My former students who are now teaching are not my only inspiration. Reading about the Illinois Teacher of the Year [chicagotribune.com] inspired me to reach out to her for a profile in this blog. Although Dr. Rachel Mahmood is currently in Pakistan, she generously agreed to a Wi-Fi phone call. On that call she blew me away with her passion, wisdom, and humility. The characteristics I inferred from the Trib profile were borne out in our conversation. Mahmood provides a model for the hallmarks of great teaching, including:
- Being passionate about teaching and learning
- Having a mission
- Building relationships
- Creating an inclusive learning community
- Trying creative approaches
- Collaborating with other educators
When I asked what drives her passion, Mahmood replied, “One of the things that I’ve learned from being an educator for 20 years is that whatever you focus on, expands. When I feel myself start to get negative, I try to change my focus to something positive… if you search for good in your colleagues, students, and their families, you will see more good. Seeing all the positives drive my desire to stay in education. For me, teaching doesn’t really feel like work. I wake up every day excited to go to school and learn with students.” Passion from teachers like Mahmood becomes contagious and drives student interest and commitment.
Mahmood describes her mission: “Growing up, I never felt a sense of belonging in school because my culture, my race, and my religion were different than my peers. I was often embarrassed of my identity. Now as a teacher, I have a mission. I want students to feel proud of their identity and have a sense of belonging at school. I also want teachers not to feel marginalized because their identity is also different from their colleagues.” That purpose guides her actions and creates a positive impact.
This exceptional teacher recognizes the importance of building relationships. “Being able to get to know my students and incorporate their identities into my classroom” helps her figure out how to help students connect with the curriculum and personalize it. Covid gave her an opportunity to connect more personally with with students. Being in each other’s homes wore away a bit of the boundaries between teacher and student and humanized her as they saw her being a parent as well as their teacher. All of her students qualified for free lunch and have limited access to resources, so Mahmood started doing visits to kids’ homes, taking her “trunk of treasures” filled with donated books and prizes for her students. She found this brought her so much closer to the community.
Mahmood also acknowledges the importance of building relationships with parents and the community as an effective way to address concerns driven by the culture wars. “I have been lucky that students and their families have always appreciated my style of teaching. What little criticism I have received has been from people who don’t know me.” From day one she prioritizes that every family needs to know how much she cares about their student, and she continues to work at her outreach to parents to produce and maintain a high level of trust.
Mahmood’s commitment to an inclusive and welcoming community grew from her own experiences as an “outsider” in school. The daughter of a Russian Jew and an Indian Hindu with German-Italian Catholic stepparents, now married to a Pakistani Muslim, Mahmood said she didn’t see herself in the school’s curriculum. “When you’re absent from the curriculum, you learn a lot of unintentional lessons from well-intentioned people. I learned lessons about my identity that were unintentional that caused me a lot of trauma. Then I found multicultural education. I became a teacher, because I was still searching for that belonging in school” [Ibid.]. Students learn a lot about what is normal in our society from school. Now she normalizes cultures, languages, foods, stories and histories of all backgrounds in her classroom.
Finding creative ways to teach helps Mahmood reach students. She regularly assigns projects for her students. Some of her notable projects are news broadcasts, soap carvings, clothespin dolls, collages, mysteries, mock trials and debates. During the pandemic, she did almost every single project on Zoom that she used to do in class. Each quarter she dropped off a gallon-size bag with materials for the projects at students’ homes. Some supplies came from school funds while others were made or bought by her or donated by parents and neighbors. Instead of lecturing on history, she brings it to life. When her class studied the plight of refugees in Vietnam in the 1970s, she had her students pack bags filled with the items they would take if they were forced to leave their homes. Their discussion about their choices brought their revelations to the plight of refugees today.
Dr. Mahmood’s consulting website, https://equityteacherleader.com/, evolved from her efforts to collaborate with and encourage other teachers to see the many benefits of multicultural education. During the pandemic she won an award from Teaching Tolerance (now called Learning for Justice) and wrote an article that led to other educators reaching out to her with ideas on how to make virtual classrooms culturally responsive. Already experienced with spreading the word of best teaching practices across the state, she will use the sabbatical she receives as “Teacher of the Year” to present on strategies to increase feelings of belonging among students and educators in the field of education “Students should remember school as a place where they felt affirmed and valued and had beautiful memories. Then maybe they will choose to return to school as educators. We must be intentional in affirming our colleagues in education. If we prioritize increasing feelings of belonging with educators, they are more likely to choose to stay in education.”
Dr. Rachel Mahmood is the kind of teacher I aspired to be. May she be an inspiration to all educators and communities; let us learn from her and adopt some of her ideas. Teachers like Mahmood make a difference, and public education has never needed them more.