Please join us for this session to examine how African American and Latinx educators have historically and contemporarily been woefully underrepresented in American public schools and how their presence and/or absence impacts the academic achievement of African American and Latinx students. Much research has indicated the benefits of African American and Latinx educators for both students of color and white students. By focusing on the oral tradition of storytelling, as a strategy for the retention and in a time of shortages, participants will be able to examine the stories of African American and Latinx educators teaching in primarily white institutions. This will provide courageous organizational leaders and thinkers with a strategy to inform, support, and understand, not only the experiences of, but the unique challenges they faced African American and Latinx educators.

For the purpose of this session the problem of a lack of teacher diversity will be examined in light of racial microaggressions as experienced by African American and Latinx teachers in K-12.

Through thoughtful interactions and discussions this session seeks to establish a need for change; change in the way we examine the problem of a lack of teacher diversity, the narratives with which we hold to be true and representative, in order to dismantle the structures that disadvantage minority teachers, if we hope to serve as agents of change.

Presenter: Dr. Erikca Brown, Scholar, Speaker, Facilitator, Educator, drerikcabrown.com​