“We’re all in this together” was the feeling Kenthedo Robinson, a retired teacher from Boys and Girls HS in Brooklyn, took away from the fourth annual Men in Education symposium on March 2 at UFT headquarters in Manhattan. As presenters and participants shared stories about their families and asked for advice, Robinson said they “learned from each other, tried new things and encouraged each other.”
Anthony Harmon, the UFT’s staff director and director of community and parent outreach, said he founded the annual symposium with the aim of fostering that sense of mutual support. “Participants were able to share their thoughts and feelings about being fathers and men in the public education arena,” he said of this year’s event.
The 140 attendees listened to speeches from Rudy Crew, the former New York City schools chancellor; Alhassan Susso, a social studies teacher at International Community HS in the Bronx and the 2019 New York State Teacher of the Year; Alvin Irby, the founder of Barbershop Books; and UFT President Michael Mulgrew. There were also workshops about mentoring, fatherhood and public education, and a women’s panel.
In his welcoming remarks, Crew said direct engagement with young people is more important than ever because “the youngsters today need more from us than we used to give them.” He shared a story about giving away his tie to a student with special needs when the student was fascinated by it. That one moment of interaction might stay with the boy forever, Crew said.
The theme of engaging directly with young people resonated with Luis Gonzalez, who works in the DOE’s Division of Early Childhood Education. “I’m passionate about helping boys,” he said. But Gonzalez walked away from the symposium thinking about how he could support fathers as well.
Gonzalez coaches teachers on family engagement, which usually means communicating with students’ mothers. “I had never thought about asking them, ‘What about the fathers?’” he said. “So now I’m going to include that piece in my coaching — bringing the men and the fathers into the classroom.”