"We Dare Say Love"

"We Dare Say Love" takes up the critically important issue of what it means to educate Black male students in a large urban district. It chronicles the development and implementation of the African American Male Achievement Initiative in Oakland Unified School District, following a small group of Black male educators who changed district policy and practice to create a learning experience for Black boys rooted in love. The book takes readers inside the classrooms and inside the heads and hearts of program founders, leaders, and instructors to understand their pedagogy of care. It also elucidates the rituals, beliefs, and practices that created a classroom environment that held high expectations for the engagement and achievement of Black boys and provided a space for Black male students to blossom.

Book Features:

• A model of a successful initiative that confronted the very real issues of racism that exist within schools.
• A curriculum that builds on the cultural history of African Americans, with a focus on family and community relationships.
• Chapters that provide the research evidence and also speak from the perspective of the educators themselves.
• Reflection chapters by leading experts on Black male achievement, including Tyrone Howard and Pedro Noguera.
• Guidance for teachers, administrators, and district leaders wishing to improve education for Black male students.

Na’ilah Suad Nasir is the president of the Spencer Foundation and a faculty member (on leave) at the University of California, Berkeley. Jarvis R. Givens is an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Suzanne Young Murray Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Christopher P. Chatmon serves as deputy chief of equity for the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) and was named as a "Leader to Learn From" by Education Week magazine.

"This book offers an anti-deficit, anti-essentialist perspective of Black males’ performance in schools and gives nuance to the stark realities that young men face—some thriving, some struggling, some making progress, others seeking a place to be recognized for their full human potential."
— from the afterword by Tyrone C. Howard, professor of education, UCLA

“We Dare Say Love represents a powerful model of a school-district–wide initiative to support the healthy development of Black males. The chapters capture the multiple dimensions of collaborations and partnerships required for such systemic change, one of which is a fundamental wrestling with the metanarratives in the United States and elsewhere around the Black body and in particular the Black male. Love itself is unrelenting in its commitment to sustainability, is adaptive to the needs of those we love, and is sustained over time. We see that in how parents embody the love for their children. The initiative documented in this commanding volume serves as an exemplar of possibilities. We can all learn revealing lessons of struggle and victory from the chapters of this volume.”
—Carol D. Lee, Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University

Contents

Series Foreword by James A. Banks

Chapter 1. We Dare Say Love: Black Male Student Experiences and the Possibilities Therein
   Jarvis R. Givens and Na'ilah Suad Nasir

Chapter 2. The Roots and Routes of Oakland's African American Male Achievement Initiative (AAMA)
   Shawn Ginwright, Christopher P. Chatmon, and Gregory Hodge

Chapter 3. Love Works: Manhood Development Classes and the Pedagogy of Black Male Instructors
   Na'ilah Suad Nasir and Jarvis R. Givens

Chapter 4. The Khepera Curriculum and the Transformative Educator: A Dual Approach to Engaging, Encouraging, and  Empowering African American Boys
   Baayan Bakari

Chapter 5. What It Means to Do This Work: The Voices of Manhood Development Program (MDP) Instructors and "Politicized Care"
   Maxine McKinney de Royston and Sepehr Vakil

Chapter 6. My AAMA Journey: Teaching and Leading in Service of  Young Kings
   Jahi

Chapter 7. It Makes Me Feel Like I'm A Monster: Navigating Notions of Black Damage in This Work
   Patrick Johnson and David Philoxene

Chapter 8. The Heart of the Matter: Recruitment and Training of MDP Instructors
   Jerome Gourdine

Chapter 9. Ties That Bind: Forging Black Girl Space in the Black (Male) Educational "Crisis"
   kihana miraya ross

Chapter 10. A View from the Inside: Reflections on the Work
   An Interview with Christopher P. Chatmon

Afterword: But We Are Not All The Same! Unpacking the Layers of Black Male Situations and Circumstances
   Tyrone C. Howard

Afterword: Lessons from the Town: Implementing a New Approach to the Education of African American Male Students In Oakland
   Pedro A. Noguera

About the Contributors

Index