All Blog Posts by Marcus Williams

Marcus Williams

 

Marcus Williams is a 2003 Chicago corps member, and taught for six years in his hometown, including time at Spencer Elementary and Urban Prep Academy  for Young Men. After studying school leadership at Harvard University,  he joined Teach For America’s talent acquisition team and works to recruit new staff members and advocates for our  movement. Outside of work, he enjoys sports, music, travel, spending time with family and friends, and studying a wide range of topics, including Malcolm X and Mad Men. 

All Posts by Marcus

What Langston, Malcolm, and Marshall Can Teach Our New Co-CEOs

February 25, 2013

I only know Teach For America’s new co-CEOs from a distance. In Matt Kramer, I see a man who wants to empower others to be agents of the change they want to see. In Elisa Villanueva Beard, I see a woman who has stepped into history as Teach For America’s first Latina CEO. The announcement of their new roles came during the first few days of Black History Month; how apropos, then, for Elisa to be the mother of sons named Langston, Malcolm, and Marshall. These august names of African-American history have three leadership lessons to offer our new CEOs.

Photo by Winold Reiss via Wikimedia Commons 

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When Words Get in the Way

January 23, 2013

This is the second post in a Pass the Chalk series on the term "achievement gap."

You don’t know what you don’t know.  This acknowledgement fueled my initial response to an article by Camika Royal, someone I know and respect, as I made the connection to David Foster Wallace’s insight that “we are all like a fish that doesn't know it's in water; we're so surrounded by it, that it’s impossible to see.” On March 3, 2004, as a first year Teach For America corps member, I led my 8th grade students in reading an article from the Chicago Sun-Times, “50 years after Brown, Blacks still lag in education.” Reading Phillip Jackson’s post, we learned about the achievement gap. I’d been introduced to this terminology in college and introduced it to my students as such.

Photo by Adam Jones, Ph.D., via WikiCommons

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