Episode 4: Culturally Responsive Teaching & Leading: A Conversation With Three Educators
We are joined by three stellar educators for a lively chat about their personal experiences as students, the teachers who inspired them, the value of diverse educators, and what these Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards could mean for Illinois students.
Rudy Hernandez is superintendent of Cicero School District 99 — a large elementary district west of Chicago, with more than 10,000 students, most of whom are Hispanic.
Corey Winchester has taught history and social sciences at Evanston Township High School for more than a decade. In 2020, he was named Illinois History teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He has also been a Teach Plus policy fellow and a Golden Apple award winner for excellence in teaching.
Keisha Rembert has taught history and English at the middle school level, and is now an assistant professor of teacher preparation at National Louis University in Chicago. She was also a Teach Plus policy fellow and, in 2019, Keisha was named Outstanding Middle-level Educator in English Language Arts by the National Council of teachers of English.
Both Rudy and Keisha are members of our Diverse and Learner Ready Teachers Network, which helped develop these new standards.
We recorded this conversation in December, just before the holidays. Due to everyone's busy schedules, we interviewed Rudy first, and then Corey and Keisha together. What you'll hear in this podcast is those interviews mixed together and slightly edited for time.