Developing Literacy in at Risk Young Children

Developing Literacy in "At Risk" Young Children: A Khemetic Perspective is based on the author’s critique of urban public school reforms that are not designed to meet the needs of low socioeconomic students. The author is a member of that cadre of African conscientiousness, who studied the critical theoretical aspect of pedagogy and school reform. He was one of the few males of African descent entering the "delicate" field of Early Childhood Education in the New York City Public School System. He had ambivalent feelings about working under the "modernist positivist" (archaic rigid system) "oligarchy" of the New York City Board of Education. On the other hand, his commitment was to teach and facilitate the development of literacy in young "at risk" children of African and Hispanic descent, who would be entrusted to him, especially the boys, whose path to success seems to be laden with obstacles of major complexities. Among these obstacles are (a) the lack of a positive male influence in the home, father or otherwise; (b) the politically influenced educational profession whose special interest groups, clearly do not appear to have the best interest of "at risk" children at hand; and (c) the domination of the field of Early Childhood Education by women, mostly Caucasian, whose hegemony views the Black male/s entrance into this field with skepticism and reluctantly accepts it with trepidation.

-- John Heru Aan Allsop