Our waiter-teacher

Today I took a former supervisor of mine, who was like a mother to me where I used to work, out to lunch. As a retired teacher turned director of early childhood education for a large nonprofit organization, we most certainly started talking education and schools.

Two of my rants included "I'm going to speak up for my kids no matter what" Rant and the "I probably would've have been fired a long time ago if it was up to _____" Rant. While talking, our waiter, a younger black male, overheard me talking.

"I know that's right! Are you a teacher?"

From there, he began talking of the work he does in the community and all that he does with youth sports and how he wants to be a positive influence to young kids. Boss Lady and I informed him that he already is a positive influence. We also began to speak of how more black males are needed in our school systems. We also asked whether he was going to go back to school.

From our conversation, we could tell that he was passionate about his work and his insatiable desire to do more! Before we left, I made sure he had my contact information. We must support each other in this work...ministry!

At this juncture I should insert some statistics or some inspirational proverb about the importance of effective black male teachers in our schools, especially in elementary schools. I should probably insert the fact that only 2% of the nation's public school teachers are black men. I should probably also include how much of an impact an effective black male teacher can have on an entire school and not just his classroom. Maybe I should mention that some of our colleagues start to get a little uncomfortable when black teachers start talking like this because "we shouldn't see color" or "a skilled teacher can be effective no matter what color he or she is."

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