Lisa Ann Williamson is associate editor at Teaching Tolerance. Before coming to SPLC, she worked as a multimedia journalist. Her jobs at newspapers in Iowa, Michigan and New York included covering crime, education, theater and religion stories. Williamson also taught college courses in journalism, literature and interpersonal communication. She graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a major in theater and earned her masters at the University of Iowa.
Marguerite Rucker is a mother, teacher and cheerleader. After 20 years of teaching, she currently teaches sixth grade. Her master’s degree is in educational leadership. She also opened a Performing Arts Academy with her best friend and trained several successful child actors and dancers who have appeared in TV shows and commercials. She is the proud mother of two high school children and the wife of a school psychologist.
Elise is an IB English teacher at a public school in Minnesota. Toedt co-facilitates her school’s chapter of Dare 2 Be Real, a regional anti-racist student leadership group. As a poet, Elise views the classroom as a process-oriented space and is continually working to self-educate and engage in the learning process alongside students. Prior to teaching in the United States, Elise taught at an international IB school outside of Jakarta, Indonesia.
Hannah teaches high school social studies in the Greater Boston area. Specializing in post-Reconstruction American history and AP European history, Edsall pursues teaching history from multiple perspectives using primary sources and strives to make history relevant to her students. She is also the advisor for her school's social justice club, where she spends afternoons discussing prejudice, discrimination, politics and current events with over 20 students.
Courtney is the Director of the Malone Center for Excellence in Teaching and Associate Professor of Teacher Leadership at the University of Montevallo. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Feminist Teacher and The Urban Review. She is the recipient of the 2013 National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) Presidential Chapter Award and chairs the Advancing Multicultural Learning Committee for NAME.
Hannah Sachs is a theater director, activist and educator. This summer, she is teaching and directing at Theatre Lab in Washington, D.C., prior to moving to the Czech Republic as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. She recently graduated from Smith College, where she studied theater directing with a minor in religion and a concentration in community engagement and social change. Hannah has previously taught third grade at East African Community Services in Seattle, Washington, and facilitated theater workshops at Kensington International School in Springfield, Massachusetts. In addition to
When I began teaching classes of primarily black students in Oakland, Calif., many of my white friends started to see me as something of an expert on African-American culture. While I understand that I could not possibly be an expert, I have been privy to some interesting conversations. I represent a comfort level that can lead to more cross-cultural discussions.