About Corey
Corey Winchester (he/him) is a Chicago-based, Philly-born educator with over a decade of experience serving in various roles as a veteran classroom teacher, professional developer, coach, mentor, coordinator, fellow, consultant, and student.
Corey has worked with several local, state and national organizations such as Breakthrough Collaborative, Northwestern Academy for Chicago Public Schools, Evanston Township High School, Loyola University Chicago, Northwestern University, the Golden Apple Foundation, the Aspen Institute's Aspen Young Leaders Fellowship (AYLF) and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. His stewardship as a Queer Black male educator is attributed to his own learning and growth as he centers his work around developing, creating, and sustaining more humanizing and liberatory learning environments so that individuals like him (namely Black, Brown, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ folks), who have historically experienced and are currently navigating marginalization, can individually and collectively thrive.
He has been recognized as an Excellent Early Career Educator by the Illinois State Board of Education in 2013, a Distinguished Alumni from Loyola University Chicago's School of Education in 2016, received the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2019, and was honored as Illinois History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in 2020. Additionally, he has delivered two TEDx talks, in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in Learning Sciences at Northwestern University seeking to improve his practice as an educator by expanding knowledge in how to manifest and cultivate learning environments for teaching and learning both in school and out of school contexts where all can thrive.
Watch Corey’s TEDx Talk
Let’s connect on LinkedIn:
Learn more
-
• In My Classroom, Storytelling Helped Unlock New Perspectives on Palestine (Truthout, Feb 2024)
• What I Learned From My Students Who Became Teachers (EdSurge, Apr 2023)
• We Must Teach Black History Like Our Lives Depend on It (EdSurge, Feb 2023)
• We Can Build a Better World for Our Students, But Teachers Can’t Do It Alone (EdSurge, Dec 2022)
• Beyoncé Reminded Me That Teaching Is an Art. This Is Why We Must Invest in Teacher Prep Programs (EdSurge, Oct 2022)
• Educators Are Tired. It’s Time to Dream New Possibilities Into Our Schools (EdSurge, Dec 2021)
• Investing in Critical Leadership Development with High-School Students (New Directions for Student Leadership, June 2018)
-
• Teachers Educating Radically (TEDxNorthwestern, April 2019)
• Jealousy Will Get You Nowhere: A Message From Our Ancestors (TEDxLFHS, March 2022)
-
• Paying It Forward (The North Shore Weekend, Feb 2022)
• The Reckoning Is Here (Northwestern Magazine, Winter 2021)
• Golden Apple 2019 Fellow: Corey Winchester (WTTW, May 2019)
• What’s the best way to teach students about slavery (MPR News podcast, Sept 2019)
• Black and Brown Teachers Have a Request: Listen (NPR Illinois podcast, Oct 2019)