Sequoyah Wharton

Sequoyah Wharton is an American educator, author, media literacy advocate, and former Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow whose work focuses on visual arts, digital filmmaking, student journalism, culturally responsive education, and global learning. He taught visual arts, digital filmmaking, broadcast journalism, and media communications at Brentwood High School in New York and has participated in educational and policy initiatives involving PBS News Student Reporting Labs, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the United States Department of Energy, and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Wharton was selected as a Top 50 finalist for the 2025 Global Teacher Prize, named an Educator of the Year by Discovery Education, and presented with the National Association for Media Literacy Education's Media Literacy Teacher Award.

Education and research Wharton earned a Doctor of Education from Long Island University in 2020. His dissertation, The Effects of Exposure to Visual Arts Programming on the Academic Outcomes of Secondary Latinx Students: A Causal-Comparative Study, examined the relationship between exposure to secondary visual-arts programming and academic outcomes among Latinx students.

The dissertation was later cited in an article published in Frontiers in Psychology examining the relationships among visual-art activities, family socioeconomic status, parent–child relationships, and adolescent development.

Career Teaching and educational leadership Wharton taught visual arts, digital filmmaking, broadcast journalism, and media communications at Brentwood High School on Long Island. His instructional work incorporated documentary filmmaking, student storytelling, global education, visual communication, and the use of media production to examine social and environmental subjects.

In a 2024 interview published by Pro Tapes, Wharton discussed interdisciplinary media and visual-arts instruction, the challenges of teaching technical and creative skills, and the use of tape as an artistic medium in student work.

Wharton served as headmaster of Long Island University's Scholars Academy in Southampton. The academy was established to provide high-school students with accelerated academic opportunities, enrichment programs, and exposure to college-level study.

He has also taught as an adjunct instructor in higher education. Routledge's biography for The Play Advantage identifies him as an adjunct associate professor at Molloy University and an adjunct professor at Suffolk County Community College.

Media literacy and student journalism Wharton incorporated PBS News Student Reporting Labs and its StoryMaker resources into his teaching. PBS Student Reporting Labs selected him for its September 2023 Teacher Feature, describing him as a digital film, broadcast-journalism, and visual-arts teacher who used journalism and storytelling to support critical thinking, creativity, and global perspectives.

In 2025, he was interviewed on the Global Career Tech Education Podcast about digital storytelling, student voice, media literacy, Indigenous and global perspectives in education, and career and technical education in an artificial-intelligence-driven economy.

He was also among the educators participating in the 2024 PBS News Student Reporting Labs teacher workshop.

PBS NewsHour Classroom selected Wharton as one of its 2023–2024 Invention Education Fellows. The fellowship brought together educators interested in invention, media production, student-centered problem solving, and the development of instructional resources.

In 2025, the National Association for Media Literacy Education presented Wharton with its Media Literacy Teacher Award.

During the institute's invention challenge, Wharton worked on a team that developed and presented a proposed duckweed-based beverage. The project incorporated product development, branding, trademark concepts, advertising, and pitching, and the team received the institute's Best Overall Pitch recognition. The agency subsequently linked to a recording of the session in an article promoting invention education for teachers.

National Academies workshop In June 2026, Wharton participated as an invited practitioner panelist in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop Media Literacy Education for Children and Youth. The two-day workshop brought together educators, librarians, curriculum developers, researchers, program providers, organizations, funders, and policymakers to discuss educational needs and promising practices in media-literacy instruction.

A recording of the practitioner session was subsequently made available through the National Academies' Vimeo channel.

Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Wharton was selected as a 2025–2026 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow. The fellowship is administered through the United States Department of Energy's Office of Science and places experienced kindergarten-through-grade-12 educators in congressional offices and federal agencies. His official fellowship profile lists his placement as the United States House of Representatives.

Routledge identifies Wharton as director of the Empowering Global Educators Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on global collaboration and educator development.

He and Edward Gonsalves are the editors of the forthcoming Routledge volume The Play Advantage: Global and Indigenous Perspectives in Higher Education. Routledge describes the work as a multidisciplinary volume examining play as a pedagogical and knowledge-building practice informed by Indigenous knowledge systems and international perspectives.

Wharton was later recognized as a Long Island School Hero through an initiative of the Long Island Coalition Against Bullying. Newsday reported on the educators and school personnel honored through the initiative.

In 2025, Wharton was selected as one of 50 finalists for the Global Teacher Prize. His finalist profile discussed his use of project-based instruction, documentary filmmaking, digital storytelling, student journalism, global learning, and culturally responsive teaching.

Discovery Education selected Wharton as one of its 2025 Educators of the Year. The organization cited his student-centered teaching, digital storytelling, documentary filmmaking, and development of filmmaking and journalism opportunities for students.

The National Association for Media Literacy Education presented Wharton with its 2025 Media Literacy Teacher Award.