David's Open Road

DAVID STOVALL

Associate Professor
University of Illinois at Chicago

LEADER INFO:

INTERESTS:

Education Politics

THEMES DISCUSSED:

Beliefs & Faith Community Dedication Education Planning Experience Passion Culture Focus Self-Reflection Negativity Character Hard Work Pressure Simplicity Transitions

FOUNDATION:

Teaching / Mentoring

BIOGRAPHY:

• Says his driving force is, "What is that story that we don't talk about? What are the things that have gone missing?"
• In kindergarten, he got the "bogus" Columbus story, couldn't understand how he "discovered" a place where people already lived.
• Disinvested from school, thought it was feeding him lies; years later, a teacher told him he should work to prove the world's negative expectations of him wrong.
• Says all forthright change comes from people who have "found their conditions intolerable and are working to change those conditions."
• He knew he had to change the educational system's flaws from the inside.
• Uses his free time off from teaching to work in classrooms in Chicago; takes those experiences back to his college students.
• This allows him to speak confidently about what is going on in the communities he lectures about, rather than just "pontificating."
• Says working in spaces of poverty, hypersegregation can be frustrating and toxic for some, but he's learned to find happiness in the little things.