Teachers in America

Meet Priyank Bhatt, a lead math teacher at West Side High School, part of the Newark Public Schools in New Jersey.  When he was a child, Priyank moved from India to the U.S., and learned English with the help of a dedicated ESL teacher and by watching cartoons with his friends. Even while he was struggling with the language barrier, Priyank discovered that math was universal, and began to tutor hi...

Meet Kelly Harper, a third-grade teacher at Mary Bethune Elementary, part of Fulton County Schools in Georgia. After winning the 2019 District of Columbia Teacher of the Year Award and being named one of four finalists for the 2019 National Teacher of the Year, Kelly moved from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta, where she employs social-emotional learning to work toward dismantling the school-to-prison...

Meet Sarah Lerner, an advisor for the yearbook and an English and journalism teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. On February 14th, 2018, 17 individuals at the school lost their lives to gun violence. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Sarah and her students wrote and published an award-winning yearbook in the space of a few months honoring the victims. Sarah is pas...

This week on the podcast, we are joined by a middle school educator out of Washington state for an important minisode of Teachers in America . Bianca Cole discusses what it is like to teach not only her class, but her son, during these times of change. From the effects of COVID-19 on Seattle to the BLM protests that have taken place across America, 2020 has already presented Bianca with ample teac...

Meet Debra Liese, our very first minisode guest, who met with Noelle to discuss Homeschooling during COVID-19. Debra is a publishing professional with a background in education who, like many parents, has been working remotely full-time while helping to teach her children whose public schools have been shuttered during the COVID-19 crisis. Currently the Curator of Ideas at Princeton University Pre...

Meet Chris Dier, a teacher of World History and AP Human Geography at Chalmette High School in St. Bernard’s Parish, Louisiana. A Louisiana native, Chris was uprooted by Hurricane Katrina in his senior year of high school, but eventually returned to earn two Master’s degrees from the University of New Orleans. Now working in the same high school where his mother taught before him, Chris’s focus is...

Teachers in America profiles K–12 teachers across the country. Hear firsthand from the people who are shaping young lives in the classroom every day. In today's episode, you'll learn more about our host, Noelle Morris. In addition to being our host, Noelle is the Director of Content and Programming at HMH, a former teacher, and forever friend of teachers. Her career in teaching and educa...

Meet Ms. Debra Reynolds, a 7th grade World History teacher at Wicomico Middle School, part of Wicomico County Public Schools in Maryland. A passionate history buff, she's known for a long time that she wanted to become a history teacher in her hometown of Salisbury and is now finishing her third year teaching. As a second-year teacher, she was recognized by her county with the first-ever Risi...

Meet Julia Allan, a Kindergarten teacher at Northfield Elementary School, part of Howard County Public Schools in Maryland. When she turned 30, Julia decided to quit her job in the hospitality industry to become a teacher—and now, she teaches in the very same classroom where she attended Kindergarten in 1986. In this episode, Julia talks with Noelle about social-emotional learning, equity in educa...

Meet LaQuisha Hall, a 17-year teaching veteran who currently teaches English Language Arts at Carver Vocational-Technical High School in Baltimore City Public Schools. In 2018, she was the Teacher of the Year for Baltimore. She is also the founder of the girls’ mentoring program Queendom T.E.A. , the Baltimore branch of Project LIT , and the SheRose Awards which honors the unsung “sheroses” of sex...

Rodney Robinson is the 2019 National Teacher of the Year and Virginia Teacher of the Year. He is a teaching veteran with nearly two decades of experience. In 2015, in an effort to better understand the school-to-prison pipeline, Rodney started teaching social studies at the Virgie Binford Education Center, a school inside the Richmond Juvenile Detention Center. Now, he uses the knowledge he has ga...

Tracy Childers is a science teacher at Foothills Community School, a STEM magnet school, which is part of McDowell County Schools in North Carolina. After graduating from college, Tracy spent the next 30 years in supervision and management in the textile industry. He decided to pursue teaching to honor the memory of his two daughters, Casey and Courtney, after they passed away in an automobile acc...

Monica Fitzgerald teaches reading to vulnerable 7th graders in Syracuse, New York. She has taught in the North Syracuse Central School District for 24 years and has experience working as a classroom teacher for grades K–3, a Reading Recovery Teacher, a Reading Teacher for grades K–7, and a Literacy Coordinator. Monica received her bachelor’s in Inclusive Elementary/Special Education from Syracuse...

Many teachers talk about the isolation of teaching. But what if you really were truly isolated? Today’s guest, Garrett Jackson, is a special education teacher in Saipan, the largest of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a U.S. commonwealth about 130 miles from Guam—geographically isolated in the western Pacific. And in October 2018 the islands were hit by Typhoon Yutu, which devastated their com...

Georgette McClain is a Life Sciences teacher at Blanchester High School in Blanchester, Ohio, where she has taught for twelve years. Georgette holds her bachelor’s degree from Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio, where she studied Biology and Secondary Education, and earned her master’s degree in Teacher Leadership from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. In 2015, Georgette added a Princip...

Alexa Tegtmeier is a third-grade teacher at Curtis Guild Elementary, which is part of Boston Public Schools. Alexa has been teaching for five years and just completed her second year at Curtis Guild. While she was an undergraduate student at Northeastern University, Alexa took a class in urban education that inspired her to volunteer with JumpStart through AmeriCorps. Then, with Teach for America,...

Donna Gradel is the 2019 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year and a finalist for the National Teacher of the Year award. Host Rose Else-Mitchell first met Donna in Washington, D.C., earlier this year at a reception for all of the state Teachers of the Year. Today’s episode was recorded via phone. Donna teaches environmental science and innovative research at Broken Arrow High School in Broken Arrow, Oklah...

Brittany Mamphey is a 5th grade reading, language arts, and social studies teacher at Mt. Healthy North Elementary School in the Mt. Healthy City Schools District within Cincinnati, Ohio, where she has taught since 2013. She is a 2012 graduate of Bowling Green State University and completed her master’s degree at Miami University (Oxford) in 2016 in the areas of transformative urban education and...

Amanda Rack is a 1st grade teacher at Knob Hill Elementary School in San Marcos, California, about 45 miles from the border with Mexico. Amanda is a new mother and returned to her classroom after maternity leave midway through this school year. She gives her all—and more—to her students and to her family, yet like many mothers, she struggles with feeling like her best is not good enough. The Teach...

The Teachers in America series profiles K–12 teachers across the country. Hear firsthand from the people who are shaping young lives in the classroom every day. Our first guest, Rachel Swartz, is a 6th grade ELA teacher at the David A. Stein Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy, a public school for students in Grades 6–12 in the Bronx, New York City. Rachel has been teaching for seven years and is an ant...