Rodney Robinson

Rodney Alexander Robinson (born September 9, 1978) is an American educator. After teaching for over a decade in middle and high schools in Richmond, Virginia, he became a social studies and history teacher for grades 6 through 12 at the Virgie Binford Education Center, located inside the Richmond Juvenile Detention Center. He was named Virginia Teacher of the Year in 2018 and National Teacher of the Year in 2019.

Early life and education Rodney Alexander Robinson was born on September 9, 1978, in Richmond, Virginia. Instead she operated an at-home daycare and worked to get a GED. Robinson remembers "(w)atching her work hard to get her GED when I was in high school [while she worked full-time and raised a family] — that was a lasting memory". Robinson was steered to Virginia State by the assistant principal of his high school who met Robinson after he flipped a desk reacting to a racially derogatory statement by a teacher.

Other activities Robinson is a volunteer coach and officiator for Little League games in the East End community of Richmond. In 2018, he was named Virginia Teacher of the Year and in 2019 he was recognized as National Teacher of the Year. He described his reaction to winning the national award as humbling and noted: "as a black male educator, we're put in this box where we're told to only coach, only deal with difficult kids, only do discipline, and we fight to try to escape that box, and now here I was being chosen to represent all teachers and students in America. It was validating". Robinson planned to use his platform as National Teacher of the Year to advocate for more even funding of schools between rich and poor and to increase the number of minority men who become teachers.