February 2018 Edition of Envision Equity

ENVISION EQUITY FEBRUARY 2018
the Importance of Minority
Teachers in our Schools
By Khamari Brooks—Fern Creek High School Senior
Over the past 6 to 7 months I
have been deeply involved
with a program called What’s
the Story? This program
efficiently gets students
involved and connected
around the community. The
overall idea of the group is to
find something going on in
the world today that you are
inspired by, wanting to
change, and that sticks with
you for life. Projects can span
a variety of topics, whether
that be building a website for
Khamari Brooks
people who need to vent and
talk about their addiction
situations, figuring out the connect between the school to prison pipeline, or trying to
separate gender roles.
When first joining What’s the Story? I had no idea of what I wanted my passion project to be. I
just knew that I was involved in all of these social justice related things and wanted my voice
to be heard. After thinking long and hard about this passion project, I came up with the idea
of making people aware of cultural appropriation. The idea was very close to being my
ending result, but I knew I needed something that would spark conversation around the
state. The obvious topic that needed to be brought to life and discussed was the lack of
minority teachers in the school system.
The importance of minority teachers for students of color in classrooms needs to be stressed
because students are more likely to understand and engage and content more if they are
being taught by someone who looks like them. My overall goal in this project is to empower
and encourage students of color to branch out into the career of teaching because they are
needed to educate the future students who will be in their shoes along the road. People as a
whole are more willingly to listen and gravitate toward people who look like them, so if the
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