Enlightening the Next Generation of Change Makers

By Ms. Cynthia Brawner, Third-Grade Teacher at Wadsworth STEM Elementary School

Once I passed the State Constitution Test in the seventh grade, those around me realized how opinionated I was. I knew I had rights. I knew I had a voice. And I’ve always been proud to be Black.

It’s my philosophy that if you know better, you’ll do better, so I try to help my students understand their heritage, especially during Black History Month. I created a booklet that highlights Black historical figures, starting with Harriet Tubman and then Fredrick Douglass, Garrett Morgan, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harold Washington, Barack Obama, and ending with Dr. Byron Brazier, a prominent pastor in the Woodlawn community where our school is located.

I want my students to see that they can change the narrative, and they don’t have to go far from Woodlawn to do so. On our school’s bulletin board, we’ve embraced our identity as a STEM school by looking at STEM professions where African Americans are underrepresented. My class is focusing on marine biology and computer programming as potential careers.

I’m also introducing them to some resources through The 1619 Project so they can head to fourth grade with a better understanding of their history.

My approach to instruction during Black History Month is reflective of a larger emphasis that I place on my students’ mindsets. With more than 30 years in the classroom, I can say with confidence that when a child is struggling, it’s usually because of some factors that have intertwined within their lives that they can’t control.

Just take the pandemic as an example. This school year, it hit me that the last full year of school that my third-graders had in the classroom at Wadsworth was kindergarten. And, sure enough, they came back to school like they were coming back to kindergarten.

It was my job to ensure they understood that they didn’t miss anything, their learning had just been different. Now, they were older, and they needed to behave differently. It may sound like an oxymoron, but I’ve found that being firm but gentle—gently affirming, you could say—was the right approach. I had to extend my tolerance and patience, but it was worth it.

When you take the pandemic out of the picture, students still need that extra boost. If we fail a child because of how they performed on one test for one hour, we hold them back. They go from feeling stuck to feeling bored to becoming our behavior problem and, then, they may become a statistic.

In order to keep my students moving forward, I focus on three words, both during Black History Month and the rest of the school year: understand, enlighten, empower. These three words connect to each other like this: when you understand yourself and your students, you can enlighten them using your expertise so they can be empowered to be their best selves.

I remind my students that we’re all human beings and we all come from a great lineage. I want them to be strong in their knowledge while still being respectful of those with differing opinions. By doing this, they will be on the path toward being successful and making a difference. And wherever they go to be successful, they shouldn’t forget to come back to the neighborhood and support someone else.

You might call that paying it forward, but I call it paving the way.

Ms. Brawner initially thought she would become either a graphic designer or a journalist, but pivoted into education with the encouragement of her mother. While she’s been teaching for over 30 years, she believes she still has a few more years left before she retires.