Anthony Broughton wears many hats.

He is an educator, an author, an artist, a speaker and a musician. His professional profile includes a certificate in Culturally Responsive Literature from Harvard University and a certificate in Change Leadership from Cornell University.

He recently started his new role as an Associate Dean at Alabama State University after previously teaching early childhood education at Claflin University.

However, children who have seen him on YouTube might be more familiar with his alternative name, “MiSTER B” – somebody who can get early learners on their feet to rock out the alphabet with a fun rap and dance.

Broughton will happily tell anybody listening that he is from Cross, South Carolina, and how the Cross community helped him get to where he is now. He thrived in the arts at Cross Elementary and Cross High, and he now uses his artistic talents to get young students excited about school and learning to set them up for success as they grow.

“I do believe when children have a strong foundation that they’re more prone to be successful,” he said. “If we give them a strong foundation in preschool and early childhood, when they get to third and fourth grade, they’ll probably be advanced.”

Impacts of Cross

Broughton is a proud native of Cross, where he graduated high school in 2005. He said the experience helped shape him as a person.

Broughton dabbled in pretty much anything arts-related as a student. He loved his Cross Elementary art teacher, Cameron Owens, who still teaches at the school.

Owens was big on getting Broughton to enter art competitions, which let him know that she believed in him and knew he could compete at a state level.

Owens remembers Broughton very well, saying he was an out-of-the-box thinker from the start. She even has a sculpture in her classroom of a boy and a girl holding hands that he helped make when he was one of her students.

“He understood art concepts, such as perspective drawing, at an early age,” she said. “He was always an excellent student, soaking up every bit of instruction while adding his own unique and creative style. If I ever needed artwork for a competition, he was my first thought.”

Owens said seeing Broughton become so driven and successful brings a smile to her face.

“It makes me feel like what I do matters in the lives of many – including my own,” she said. “I learn just as much from my students, and I love it when they tell me they can't wait to come to art.”

Broughton continued to pursue the arts at Cross High, where he excelled in band and chorus – he even made All-County Band and All-County Chorus. His music instructor in elementary school was Mack Guice, who went on to be Broughton’s band director at the high school as well.

Broughton mostly played the trumpet as a band student. When Guice made Broughton drum major for the marching band, it was a turning point for Broughton. It made him want to explore a career as a teacher.

“I wanted to be like him (Guice) – so I became a teacher,” he said. “Being a drum major really allowed me to come out of my shell and really hone my natural love, or affinity, for music.

“Usually when you’re in class you’re very reserved and you listen to the teacher,” Broughton added. “But when you’re on the 50 yard line and you’re the drum major – you can really break it down.”

Broughton said he did not know he had leadership potential until Guice instilled it in him by making him a drum major.

“This is the moment I saw myself as a leader and I saw myself as a teacher,” Broughton said.

Broughton initially thought he wanted to be band director himself, but then he saw a need for mathematics, science and reading at younger grade levels, so he decided to combine his love for art and music and become an elementary teacher.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Benedict College. He would go on to receive a master’s degree in divergent learning from Columbia College and then a doctorate in philosophy in early childhood education from the University of South Carolina.

He started his teaching career in Allendale County as a fourth-grade teacher at Allendale Elementary.

“In my classroom, you would hear music, you would see the arts, and that really helped students to learn,” he said.

After a year, he received an offer to teach kindergarten at the Benedict College Child Development Center, a job that Broughton was hesitant to take at first but ended up loving.

“I created songs for children, just trying to get them to be attentive, and it worked,” he said.

He realized he needed to share his teaching methods with the world, and "MiSTER B" was born.

MiSTER B

The name derives from Broughton’s participation in the Call Me MiSTER program; MiSTER is an acronym for Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models. When Broughton had first started out teaching and had not yet earned his doctorate, his students called him “Mr. B.”

“That ‘Mister B’ is something I’m affectionately known as by children,” he said.

While Dr. B is a scholar, Broughton said MiSTER B is the actual teacher at heart that the kids love.

His videos on the channel are geared toward early literacy, mathematics and social-emotional learning. All the videos feature MiSTER B jamming to songs he created himself. His songs cover a variety of topics like shapes, positive behavior, affirmations, sight words, colors, counting and more.

He does remixes of his original videos as well; “Watch the Letters Get Down – Reggae”, which he released four years ago, has scored 3.9 million views. It has encouraged him to produce more videos; MiSTER B tries to post a new video every few months.

MiSTER B has a lot of fans too; families will send him videos and e-mails showing their children interacting with his content. Students will greet him with banners whenever he visits schools, and one child previously greeted him with a t-shirt that read: “Mr. B's number-one fan."

Additionally, MiSTER B’s videos have particularly made an impact on students with special needs, whose parents tell MiSTER B all the time that his videos “really touched their lives.” This has encouraged MiSTER B to make more videos geared toward special services. He plans to incorporate sign language in an upcoming video because of the feedback.

If not through videos, MiSTER B also reaches children through his written work. Broughton has published four children’s books and one academic book. He is currently working on a literacy CD called “Lit for Literacy” and expects to release it at the end of January. A video will come out around the same time to reinforce the alphabet to early learners.

MiSTER B hopes to show students that they can be anything they want to be and more.

“You can go out and be great,” he said. “Cross is a very small town. One of the things I said I wanted to do…when I reach a high level of success, I would put Cross on the map.”

Being Berkeley

Among his many titles, Broughton is also the Chief Consultant of AVA Educational Consulting, LLC. He travels around the world to provide workshops and training to other teachers at conferences where he talks about the multidimensional aspects of music, movement and interaction.

“I’m always working on current information that needs to be shared with teachers, on how to motivate students post-pandemic and how to keep up with current technologies with children,” he said.

“I have to go back and remind them (the students) of their greatness, and that big things come from small places,” he said.

To this day, Broughton still remembers the Cross Elementary Pledge: I believe in myself. I can.

“If you believe in yourself, you can do all things,” he said. “I tell students to work smart and hard, and be the best that you can be.”

Broughton added that people like to call him “extra” because he likes to go above and beyond in everything he does – and he highly recommends it.

“I say, give it your all,” he said. “Whatever you do, be the best at it. Don’t be mediocre.”

More importantly: “Never forget your roots.”

Last year he put on a concert for the pre-kindergarten students at Cross Elementary – they called it “MiSTER B Day,” complete with balloons sporting his name.

Broughton reminds students that they need to remember the people that supported them on the road to success.

“It’s one thing to do your best and be your best, but if you forget where you came from, that’s not a good thing,” he said. “So I always say…don’t ever forget the village that helped you become who you are.”

He really hopes to one day be invited to serve as the commencement speaker at a Cross High graduation, after being inspired by the person who spoke at his own graduation (Henry N. Tisdale, who was president of Claflin University at the time).

“I was like, ‘I want to be like him. I want to come back and…inspire students to graduate,’” he said. “He said, ‘Be a visionary leader’ – and I became that.”

Learn more about Anthony Broughton

Cross Elementary

Being Berkeley: Anthony Broughton is a visionary leader