Sydney Chaffee

Sydney Chaffee is the 2017 National Teacher of the Year and a member of the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY). She teaches ninth-grade humanities at Codman Academy Charter Public School in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Sydney is a previous board member of brightbeam, the parent organization of Education Post.

Posts By Sydney Chaffee

Diversity

What White Educators Can Do to Create Space for More Black Teachers

Last year, several of my talented, dedicated colleagues of color announced they were leaving our school, and the news hit some students hard. “Black teachers are so rare to find,” one Black student,...

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School Choice

I Just Traveled the Entire Country and Found One Thing We Teachers Can Agree On

A few weeks ago, I visited the classroom of Stefan Lawrence, a high school English teacher at Carver High School in Columbus, Georgia. Although I only had the privilege of sitting in his class for a...

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activism

The World Is Threatened by Our Students' Voices and We Have to Teach Them to Be Brave

I talk a lot about how our students can change the world. And I mean it. Glance at the headlines any day this week, and I guarantee you’ll see examples of young activists spurring change. Our kids...

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equity

I Know White Teachers Can Be Biased Against Kids of Color Because I Was

I changed schools in the middle of the first grade because my teacher was a racist. “She told you that you’re smarter than your classmate because he’s Black,” my mom explained. My mom had a habit of...

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