My Brother’s Teacher Project Launches

The recently launched My Brother’s Teacher Project is led by William White, a doctoral candidate in early childhood special education at the UW College of Education. White is the director of My Brother's Teacher at Cultivate Learning. “I love what I do, but I look around and there’s nobody that looks like me. At my first job there were no other Black male teachers,” explained White.

Research shows that Black male teachers in the classroom are a benefit to Black students (Milner, 2006; Ferlazzo, 2018; Anderson, 2015; Brown 2009; Lynn, 2006). White stressed that research also shows that just having one Black teacher by the third grade, makes Black children more likely to consider post-secondary opportunities.

In light of this evidence, My Brother’s Teacher has the goal of increasing the number of Black and Brown teachers in the classroom through an innovative fellowship program. The goal of this program is to diversify the early learning workforce by recruiting male high school Black and Brown students to complete college coursework in early childhood education at North Seattle College and funded summer internships in Seattle’s early learning programs. Young men accepted in this program will receive 60 service-learning hours and ongoing mentorship for their work. The program will provide students with a supported path to and through college for My Brother’s Teacher Fellows to pursue careers in education.

The program is currently seeking applications from Black and Brown male students who are enrolled in 11th grade in a Seattle public high school and have a 2.0 or higher GPA (applicants who do not meet the minimum GPA will still be considered).  Applications are due April 30, 2021 and information is available on the MBT website .

This program is a collaborative effort with the University of Washington College of Education, North Seattle College, Seattle Preschool Program and Seattle Public Schools. This effort is made possible by support from Dr. Gail Joseph (UW College of Education), Monica Liang-Aguirre (Seattle’s Department of Education and Early Learning), The Stranahan Foundation, Seattle Public Schools and North Seattle College. For more details, check out the website and view the video.