The White Rhino: A Blog about Education and Latino Issues

Chicago Public Schools teacher explains what matters during the pandemic

My Chicago Public Schools high-school teaching career began in my old neighborhood of Little Village over twenty years ago. I focused on one concept in my English classes: writing matters.

Students wrote about their lives and the social issues important to them. We put poems on the wall.

During the pandemic, however, my teaching focus changed from knowing what matters to asking, “What matters?”

Our students’ experiences matter. So, as teachers, we need to be open to learning about our students as people—on our students’ terms, not ours.

Listen to my brief commentary on WTTW’s Latino Voices, an off-shoot of Chicago Tonight. (It’s a YouTube link, so if you’re on CPS wifi, remember internetlogin dot com.)
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Follow me on Twitter @whiterhinoray.

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About the Blogger

Since 1995, Ray has been an English teacher in the Chicago Public Schools.

In 2017, thanks to a former student, Ray received a Distinguished Secondary Teacher Award from Northwestern University.

In March 2013, The White Rhino tied for second place in the Best Blog category of the Education Writers Association’s national writing contest.

Ray earned an M.A. in Writing, with distinction, and a B.A. in English and Secondary Education from DePaul University. He’s been a National Board Certified Teacher for over ten years.

He graduated from a neighborhood Chicago public high school.

His writing aired on National Public Radio and Chicago Public Radio many times. His editorials appeared in the Chicago Tribune and on CNN’s Schools of Thought blog, as well as on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ Web site. He’s also written articles for NPR’s Latino USA, Latino Rebels, and NewsTaco.

Ray is also a powerlifter and an aspiring guitarist.

For thirty years, Ray lived in Chicago’s 26th Street neighborhood. Today, he lives a little more south and a little more west in the city with his wife, son, and daughter.

Photo credit: Rocky Jara @RockyJPhotography on Instagram

The Blog’s Title

This comes from a conversation with another Latino English teacher when we met a few years ago. He said I was the only other Latino English teacher he knew: “We’re white rhinos.”

According to National Geographic, there are about 20,000 southern white rhinos struggling to survive in the wild.

The last male northern white rhino in the world died in March.

Like the animal, Latino English teachers exist in low numbers. And we know the low number of Latinos with college degrees in our city.

Therefore, I have a perspective that, like the white rhino, must fight to exist. The writing here includes my responses, reflections, reactions to Latino- and education-related issues.