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My name is Nathan Castro. I teach high school here in Oakland at Oakland Unity High. Been out here in Oakland for about five years, serving the community, loving every part of it. I teach freshmen computer science as well as sophomore Algebra B, and I'm in my officially third year of teaching. I don't have any kids, but I have a few hundred kids who I worry about. To know certain times what they're going home to, or what they're dealing with at home, or how they're feeling, and only being able to provide so much, it can weigh on you. And today, as I sit here, there's a whole lot of uncertainty. It's very hard, and so I definitely do consider leaving it. So I'm going to get to interview Rodney Robinson, National Teacher of the Year, 2019. He teaches out of Virginia. He works in a correctional facility. I'm very anxious and looking forward to interviewing him for the knowledge he has, and for the human being he seems to be. [MUSIC] I watched some videos of yours online, right? Clearly, Teacher of the Year, you're all over the place, right? And so I was lucky enough when I got to see some interviews, and I heard you speaking on the Good Morning Show. And I heard you talk about how love is so important, and how the idea of equity is so important. And how you just want to do everything you can to give your students a shot at not only surviving, but thriving in the near future. And that's exactly where I come from. I don't necessarily feel I'm the best teacher in the world, but I definitely know and feel that I give my heart and my all to my kids. If you could just introduce yourself, and kind of just tell me how you got to where you're at now. Obviously, you're very prestigious. Please. &gt;&gt; Well, I don't consider myself prestigious. I think I was just going along, doing the work. Then someone took notice, and that was it. But I think I wanted to become a teacher mainly because of my mother. My mother, she wanted to be a teacher but she never got the proper education due to segregation and poverty in rural Virginia. However, she still taught. Meaning, she took care of the community. She ran an in-home daycare. It's our job to take care of the next generation, and to help each other out. And then, just going to a rural school system, being one of the few blacks in the honors courses, it really was a traumatic experience. It was some of the things that I endured just non-culturally relevant teaching, outright discrimination sometimes. I had one teacher, one African American male teacher, and that was my band teacher. He was that guy that I could always go to and talk to what I was going through, talk about life and general academics. And so when I graduated high school, I went to Virginia State University, you can see the flag in the background. And I'm always proud of Virginia State because it's a historically black college university. But what I needed when I graduated high school, was culturally affirming education. Something that could show me who I was, what I could be, and to just build up my confidence. And so Virginia State gave me that. And so once I left there, and I went to teach and I said, I'm going to be that teacher. I'm gonna be the guy that every kid relies on, that every kid comes to if they need help, if they need anything. And so I was just going about that. And I mean, it was hard. Now, I often tell people, being a teacher is not easy work. I mean, I got fired my third year of teaching. And I tell people that all the time. I had a principal who told me education might not be for me, and actually fired me. Luckily, another principal picked me up and taught me what it was to be a teacher, taught me where I was missing, taught me the skills I was lacking. &gt;&gt; And just to kind of, not to take the air out of the room, but to piggyback on that and to kind of come back to the idea of frustrations. Honestly, I'm questioning why I'm here. I'm questioning why I do this. I'm like, I went to school and I wanted to teach, because I wanted to give back to my community. One of my biggest hopes was again, to make a difference and help out. But I feel like it's taking so much from me. And I don't know that I'm giving enough of myself to actually make an impact on these kids because I feel so bogged down mostly. Is there ever times where you feel burnt out? &gt;&gt; Being 12 years in a high need school was really rough. Yeah, I got that burnt-out feeling. And so I decided, I need to cut back, but I still want to work with this population. And so a friend of mine just became the principal at the juvenile detention center. So I went there next. And so instead of working with 1,200 kids, I'm now working with 60 kids. But that 60 kids feel like 1,200 because they have emotional and academic needs that really drain you, but I love it. I love those kids. I'm going to work as hard for them to get whatever they need. My grandfather, my mom, they would always tell me that I stand on the shoulders of giants. And that everything I do is because of what people have sacrificed and done before me. And so when I think about my grandfather who was completely illiterate, but worked that job for 50 years and going into work every day. And I think about my grandma, who was a nurse, who did the same thing. My other grandpa who was a World War II and Korean War vet. And it was like, they endured all this during Jim Crow, during segregation. So how am I tired? How am I going to stop this? I'm going to keep going because I stand on the shoulders of giants. And I'm sure you get the same feeling when you talk to your family. &gt;&gt; Yeah, that's probably the most humbling thing, is talking to my family. So teaching is not an easy profession, right? And so, I have a theory that anyone who is great at anything, right, is basically a glutton for punishment. Because there's just no way you get really good at something without failing over, and over, and over again. And so clearly, A, you're a glutton for punishment just for being a teacher. But I'm just curious, what drives you? Because you're already doing a job that you already knew was hard, that you got fired from on your third year, that you already felt like you wanted to quit. And you came back aboard. And then you decided, I'm going to take it to the next level and do it at a correctional facility. So I'm just curious, A, what is the real main drive for that? And then, B, how do you deal with that emotional stress? Like you said, it's only 60 students, but I can't even imagine, given those circumstances. So how do you really, really genuinely deal with it? What do you do to relax? What do you do? How do you keep from blowing up? &gt;&gt; Therapy was really important. I had internalized so much of the trauma that my kids go through and they tell me every day that I had just become jaded on my view of the world. And thank goodness, my district has a good mental health plan as part of the healthcare package. And plus my principal. My principal, she is just really awesome. And so she wants to make sure that we're all in a good place, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. And I'm forever grateful to have such a wonderful principal. &gt;&gt; I know for the Latino community and a lot of communities of color, the idea of going to see counseling, it's for faux pas. And even my own family, I've had times where they've been like, just suck it up. &gt;&gt; I actually shared the story with them of counseling. Just hoping to break that stigma we have in our communities that counseling is just for crazy people. That counseling isn't for you, you suck it up or pray on it. That's one thing in our communities. It's like, yeah, we can pray on it, but we also can get a good counselor to help us with our issues as well. And so it's really important that we start taking mental health seriously in our communities. &gt;&gt; It's clear that he has a very big vision. You're talking about one man who is clearly making a huge difference. But to see someone who is doing that directly, and doing it well, and literally doing it at basically the top of the class, was extremely motivating. It also made me feel like it was possible. It's almost like what we say. It's like the kids having a person of color, a male teacher in the classroom, and therefore giving them the realization that it's possible for them to do it. It literally, provided that for me. And to hear the amazing things that he's doing, to come from such humble beginnings, and he's clearly nowhere near done, it's very inspiring. [MUSIC] 

What makes for a National Teacher of the Year? Rodney Robinson is as humble as he is talented, and his success as an educator can largely be attributed to his emphasis on caring for his students’ overall mental wellness. He nourishes mental clarity, calm, and stability to foster the ideal garden in which knowledge can grow.

National Teacher of the Year Rodney Robinson prioritizes mental health

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