Black Male Teachers are Building Bonds and Making History!

Dr. Stephen Bond, a teacher at Wilson Preparatory Academy is making headlines and history with his students. Bond's innovation during the pandemic made headlines recently in NC. Dr. Bond's dedication as a teacher is not only worth celebrating but sharing in efforts to get more male educators of color to consider becoming teachers and helping Black youth make history.

Profound Gentlemen is highlighting the great impact male educators of color have on students and communities. PG is dedicated to improving the recruitment and retention of male educators of color. See more on Profound Gentlemen .

The stories about Black students are too often centered on the trauma inflicted upon them. One of the reasons why Dr. Bond's assignment is so powerful is because we actually get to hear the voices of Black students. 

Many times, we lose Black students because they don't see a reflection of hope. They don't see this in their school curriculum, in the media and moreover in the teachers who stand before them. Dr. Bond has helped changed that dynamic not only a historian but as a Black male teacher.

Dr. Bond is building bonds and making history. That's right, we cannot get this level of engagement displayed through the stories of Dr. Bond's students without having a good relationship with students that sparks a sense of hope in them to make history during such a time as this in America. 

His assignment for student's to create journals on their experience during COVID-19 took the classroom literally out of the classroom and into the hearts and minds of parents, teachers and staff members. 

“I started reading some of the journals and I really was touched; my heart was touched what they wrote about and just how passionate they were about how they missed school and missed the things that were going on!” 

Bond stated this in an interview to WITN. Bond was so moved by these journal entries he decided to turn them into a book.

Hearing the voices of students is what made the assignment so powerful. Students shared all kinds of experiences during these months. Even more, the book’s title is Perseverance in a Strange Land: The Voices of the Youth During the Covid-19 Pandemic.

I salute Dr. Bond, who is a Black male history teacher. Social studies teachers play a critical role in helping this generation think differently about race, class and equitable rights in this country. His book depicts students’ view of life during the pandemic.  

“10, 50 to 100 years from now, we’ll see what it was like to have to deal with this virus,” a memory captured by a Black male teacher. Dr. Bond, as well as others like him across the Nation, reflect the impact of male educators of color in classrooms.