By milkeneducatoraward.org
“Education is either life or death,” says Dexter Chaney (IL ’10). “It’s our responsibility to inspire young people, educate them, and transform them to be great contributors to our society.”
What started out as volunteering in his alma mater high school has taken Dexter Chaney to heights he hadn’t imagined possible. Now that he knows that there are no limits, he has no intention of stopping. Dexter Chaney is a man on a mission to save lives.
Growing up in the Missouri City urban middle-class suburb of Houston, TX, Dexter saw the difference that education could make on minds and lives. “There were times that I had to make a decision,” Dexter says. “Am I going to go down the same pathway as my friends, or am I going to do something different that’s going to make better opportunities for myself and my family?” Many of his childhood friends didn’t choose the right paths and suffered the repercussions. The battle to stop this tragedy—which repeats in similar communities on a daily basis and to which Dexter has been witness throughout his career—motivates him every day.
“Our young people need our help. Our young people have to continue to believe in, buy into and value education. And if we as educators don’t continue to do great things for them and honestly just do a better job across the board, this unfortunate cycle is going to continue.”
How does Dexter strive to break this cycle in the classroom? The first key is engagement. Educators must meet students where they are and then impel them to where they need to go. Dexter adapts his teaching style so that students feel the relevancy of the subject in their lives. Framing math lessons in terms of sports statistics and creating friendly competition in the classroom, for example, changes math from an abstract, required subject to a fun skill that can be immediately applied to areas his students are already passionate about.
The adaptability doesn’t end at lesson context; it includes structure, as well. In 2010, while teaching in Chicago public schools, Dexter was having trouble keeping his all-boys third-grade class—an experiment he requested—focused. Necessity being the mother of invention, Dexter had to get creative. Listen to him describe the experience and some of the techniques that worked, which he now passes on to other teachers dealing with young men in their classes.
