Vivett Dukes

Vivett Dukes (nèe Hemans) is in her eighth year as a middle and high school English Language Arts teacher. For her first four years in the DOE, she taught in an all-male, all minority, urban public school in Southside Jamaica, Queens erected for the express purpose of counteracting the pervasive school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately impacts Black and Brown boys. Currently, she is teaching in a College Board middle and high school also in Jamaica, Queens, where the population of students she serves is diversified on cultural, religious and socio-economic planes. During her time as a teacher within the New York City Department of Education she has served as a member of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Teacher Advisory Council 2014-2016 cohort, a classroom lab facilitator with Chancellor Carmen Fariña's Learning Partners Program, grade team leader, inquiry team leader, English Department Chairperson and Bethune Teaching Fellow for the New York Urban League. Currently, in additional to teaching seventh-grade English Language Arts, she serves as a Lead Middle School Quality Initiative (MSQI) Reading Across All Disciplines (RAAD) Literacy Teacher, Advisor for the New York Times' Upfront magazine and Scholastic Inc., educational blogger for New York School Talk, and Co-CEO/Co-Founder of SpeakYaTruth.org and One Voice Online Blog Magazine. She also hosts a bi-weekly #SafeSpaceConvos Twitter chat about issues as the forefront of education. At her core, Vivett is a passionate wife, mom, teacher-leader, keynote speaker, public intellectual, social activist, social advocate, and humanitarian who is dedicated to taking her voice outside of the classroom and into the public arena in an effort to elevate authentic conversations and grassroots changes in educational equity and human rights advocacy.

Posts By Vivett Dukes

Teaching

I Told My Daughter She’d Better Not Become a Teacher Like Me

“Make sure you contribute to the TDA [Tax-Deferred Annuity]!,” I hear. “Teachers retire as millionaires!,” I hear. I listen faithfully and every paycheck a deduction is taken out, set aside for the...

Teaching

As Long as People Continue to Believe There's a Post-Racial America, We'll Never Be Able to 'Keep It Real'

Black people in general advance American culture. When you look at the history of American music, you need look no further than jazz and hip-hop to see that this is true. But aside from music, Black...

Teaching

I Was a Teacher and I Was Homeless

"Whether you broke or rich you gotta get this Havin' money's not everything, not havin' it is." —Kanye West, "Good Life" The World Series is underway and America's favorite pastime is on my mind (Go...

Teaching

Teachers of Color Are 'Great!' as Long as Their Voices Are Not Too Black or Too Strong

Negroes, Sweet and docile, Meek, humble and kind: Beware the day They change their mind! —Langston Hughes I've been getting some pushback about writing as a teacher of color and for focusing on Black...

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