Geneviève DeBose Akinnagbe

Geneviève DeBose Akinnagbe is an educator, artist and activist who has taught middle school in Los Angeles (her hometown), Oakland, and the South Bronx for fourteen years. She is a proud National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) who strongly believes that education is a tool for social justice and empowerment and that learning experiences for children should be culturally relevant, student-centered, and interactive.

She returned to the classroom in September 2014 after three years of policy work on the national level. She served as a 2011 U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellow where she supported Middle Grades Reform with a Senior Advisor to Secretary Arne Duncan. From 2012-2014 she was Director of Educator Engagement at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards where she worked to engage and connect the country’s more than 102,000 NBCTs.

Currently she is a Teaching Channel Laureate and a NYC Board Member of the Black Teacher Project. She served as a commissioner on the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future and was featured in Academy Award-winning director Davis Guggenheim’s “The First Year” and “Teach.” Her article “Bringing Cohesiveness to Writing Classes” was also recently published in the April 2018 edition of ASCD’s Educational Leadership.

DeBose Akinnagbe attended the University of California at Berkeley and received a Bachelor of Arts in Ethnic Studies. She also received a Masters of Arts in Education from Berkeley. Her Masters research focused on the role of athletics in the academic achievement of African American high school student-athletes. She received her teaching credential from Mills College in Oakland, California.

She currently teaches 7th grade English Language Arts and serves as a Peer Collaborative Teacher Leader at Bronx Studio School for Writers and Artists in New York City.