It's TED Talks Daily. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Sports, streets, and entertainment. Education

innovator Larry Irvin says those three pathways are still where young black men want to wind up as adults.

But in his talk at TED at BCG in 2021, he shares the powerful change we could encourage in order to keep more black boys in school and onto wider, more expansive possibilities for their careers and lives.

I had a chance to teach a summer program a few years back in my hometown of New Orleans.

I had a group of 32 young men, age ranging from 9 to 14, all black boys. I wanted to set a tone the first day of class. I wanted to compare and contrast the mindsets of the contemporary young folk, in contrast to my constituents, how we aspire.

So I asked them the old cliche question, what do you want to be when you grew up?

Here were the responses.

29 said Kevin Durant.

Three, said LeBron James. Now, I had two thoughts thoughts first was i was flabbergasted because obviously these

young boys don't know basketball because lebrine is the man if you ask me but my second thought was

the narrative still hasn't changed the scope of possibilities is still very limited. Sports, streets,

entertainment, we don't see ourselves really outside of those arenas. Something has to change.

But my mom was an educator. She laid a very positive foundation for myself and my sister Charlene

in regards to education. But what she did most importantly was she made me a dreamer.

She opened up that scope of possibilities and now I'm the CEO of an organization that recruits

black male teachers. Being a teacher is one of the most impactful ways you can see your

impact as a professional. Being a black male teacher is a game-changing.

Being a black male teacher is becoming a superhero.

So let's talk about it.

Let's take a look at the landscape currently in the United States.

Less than 3% of all teachers are black men.

For my liberal arts majors, that's three out of 100.

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