Government
Getting African-American Boys to Read With 'Barbershop Books'
Many young black males don't see reading as part of their identity, one NYC educator believes. Haircut by haircut, he's trying to fix that.
There's a classic marketing theory that when you put two words or ideas together enough, consumers will form an implicit association—and even act. I say "peanut butter," you think, "jelly." I play French music in my grocery store, you buy a bottle of Burgundy. One is a trigger for the other.
Improbable, perhaps, that a chestnut from advertising would form the basis of an elegant and innovative literacy initiative. But when Alvin Irby was teaching kindergarten and first grade in Harlem and the Bronx, he saw that many of his students—especially African American boys—needed new associations around books. Statistically, those boys are the most reluctant when it comes to reading—and lag most in test scores.