Monroe: Set high expectations
Education has many of the same qualities and goals as a ministry, acclaimed educator Lorraine Monroe told attendees at the National Black Caucus of School Board Members Luncheon.
“It means you believe not only in the cultivation of children’s minds, but you are changing hearts,” she said. “You are changing spirits. And, in a crazy, radical way, you are changing this country.”
Founder of the Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem, N.Y., Monroe said educators need to be a little crazy at times. They have to be crazy enough to believe that disadvantaged students can learn. They have to be crazy enough to fight for the future of students.
“The children don’t believe what’s possible,” Monroe said. “You have to fight them. You have to fight some parents and principals who don’t believe your children can do it.”
Her success in teaching inner-city students has led to invitations to speak around the world. She described one trip to Norway and Sweden, where she was asked for advice on teaching disadvantaged students. Watching educators waiting with pens in hand, she offered to write the solution on the chalkboard: Love them . . . and teach them.
“In a nutshell, that’s what it is,” she said. “If you can’t love those kids, honor them. And, by God, that means teach them.”
It also means putting an end to low expectations for students, Monroe argued. She recalled looking at one school’s library and being dismayed with what she called “Mickey Mouse” books. “I didn’t see any Shakespeare,” she recalled.
Expectations always should be high -- and those expectations need to start early, she said. “We should be talking to kindergarten children about college.”
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