(Un)Natural Saviors and Motivators: Analyzing the Pathological Scripting of Black Male Teachers in Hollywood Films

Thomas, Daniel J.; Johnson, Marcus W.; Brown, Anthony L.

doi:10.1080/00131946.2022.2096454

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…the unruly Black boy in school" (Brown, 2012, p. 299). Thomas, Johnson, and Brown (2022) argued that these stereotypical archetypes consist of the disciplinarian (Brockenbrough, 2015), the surrogate father (A. L. Brown & Thomas, 2020), and the heroic superhero (Pabon, 2016). Yet, Black men are also shrouded within another stereotypical archetype-the anti-intellectual teacher-coach.…”

Section: Black Male Teachers and Teacher-coachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hollywood films such as Coach Carter, Remember the Titans , and Gridiron Gang are demonstrative of how popular culture is saturated with portrayals of secondary Black male coaches where the trifecta of pedagogical kinds (i.e., surrogate, disciplinarian, and superman) converge. Like the stereotypical representation of Black male teachers and teacher-coaches on film (Thomas, Johnson, & Brown, 2022), the existing scholarship on this population has provided little to no mention of the curricular, pedagogical, relational, or critical praxis among these men. Despite making up 2.4% of undergraduate enrollment in Power Five conference schools, Black male student-athletes comprised 55% of football teams and 56% of men’s basketball teams (Harper, 2018), and Brown et al (2019) found that Black student-athletes had the highest interest in coaching, which led to a desire for a career in education.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gatekeepers and Guardians of Black Intellectual Thought: Black Male Teacher-Coaches Combating an Anti-Black Epistemic Order

Thomas

2023

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context: Historical narratives and contemporary research continue to produce scholarship on teacher-coaches through a White racial frame that both reifies a Western European origin story and centers the experiences of White males. However, the American history of teacher-coaches is not the Black history of teacher-coaches. The Black male teacher-coach tradition is anchored in the utilization of Black intellectual thought to implement revisionist ontology projects that simultaneously claim Black personhood and contest curricular genocide while being consumed within an anti-Black milieu. In this study, the tradition of Black male teacher-coaches’ critical civic engagement within secondary schools is taken from the margins and centered. Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study: This study examines how Black male teacher-coaches utilize Black intellectual thought within secondary social studies and literature courses to combat a White-controlled epistemic order of knowledge. Within their courses, the participants purposefully challenge institutional forms of bad faith by utilizing Black intellectual thought to unsettle the coloniality of truth to challenge the existing anti-Black scholastic order of knowledge. Using the theoretical lenses of subjective understanding and bad faith, this study is guided by the following primary research question: How do Black men in predominantly non-Black schools utilize Black intellectual thought to enact their work as teacher-coaches? Research Design: The findings from this study emerge from an instrumental multiple case study that included four Black male teacher-coaches serving as secondary social studies or literature educators in schools that were not predominantly Black. Employing an interpretive approach within this methodology created space to redress the following two broader external interests: (1) de-essentializing the specificity of the Black male teacher-coach tradition from a Eurocentric dominant narrative, and (2) explicating the salience of Black intellectual thought in the counter-hegemonic practices of these Black men relative to anti-intellectual tropes about teacher-coaches in general. Findings/Results: Findings indicate how participants continue the legacy of the long Civil Rights Movement by utilizing Black intellectual thought to enact a project of revisionist ontology to combat an anti-Black epistemic order of knowledge. The study explicates the following thematic findings: (1) carving out space for Black intellectual thought, (2) centering Black intellectual thought, and (3) making Black intellectual thought relevant. Conclusions/Recommendations: Findings from this study illustrate how Black teachers in general, and Black male teacher-coaches in particular, serve as the gatekeepers and guardians of Black intellectual thought within predominantly non-Black secondary schools. Participants who were secondary social studies and literature teachers resisted a White-controlled epistemic order that marginalizes Black intellectual thought. These findings have direct implications for secondary preservice teachers with the desire to courageously enact fugitive pedagogical practices to include diverse, antiracist curricular materials.

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Section: Black Male Teachers and Teacher-coachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gatekeepers and Guardians of Black Intellectual Thought: Black Male Teacher-Coaches Combating an Anti-Black Epistemic Order

Thomas

2023

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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“…These factors create an undue burden on TOC, adding stress to an already stressful job, and leading to many TOC leaving the classroom. Additionally, the shared culture that allows TOC to connect with their classes can result in them being perceived as enforcers and disciplinarians rather than respected as educators (Brown & Thomas, 2020;Thomas et al, 2022). TOC can find themselves called upon to act in disciplinary roles, enforcing institutional policies that harm the students that they seek to support (Brown & Thomas, 2020;Thomas et al, 2022).…”

Section: Who Chooses To Leave?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, the shared culture that allows TOC to connect with their classes can result in them being perceived as enforcers and disciplinarians rather than respected as educators (Brown & Thomas, 2020;Thomas et al, 2022). TOC can find themselves called upon to act in disciplinary roles, enforcing institutional policies that harm the students that they seek to support (Brown & Thomas, 2020;Thomas et al, 2022). In reducing TOC to disciplinary experts, schools fail to credit these educators for their other strengths such as content knowledge and pedagogical strategies thus, these teachers choose to leave (Thomas, 2023).…”

Section: Who Chooses To Leave?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Taking this conceptual framework into consideration, we employed ABCD to frame the recruitment and retention of TOCs via an assetbased lens. The parroting of deficit and stereotypically simplistic TOC recruitment tropes around carceral-like discipline and surrogacy (Brown & Thomas, 2020;Thomas et al, 2022) undermines the pedagogical, curricular, and socio-cultural knowledge amongst this teacher population. Thus, we utilized ABCD as a humanizing construct to provide substance to GYOs recruitment efforts of TOCs.…”

Section: Asset-based Community Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Deep in the Heart of Education: Addressing Texas Teacher Shortage with Grow Your Own Initiatives

Lowrance,

Johnson,

Thomas III

2023

TxEP

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This paper explores how Grow Your Own (GYO) educator initiatives can mitigate the pressing teacher shortage by unpacking the nature of the shortage and key factors of recruitment and retention. GYO proposes a solution by specifically targeting districts that often report the most frequent shortages: urban and rural schools. Our approach to recruitment expands the teacher pipeline and strives for retention by offering a strategy that capitalizes on asset-based community development and notions of heart work to assist in removing barriers that historically have kept Black, Latinx, Asian and other communities from pursuing teaching careers. Recommendations outline several current grant funding opportunities that can be utilized to establish a GYO, and encourage the exploration of partnerships with community-based organizations.

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The ‘absent Black father’ metaphor: analyzing education’s pathological pursuit of Black male surrogates

Thomas,

Johnson,

Brown

2024

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

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(Un)Natural Saviors and Motivators: Analyzing the Pathological Scripting of Black Male Teachers in Hollywood Films

Cited by 3 publications

References 41 publications

Gatekeepers and Guardians of Black Intellectual Thought: Black Male Teacher-Coaches Combating an Anti-Black Epistemic Order

Gatekeepers and Guardians of Black Intellectual Thought: Black Male Teacher-Coaches Combating an Anti-Black Epistemic Order

Deep in the Heart of Education: Addressing Texas Teacher Shortage with Grow Your Own Initiatives

The ‘absent Black father’ metaphor: analyzing education’s pathological pursuit of Black male surrogates

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