2019 Teacher of the Year: ‘Everyone Benefits From Diversity’
Rodney Robinson, the 2019 National Teacher of the Year, brought the 7,000 NEA Representative Assembly delegates to their feet on Saturday with an impassioned plea for diversity, increased opportunity for our most vulnerable students, and a day of reckoning for politicians who refuse to fully-fund public education.
“When we talk about education justice,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García, “Rodney lives it every day.”
Robinson teaches social studies at Virgie Binford Education Center, a school inside the Richmond Juvenile Detention Center in Richmond, Virginia. He became a teacher to honor his mother, who was denied the opportunity due to poverty and racism in rural Virginia.
As Robinson told RA delegates, his mother was still his greatest teacher, imparting life lessons that shaped his career as an educator – namely an early understanding of the need for equity. Not all children grow up on a level playing field and some need more help in order to achieve.
“A one-size-fits all model of equality does not work in education and education funding,” Robinson said. “Equity ensures that the students suffering from multi-generational poverty receive the same resources and education as those born with a silver spoon in their mouths.”
The staggering budget cuts that have devastated the public education system in so many parts of the country have to be reversed. “The national economy has CONTINUE READING:
