Whenever my father passionately agrees with something he shouts, “I’m with you when you’re right!” After reading the recent report by Shaun R. Harper, Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Race & Equity in Education titled Black Male Student Success in Higher Education, I’ve come to see a deeper meaning in my father’s catch-phrase. The report examines Black male college success in an effort to learn what works, what’s right, and to then replicate those factors more broadly. Harper calls this an anti-deficit approach. I call it a change in focus that is long overdue.

Educators love to debate about whether targeted interventions can help at-risk populations, or if factors like poverty and being raised in a single parent household are too powerful to be overcome by schools alone. Some believe there is little to nothing that schools (K-12 as well as colleges) can do to prevent one third of Black men born this decade from spending time in prison; or to keep half of them from dropping-out of high school; or even to address that fact that just one in forty Black males will earn a bachelor’s degree by the time they are twenty-five.

This view, however, is wrong. There is much and more that schools and colleges can do to boost high-school and college achievement levels for Black males, and we can start by changing our focus. When we speak solely of deficit-model statistics, we risk flattening the landscape and obscuring the successes of students who are able to achieve in spite of all of the obstacles facing Black males. We also risk perpetuating systems of inequality by turning observation into expectation. Ultimately, our conception about what it means to be a young Black male doesn’t just limit our focus, it can limit that of our students as well. The innovation of Harper’s research has been to turn this data upside down and, instead of asking what’s wrong with the students who are failing, to ask what’s right with the Black males who see success. According to many of the subjects of Harper’s study, it was the first time anyone had bothered.

In interviewing 219 Black male “achievers” who were either attending or had graduated from college, Harper found the most common thread was that successful Black males are supported, both within their families and in their schools/communities, with relationships characterized by high expectations. Successful Black males often spoke of at least one extremely influential teacher who helped instill belief in their potential, whether or not the young men believed it themselves. These individuals, writes Harper, helped students seek out “educational resources to ensure their success — tutoring and academic support programs, college preparatory initiatives, and summer academies and camps.” According to Harper’s study, these commitments to education were solidified in high school and college when Black males joined student organizations — particularly when they took on leadership roles — that anchored them to academic communities.

The idea that strong relationships impact student success shouldn’t be anything new to educators. But the implication — that race, background and gender are not destiny, and that focused interventions produce tangible results — is enormous. Specifically, by taking an anti-deficit approach, we light the way towards discovering and implementing educational interventions targeted to meet the specific needs of Black male students. When the dominant presentation of Black males shows them dropping out of school and spending time in prison, students who might already be unsure of their place within an educational environment feel further pressure to follow the expectation and disengage. This isn’t to say that we should ignore or sugar-coat the issues facing Black males today. But instead of fixating on these negative factors, we should balance them by holding up as examples young people who have successfully completed their education and earned degrees.

Perhaps the most remarkable finding in Harper’s report is that the majority of the Black male graduates he interviewed stated that the biggest factor separating them from peers who didn’t make it through college was serendipity. In other words, the achievers didn’t view themselves as smarter, more persistent, harder working, or more economically advantaged than their friends back on the block. The achievers felt they were just lucky. Lucky to have people in their lives who were with them when they were right. Everyone should be so lucky. And, with the right kinds of schools, everyone can be.

“Those who criticize our generation forget who raised it” ~ Unknown

The Rites of passage in many cultures denotes the entry into adulthood by teens. For many cultures, the rites of passage is normally limited to that of the male’s official entry into manhood and him being given due respect to be treated as a man of responsibility. But in America there are very few rites of passage left or even observed since most our young teenagers are exposed to and do things that in past times were only reserved for this(rites of passage) special occasion. So now, because of the lack of male figures in the home for most boys, the young teenagers have to create their own rites of passage to mark their transition from childhood into adulthood. This is a very interesting dilemma because modern society has removed the majority of the positive traditional rites of passage and left our young male teenagers unable to mark a specific time for celebration, commemoration, or show that they have become men, of enlightenment.

A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person’s transition from one status to another. The rite of passage also explores and describes various notable mile stones in an individual’s life. In psychology, the term ritual is sometimes used in a technical sense for a repetitive behavior systematically used by a people or person to neutralize or prevent anxiety. So the rites of passage ceremonies, from boys to men are imperative, but one of the key components is to have honorable men initiate the passage. Now there are many different passages in our lives, if we choose to mark and celebrate them. The ideal goal is to design the rites of passage experiences to assure that initiates (young male teenagers) come out of the experience with a new and empowering start that helps them take responsibility for the decisions that set the course of their future lives.

To also help initiates create the story of who they are and the kind of life they want to build based within the exploration of their own personal values. The rites of passage should also help them find the story that connects them to their community. Hopefully through this self-exploration initiates emerge with a stronger sense of personal responsibility to all aspects of their lives and begin reaching out to the larger world of which all living things are a part of. In this way both the community and the initiates benefit from rites of passage. An intentional rites of passage experience provides the space for the community to transmit its core values and confer the role responsibilities appropriate to the initiate’s stage of life, thus insuring cultural continuity, a sort of knitting or bringing together of the generations.

What are some of the reasons for this boy to men initiation? Well, the main purpose of the boys to men initiation function is to reveal the deep meaning of existence to the new male generation and to help them assume the responsibility of being truly men and hence their role of participating in that cultural life. Many of the most important and common rites of passage are connected with the biological changes (crises) of the young male teenager, or milestones, of life-birth, maturity, reproduction and death- that bring changes in social status and therefore, in the social relationship of the people in that community.

Rites of passage are universal, and presumptive evidence from archaeology (in the form of burial findings) strongly suggests that they go back to very early times. Passage rites and other events have in the past been the primary socially approved means of participating in pleasurable activities, and has been a primary vehicle for art, music, song, dance, and other forms of aesthetic experience. The worldwide observance of these rites long ago attracted the attention of scholars, but the first substantial interpretation of them as a class of phenomena was presented in 1909 by the French Anthropologist and Folklorist Arnold van Gennep, who coined the phrase “rites of passage.” From its beginning, the study of rites of passage has attempted to account for similarities and differences between the rites of different societies. The similarities are striking and most certainly reflect the close similarity in ways of human thought.

As the month of June comes to close we salute Dads around the world! The home is to be a symphony of praise! There’s to be harmony in the home and if there is to be harmony, then the father is to be the leader of the band. It is difficult to be a good man and even more difficult to be a good husband. But most difficult of all, and I think you would agree, is to be a good Dad. Now dads, are you listening? You might fail in a lot of different ways, but you must fear God and live with integrity.

What do you want to be remembered for? I was thinking what my children will remember of me. First, I thought, they’ll remember my sense of humor. Then I laughed and thought, I can’t even remember it! So what will they remember? I pray to God that they will remember me for my character. I want them to say, “My dad feared God. My dad walked in the ways of God.” That’s what I want to be remembered for. I want them to believe in the God that I fear and love.

And I want to tell you something dads; the number one thing in being a good dad is the character that he lives, Integrity…my girls know that I have faults, I have a lot of them and they could stand up and say, “Dad has faults,” but I’ll tell you one thing they will do, they’ll say, “my dad is real. My dad is honest. My dad loves God.” I know they would say that. And my dear friend, your children need a dad that fears God and a dad that walks with integrity.

“A  dad is someone who wants to catch you before you fall but instead picks you up, brushes you off, and lets you try it again. A dad is someone who wants to keep you from making mistakes but instead lets you find your own way, even though his heart breaks in silence when you get hurt. A dad is someone who holds you when you cry, scolds you when you break the rules, shines with pride when you succeed, and has faith in you even when you fail.” ~ A Titus Man