The Brilliance of Black Boys
Cultivating School Success in the Early Grades 
Dr. Brian L. Wright @DrBrianAKABrain

BOOK SUMMARY
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This much-needed book will help schools and, by extension, society to better understand and identify the promise, potential, and possibilities of Black boys. Drawing from their wealth of experience in early childhood education, the authors present an asset- and strengths-based view of educating Black boys. This positive approach enables practitioners and school leaders to recognize, understand, and cultivate the diversity of social skills of Black boys in the early grades (pre-K–3rd grade). Each chapter begins with a vignette to illustrate what is lost when Black boys are prevented from participating freely in boyhood, having to instead attend to adult and peer interactions and attitudes that view them as “bad boys” and “troublemakers.” This accessible book provides teachers with classroom strategies to help young Black boys achieve their highest potential, along with other resources for supporting their social-emotional development, such as a reading list of authentic multicultural children’s books with Black boys as protagonists.
Book Features:
  • Challenges deficit views of Black boys in order to transform the way schools and society think, talk, and write about them.
  • Provides culturally responsive strategies for engaging Black boys and fostering healthy self-identity and agency.
  • Discusses the importance of critical self-reflection to examine attitudes and practices that inform how teachers engage with children and families.
  • Examines how school officials, beginning in early childhood, can stop the adultification and criminalization of Black boys.
DR. BRIAN L. WRIGHT
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Brian L. Wright, PH.D.  is an assistant professor of early childhood education in the Department of Instruction and Curriculum Leadership in the College of Education at the University of Memphis. Shelly L. Counsell is program coordinator and assistant professor of early childhood education at the University of Memphis and coauthor of STEM Learning with Young Children.

His research and publications examine the role of racial-­‐‑ethnic identity in the school achievement of successful African-­‐‑American boys/males in urban schools preK-­‐‑12. Dr.Wright’s current research projects include High-­‐‑quality Early Childhood Education Programs for all children, but especially those children living in poverty, Culturally Responsive and Responsible School Readiness for African American boys (preschool and kindergarten), Literacy and African American males, African American and Latino males as Early Childhood Teachers, and Teacher Identity Development. His focus on the academic achievement of Black males, in particular, has resulted in opportunities to conduct professional development workshops for teachers sponsored by the Children’s Museum of Memphis (CMOM), and the local school district (Shelby County Schools) where he was recently appointed by the Superintendent (Dorsey E. Hopson, II) to serve in the capacity of their resident Early Childhood expert as a member of their Early Childhood/Head Start 2015-­‐‑2016 Policy Council. Dr. Wright was the first African American male to earn his doctoral degree in 2007 in Applied Child Development from the Eliot-­‐‑Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University see http://ase.tufts.edu/epcshd/documents/newsletterSpring2009.pdf.) He completed a 2-­‐‑year residential Post-­‐‑doctoral Research Fellowship in Education at TERC in 2011.