Rodney Robinson

About Rodney

• Growing up, I was inspired by my mother, who was always giving back and engaging with the community.
• Being brought up in a rural school system, I struggled with culturally outdated lessons and racial discrimination—that experience made me decide to become a teacher and help students like me.
• After high school, I went to Virginia State University, which provided the culturally affirming education I needed in order to build up my confidence.
• After a little bit of a struggle through my first couple of years as a teacher, I started teaching at Armstrong High School in Richmond, Virginia.
• Armstrong High School was racially and economically segregated from the rest of the city, but I loved teaching at the school and working with that population.
• After 12 years, I was feeling some burnout with teaching—I still wanted to teach and work with the same population, but I also needed some sort of change.
• A friend of mine had become the principal at the Richmond Juvenile Detention Center, so I decided to join them and teach at the detention center—I went from teaching 1,200 kids to 60 kids.
• I’ve adopted a collaborative teaching style and am able to give my students the attention they need to grow—my efforts were recognized nationally when I was named 2019 National Teacher of the Year!