Placing Ourselves on the Mountaintop
Jessyca Mathews is a language arts teacher at Carman-Ainsworth High School in Flint, Michigan, and a racial, environmental justice, and institutional racism activist. In 2017, Mathews was a finalist for NEA’s Social Justice Activist of the Year for her work on the Flint water crisis. Mathews was named Michigan’s Region 5 Teacher of the Year in 2019-20. In 2018, she was named Secondary English Teacher of the Year by the Michigan Council of Teachers of English and received the Samford Award for Most Inspirational Teacher of Michigan. Mathews has a voice in multiple areas of needed change in education. She has been interviewed by USA Today, Time magazine, and MSNBC; participated in protests and community action to speak on behalf of those affected by the Flint water crisis; and written for McSweeney and The Washington Post.