Ryan Parker Pedagogy

About

Ryan Parker's mission is to disrupt oppressive legacy embedded in educational spaces and to influence and empower educators and youth to also engage in the disruption.  

Parker’s 20 year career in teaching has been dedicated towards challenging United States education norms, reimagining what school looks, sounds and feels like through a justice lens, and applying that reimagination to his own pedagogy while influencing and supporting other educators in doing the same.

A youth empowerment activist and a Connecticut school district Race & Equity Coordinator who presents regularly at education conferences and various schools and universities abroad, Parker’s work focuses on race in education, the power of hip hop pedagogy and the necessity of centering Black and Brown youth amplifying their lived experiences, voices and brilliance! As the 2019-2023 Poet Laureate of Manchester, CT and the coach of the Manchester-based youth spoken word poetry slam team PaperVoices, Parker's work as a poet, educator and activist extends outside of the walls of any school building. 

In addition to his work as an educator, Parker is a hip hop artist/poet, author, husband, father, brother, mama’s boy, chocolate chip cookie lover and was named as the 2020 Peace Hero of Connecticut and 2022 CT Community Kindness Hero. 

Parker's most recent book and collection of poems are centered on the necessary narrative of Black Joy and excellence that co-exists with the trauma narrative that so often dominates the focus in relation to Black minds and bodies.