (Roderick, p.539) Roderick looks at how the engagement
and motivation affects African American male adolescents and how the
transition from middle school to high school can play a role in that.
African American males in Chicago were approximately 50% more
likely to fail major subjects in the first semester of 9th grade than
African American females. These dramatic changes in school

performance as students move to high school suggest that declines in

engagement in school may not simply be a process of adolescence but
may be strongly shaped by the academic and social environments that
students encounter in urban high schools. (Roderick, p. 540) The
success of African American males can be shaped by their environment
not only at home, but at school as well. If students are in an urban
environment that has students in that environment that do not value
education like it should be they begin to feed off of what they see.
Coming at a developmental point in which adolescents are forming a
sense of their identity and goals, the early years of high school are a
time when students are, in new ways, making decisions about their
involvement in school, their investment in the work of school, and their
goals. (Roderick, p. 543) This time in the young Black males life is a
very crucial time. It in some ways is the time that can make or break
them. This is the time where we can get a hold of them and take them
down the right path or it can be the time that we lose them.
Although we do see a good amount of young Black males
struggling to make it through school and make those positive decisions
for their lives, we do have those boys who do end up making good
choices and coming out of tough home life and environment situations
on top. The young Black men that grow up in rough urban areas do not
always struggle to make it. There are those who use their lives and
situations to motivate themselves and push to do better than what

they have seen growing up. Jamie Fader, Brian Lockwood, Victoria
Schall, and Benjamin Stokes look at program named The WISE Arrest
Diversion Program, which is a program that works to narrow the schoolto-prison pipeline. This program is based in Utica, New York. The WISE
program was implemented under the Utica Safe Schools Healthy
Students Partnership, Inc., a nonprofit agency, and supported in
partnership with the Utica City School District and the Utica Police
Department. (Fader, p. 126) This program targets those students who
committed a nonviolent arrestable offense on school property. If a
students offense fits the criteria the coordinator advocates for them to
be admitted into the program and the team consisting of the
coordinator, a school administrator, and a representative from the
police department review the students case. When the student is
accepted and enrolled in the program a number of things happen.
Once enrolled, the youth participates in a meeting with his or her
parent/parents, school officials, SRO, and sometimes, the victim of the
offense. There, all parties agree to a contract, which dictates the
required actions of the youth, including participation in the WISE
program for the remainder of the school year, regular attendance at
school, and could include community service, restitution, or an
apology. (Fader, p. 126) This program involves many great things to
help keep young Black youth out of trouble and get them back on the
right path once they have fallen off track a little. Students participate

in tutoring, mentoring, attendance checks, daily check ins, and an after

school program called The Underground Caf. The Underground Caf
is a program that the students attend each week for several hours.
While at the Underground Caf, youth receive help with homework,
encouraged to utilize the games, recording equipment, are supplies,
television/radio, and other entertainment in the space. Organized
activities such as basketball and dance or art courses are also offered.
(Fader, p. 126-127) The Underground Caf program is a great place for
kids to go after school that keeps them out of trouble.
The WISE programs theory operates at two levels. (Fader, p.
127) This program seems as if it really knows what it is doing to help
improve the success of Black youth. The first level is use to promote
improved school performance and the second is targeting the schools
to offer alternative means of addressing student conduct. Fader and
the other authors believe that it would be easier to impact the school
improvement rather than the students behavior. In looking at this
program the authors found that the WISE program had some success.
They looked at this program over the course of a few years and noticed
that there was an increase in academic success and a decrease in the
behavior problems. Of course, no program is perfect, a permanent fix,
or works for everyone but it is a start. If there were more programs
that targeted young Black youth in a positive way who knows what
things could look like. A positive program like the WISE program is a

