Meet Kaitlin!

Kaitlin Wegrzyn (she/her) received her B.A. in Political Science and M.Ed. in Elementary Education from the University of Notre Dame. She has six years of experience teaching elementary students in Biloxi, MS, Washington, DC, and Chicago, IL, and three years of experience teaching preservice teachers at the University of Georgia. She recently completed her Ph.D. in Educational Theory and Practice from the University of Georgia. Her research centers on how fifth-grade children respond to texts and conversations about racism.

Kaitlin’s WHY is that she believes in the power of culturally responsive, inquiry-based social science instruction to position students as agents of their own learning and to elevate their voices in imagining a more just society.

After work we can find Kaitlin running by the lake, boxing, dancing, and reading realistic fiction.

This school year, Kaitlin wants to grow in my understanding of enacting social science instruction with multilingual learners.

What is Kaitlin excited to read this summer? 

Ghosts in the Schoolyard by Eve Ewing

This book explores how systemic racism has been built into institutions and public policies in Chicago, including public education. Dr. Ewing illustrates the harmful racist discourses around Black children and their schools on the South Side of Chicago and the corresponding policies by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to close an unprecedented number of schools. I am hoping to learn more about the history of systemic racism in Chicago and how people have resisted that racism.