About Rachel Perry-Haen

Rachel Perry-Haen is an kindergarten teacher in Minnesota's, St. Louis Park Public Schools. She lives, works and plays in the community where her own child goes to school.

Perry-Haen earned her B.A. at the University of Iowa focusing on early childhood education and gerontology and her M.A. at Saint Mary's University. Her teaching experience have ranged from the Amana Colonies of Iowa, Minneapolis and several suburbs. Her experiences as a daughter of two educators growing up in a diverse setting in the private and public schools of Kalamazoo, Michigan, have given her a foundational appreciation for meeting the needs of every child. She waves her own flag for eliminating the racially predictable achievement gap in all schools and seeks ways to experiment with instruction, parent/school involvement, and raising student achievement on a daily basis in her own classroom and school community.

About Bill Stenross

Bill Stenross is proud to teach in the St. Louis Park Public Schools as a 21st Technology Trainer, helping teachers use new technology in their teaching, a school district that is working hard to reduce the achievement gap. He received an AB in Philosophy from the University of Chicago and his MAT in Elementary Education from the National College of Education in Evanston, IL.

His goal with this blog is to help teachers create lessons where cultural awareness is a part of the lesson, rather than the lesson. These posts will hopefully allow teachers to easily integrate cultural aware information into already established curriculum. It will go beyond the "celebrate diversity" and