Ed School grad fights biases he faced in school system
This is one in a series of profiles showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates. When Kwame Adams told his high school guidance counselors that he was applying to Brown University, they laughed. He was smart — the valedictorian of his class; but he also was from Mattapan, a neighborhood of Boston often painted by low expectations. Even though Adams wasn’t accepted at Brown, he spent the next decade thinking about that moment, letting it shape his teaching. “Students internalize a lot of those messages,” he said. Deconstructing the negative messaging toward students of color would be part of what drove Adams later as a math teacher for a Boston charter school. “I never questioned [my students] or their ability based on their ZIP code,” he said. As Adams prepares to graduate with a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), he reflected on his own educational experiences. As a first-generation college freshman...