OBERLIN, Ohio — It hardly seems a stretch to say Kurt Russell was born to be a history teacher.
Raised on his mother’s stories about segregation and the civil rights movement in Alabama and influenced by teachers from his childhood, the 50-year-old Russell has spent the last 25 years teaching history and African American history at Oberlin High School outside Cleveland.
The Council of Chief State School Officers announced Tuesday that Russell is the organization’s National Teacher of the Year for 2022. The group previously named him Ohio’s teacher of the year.
“Kurt’s extensive career shows the power of educators to shape the lives of students from the classroom to extracurricular activities to the basketball court,” CCSSO Chief Executive Officer Carissa Moffat Miller said in a statement.
Russell will spend the next year representing educators and serving as an ambassador for students and teachers across the country, the organization said.
His classroom journey to teaching began with his white kindergarten teacher, Francine Toss, who read a picture book about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as he and other students sat in a circle in her classroom.
“She had the audacity to introduce literature that was culturally relevant,” Russell said. “I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a guy who looks like me.'”
The die was further cast for his future career as an eighth-grader when he walked into a math class taught by Larry Thomas, the first Black male teacher he had encountered. Russell said he was impressed by Thomas’ demeanor and how he carried himself in the classroom.
“He was someone who looked like me in front of the classroom who all the kids enjoyed,” Russell said. “This seemed like a profession that I could enjoy. It just changed my life.”
His parents, Jerry and Retta Russell, who grew up attending segregated schools in Alabama, moved to Oberlin in the late 1960s, his father for construction work and his mother to escape the vestiges of the Jim Crow south.
His…
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