Travis Pinckney knows what the power of a positive role model can do."I knew I wanted to get into education when I saw a lot of black males in my community failing, dropping out, and I knew I went through that struggle and I had people helping me out so I said 'I have to do the same,'" he said. "It wasn't really a choice, it was more of a mandate on my life.
He was among the panel of speakers at Edward Waters College calling for more black men to take up the cause at Jacksonville’s first Call Me MISTER event.
"Our women have done a great job," he told the young men seated in the college sanctuary. "Our mothers, our grandmothers, they have carried the burden of raising boys into men."
"Enough. It's time for men to step up."
MISTER - which stands for Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models - is aimed at bringing more black males into the education profession. The national initiative began several years ago at Clemson University in South Carolina.
Monday morning signaled the kickoff to the program in Jacksonville. Edward Waters College and Duval County Public Schools’ Community and Family Engagement Department partnered to present the fellowship program to about a hundred high school juniors and seniors from across Duval County.
EWC Vice President of Academic Affairs Marvin Grant was among those who spoke to the young men.
"The vast majority of elementary school teachers in the United States are female," he said. "The vast majority of teachers in the United states are white. If you look at just those two factors and see the absence of African-American men at an early age as a role model a figure of any sort...at fourth grade, we know that African-American boys are headed in a downward trajectory."
According to the Department of Education, black males only make up two-percent of the 4.8 million educators across the country.
The MISTER program, which begins next fall at Edward Waters College, will provide financial assistance and one-on-one academic counseling to a select group of black male students majoring in elementary education.
"We’re asking you this morning, to put together your life in such a way and recognize that we at Edward Waters want you to come to become a MISTER and join us," said Marie Snow, director of the college's Education Department.
A. Philip Randolph junior Andrew Zeon said that is what he plans to do. The seventeen-year-old found inspiration in his own 7th grade history teacher.
"Mr. Miller," he recalled. "He was a black man doing well and basically, you see a successful black man you want to be like him growing up."
Although Zeon said he initially had aspirations of becoming a high school teacher, after Monday’s event, he’s turning his sights on elementary education.
"I would want to teach elementary so we could shape and mold the kids into men at an early age," he said, "Before it's too late."
You can follow Rhema Thompson on Twitter @RhemaThompson.
