In a column published across platforms including The Root and Black Therapy Today, veteran educator Sharif El-Mekki addresses Black male educators regarding self-preservation, community, and keeping the promises they made to themselves.
A Gathering in Philadelphia Faces Striking Classroom Realities
The intervention arrives this November as more than a thousand Black male educators gather in Philadelphia for the Black Men in Education Convening to chart the next century of schooling. The stakes are clear, anchored by federal data showing that Black men account for just 1.3 percent of U.S. public school teachers.
High Morale Collides with an Unfolding Retention Crisis
El-Mekki points to a stark paradox in the profession, noting that he has spent more than three decades fighting for these voices to be heard.
While Education Week’s 2024 survey revealed that Black teachers reported the highest morale of any racial group at +5—compared to -13 for teachers overall—retention remains a crisis, and polling from Educators for Excellence shows that teachers of color were more likely to plan full classroom careers.
Collaborative Teams and the Legacy of the Banneker Institute
To stem this exodus ahead of American Education Week, El-Mekki outlines five core directives for current and aspiring educators.
First, he urges teachers to move as collaborative teams and study together, explaining that teachers improve faster where instruction collaboration is stronger by finding at least one colleague, meeting every two weeks with student work in hand, and setting goals for both students and themselves.
El-Mekki Addresses Health Disparities Facing Black Men
Second, El-Mekki confronts the acute health disparities facing Black men in the United States.
Federal data shows that the life expectancy for Black men sat at 71.3 years in 2024, lagging nearly eight years behind the national figure. Partnering with Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health, El-Mekki’s Center is addressing these gaps among male educators, framing self-care not as an indulgence, but as an act of political warfare, following a personal shift from previously ignoring health discussions to joining a Pahara Institute vitality group, getting annual physicals, tracking blood pressure and blood sugar, protecting sleep, moving most days with peers, and embracing Audre Lorde’s words on living with cancer that caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
Educators Must Confront Personal Wounds and Grief
Third, El-Mekki calls for educators to confront their personal wounds and grief rather than absorbing continuous workplace trauma in isolation, sharing personal experiences from being shot in 1992 and ignoring city victim services, to dealing with profound grief after his mother's passing in 2020 which impacted his daily life and prompted him to seek a grief counselor rather than offering students an empathy he denied himself, while also recognizing that educators face a damaging trifecta of workplace trauma, wider societal racism, and on-the-job racism spanning from hiring to being passed over. Fourth, he demands fiscal transparency and fair compensation, noting the heavy invisible tax of mentoring that disproportionately falls on Black male teachers.
Finally, El-Mekki stresses the necessity of humility and deep instructional skill, reminding educators that sharing a demographic background does not make one omniscient across every generation and neighborhood. Wherever teachers choose to stand on Monday, El-Mekki writes, the work begins with keeping the promises made to oneself.
