Meet Maya!

Maya Chavez is a Chicana educator originally from El Paso, Texas. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in history from Boston University, and a Master of Arts in Teaching History/Social Studies from Brown University. 

Maya has a diverse range of experiences working with K-12 learners from multiple cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In college, she worked as a literacy tutor for elementary students in Boston Public Schools. After graduating, she moved to Seoul, South Korea where she spent three years teaching English to elementary and secondary students. She also taught English in a public school in Puerto Varas, Chile.

After completing her MAT, Maya taught for seven years at Dr. Jorge Alvarez High School in the Providence Public School District. While she taught a variety of courses, her primary focus was on developing, teaching, and refining a ninth grade Civics in America course. She also planned and led professional learning sessions on topics, such as blended learning, and culturally relevant teaching. 

When the pandemic began, Maya helped lead efforts to successfully advocate for mitigations, such as mask mandates, to protect students, educators, and families from COVID-19. Her public health advocacy was mentioned in a variety of news outlets, including The New York Times, The 74, and The Brown Daily Herald. 

In addition to teaching in Providence Schools, Maya served as a Fuse fellow and instructional coach at Highlander Institute. She also served as a mentor teacher in the Brown University MAT program for aspiring history/social studies teachers, and taught a graduate-level course in history/social studies curriculum and pedagogy. 

Maya is deeply committed to advancing educational equity, supporting student-centered, culturally relevant teaching, and ensuring that all students and educators have the resources they need to succeed. 

Outside of work, Maya enjoys running, reading, taking photographs, and exploring the city of Chicago. Maya is also a lifelong multilingual learner. In addition to being fluent in English and Spanish, she speaks conversational German, knows basic Korean, and can read 한글 (Hangul.) 

Maya is thankful for all of the students and teachers she has learned from over the years and who have made her the educator she is today.

What is Maya excited to read this summer? 

Structuring Inequality How Schooling, Housing, and Tax Policies Shaped Metropolitan Development and Education. Tracy L. Steffes

I had the privilege of taking Professor Steffes’ urban education policy course at Brown University. Her course was, in the words of Paolo Freire, “a constant unveiling of reality.” I’m looking forward to reading this book, which focuses specifically on the history of structural inequality in Chicagoland. Steffes makes the important point that current education reform efforts largely ignore the impact of structural inequality on educational outcomes, but by understanding the policies people created and wielded to establish and maintain inequality, we can begin the collective work of dismantling these structures and creating a better and more fair society.