great start to trying to turn around those struggling students and

showing them what their positive behavior and success can get them.
Programs like WISE highlight the success of our young Black students
and motivate them to want to try to do better.
Achievement gaps and understanding them play a big role in the
success of African American males. Donna Ford and James Moor look at
how to understand low achievement and achievement gaps as well as
how to reverse them among high ability African American males in
urban schools. Ford and James discuss problems and challenges with
facing these issues with confronting the Black male student in the
school setting. This study is somewhat different from others because it
looks at those high ability students and how they perform in an urban
setting. Underachievement, low achievement, and other school issues
are often discussed under the umbrella of the achievement gap and
associated terms, such as community gap, experience gap, resource
gap, expectation gap, and teach quality gap. Both underachievement
and low achievement represent some of the major concerns of urban
educators, including those working with gifted and high-potential
students. (Ford, p. 400) The achievement gap between African
Americans and White students is very real and has to be looked at from
other outcomes. Therefore, differences in education outcomes should
be analyzed within the context of social, cultural/familial, school, and
individual factors, given that no one variable contributes to or causes

underachievement and low achievement. (Ford, p. 400) There is no

one reason why the achievement gap is there. Many things factor into
it. One being something discussed all throughout my writing, home life.
We focus on the achievement gap between Black and White students,
understanding that the information provided is seldom tailored to Black
males, especially those who possess great academic potential.(Ford,
p. 400) This statement is one that I found to be very interesting and
true. When looking at the material that is being taught it rarely every is
relatable to the Black community. When looking at Louise Rosenblatt
and her take on literacy and reading we see that if students have not
had certain experiences in life it is often hard for them to relate to the
reading and comprehend. In Ford and Moores discussion of Black
males not achieving the same as their White male counterparts, they
examine three major topics. Those topics are low achievement,
underachievement, and the achievement gap. Low achievement is
looked at as Black males performing below average, which is normally
less than a C. Underachievement and low achievement are often
confused but they are not the same. When looking at
underachievement, a highly capable Black male can both be an
underachiever and a high achiever even with high grades and test
scores. The students may not be failing but they are not performing to
their expected level. The achievement gap is the third concept that
contributes in meaningful ways to the discussion of poor school

outcomes among urban, highly capable African American males.

(Ford, p. 402) The achievement gap looks at the discrepancy in the
performance of Black students and White students. Ford and Moore
continue on to look at the other factors that contribute to the
achievement gap and under achievement of Black males. Again, those
things that are looked at when looking at this gap are race,
discrimination, home life, community, families, and peers. These things
are the common things when looking at the success of Black males.
If the work is put into these young Black men great things can
happen with them. These youth have such positive representations of
Black men, but they choose to look else where for support and
motivation. Where they look is not always the best. As a Black woman,
I struggle with seeing the struggle of our young Black men. These boys
are my future sons, nephews, and cousins. Seeing a lot of our boys end
up in prison for simple mistakes is so sad. If only they had someone to
steer them in the right direction. If only they stopped and really
thought about the importance of their lives and educations. As an
educator it is important to learn about our students and try the best we
can to keep them on the right path. Going to a historically Black
college was an amazing experience. Often times in the media we see
our young Black males portrayed in such a negative way. I often
wonder, what would it be like if the great things that HBCUs do for
African American young men was publicized like it should. If the young

men in the tough urban communities were able to go visit great

schools and see how many different things they could do with their
lives the outcome of some of their lives might be different. There are
so many Tyrells in the world and others that are worse off than Tyrell.
As a community we have to uplift those young men and try the best we
can to bring them out of these tough situations. Finding ways to uplift
these young Black males is a challenge but is something that we as
educators have to do.

Works Cited
Brown-Wright, L., & Tyler, K. (2010). The Effects of Home-School
Dissonance on African American Male High School Students. The
Journal of Negro Education, 79(2), 125-136. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20798331
Roderick, M. (2003). What's Happening to the Boys?: Early High School
Experiences and School Outcomes among African American Male
Adolescents in Chicago. Urban Education, 538-607.
Fader, J., Lockwood, B., Schall, V., & Stokes, B. (2014). A Promising
Approach to Narrowing the School-to-Prison Pipeline: The WISE Arrest
Diversion Program. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 123-142.
Ford, D., & Moore, J. (2013). Understanding and Reversing
Underachievement, Low achievement, and Achievement Gaps Among
High-Ability African American Males in Urban School Contexts. Urban
Rev The Urban Review, 399-415.