November 20 marks Future Teachers of America Day, but if you ask me (and probably them) teachers should be celebrated a lot more often. They are the guides for the upcoming generations. They are the ones who lay the foundation for your children’s education and, most times, their futures.
Educators deserve more spotlight and credit than they’re usually given. So today we’re going to recognize a few of our favorite celebrities who were once or are still teachers.
Most people know Phylicia Rashad from her on screen roles such as Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show. But she’s also taken on another occupation off screen. She was an acting teacher at the prestigious HBCU Howard University, which also happened to be her Alma Mater. Before his passing, The Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman was one of her students in the 90s. Fast forward to 2021, Rashad was named as the Dean of the University’s College of Fine Arts and still holds that position today.
Jill Scott had plans of becoming an English teacher while studying secondary education at Temple University. Eventually she realized that the role wasn’t feeding her soul. So she quit the teacher training course and is now a 3-time Grammy award-winning artist who fed the souls of her listeners with her jazzy voice.
Before becoming on-screen eye candy, Jesse Williams taught children at under-resourced schools. His experience was mostly with high school students, which was his favorite age group. For him, he felt he could connect the most with those students before they stepped into adulthood. He brings that teaching energy home too. In an 2023 interview with Us Weekly, he said he assigns his daughter Sadie, 11, and son Maceo, 9, his own extra homework outside of their school work. This is to ensure that they comprehend what’s happening around them.
Barack Obama didn’t always just run America. He was also the head of the classroom at University of Chicago Law School for 12 years. He was teaching constitutional law. Starting out he was a Lecturer for four years then became a Senior Lecturer for eight. This came after he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Columbia University. Then later attended Harvard Law School where he graduated in 1991.
Jackée Harry was also working in a classroom before portraying characters on shows like Sister, Sister and 227. She worked at Brooklyn Technical High School as a history teacher for ninth and tenth grade. Despite leaving her job to act, Harry says she actually enjoyed teaching. She told ESSENCE, “That was my first love.”
6. Craig Robinson, 54
Craig Robinson is mostly known as an actor, but he’s also a pianist. He was actually a music teacher at Horace Mann Elementary School in South Chicago before switching lanes to be a comedian and actor. His teaching journey actually began with his mother who was a teacher. Then when he became a teacher, he taught kindergarten through eighth grade.
The late singer Roberta Flack grew up in a musical household. Her mother was a church organist and her father was a jazz musician. So it’s only natural that she inherited some of that musical talent.
She went to Howard on a scholarship at age 15, but before she could enroll in graduate school her father passed away. She returned home to North Carolina and became a music and English teacher. But later moved back to D.C. teaching junior high school and performing music at night clubs.
One of these nights she got discovered and went on to pursue her music career.
Kerry Washington had a more temporary role in the classroom. She was a substitute teacher. Before getting her big break on the film Save The Last Dance, she was filling in for full time teachers at New York City Public Schools.
According to her, “It was a perfect job for an actor because you get a call in the morning saying, ‘We need a teacher,’ and if I had an audition, I wouldn’t go, but if I didn’t have an audition — which was most days — I would go and work in a school.” She told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show that she was also taught yoga and worked in a restaurant.
Al Roker had already made it as a national weather anchor on NBC’s TODAY and a co-host of the 3rd hour of TODAY by 2019. But that year, it was announced that he would return to his alma mater SUNY Oswego, not as a student, but as a teacher. He taught a class about what he knows best, and that is broadcast television. The class was called “Camera Ready: Developing Your On-Air Persona.”
Morrison was 39 when she published her first book and became an esteemed Pulitzer Prize author. Part of the journey to becoming an author included her being a teacher.
She was another Howard alumnus who graduated with a degree in English and got her Master of Arts degree in English at Cornell University. In 1955, she began teaching English at Texas Southern University, before going back to Howard to continue teaching for seven more years.
