When Julian Middle School teacher John Colucci, 29, found out he’d been selected as a finalist for Illinois Teacher of the Year, he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.
“I’ve been wracking my brain thinking about why they selected me,” Colucci said in a recent phone interview. “I didn’t get into teaching to be showered with praise. I think I’m just like any other teacher out there who cares about their kids.”
Colucci, a native of River Forest, said he learned about the honor over the summer, a few weeks before school started. He was at the beach when he got a call from Julian Principal Todd Fitzgerald, who told him the news.
Nominated by staff members at the Oak Park Education Foundation (OPEF) and his colleagues at Julian, the language arts teacher was lauded for passionately cultivating each student’s voice, among other qualities that endear him to co-workers and community members.
One of Colucci’s signature achievements within District 97 is his role in creating the spoken-word programs at Julian and Brooks middle schools. He collaborated with the OPEF to implement the programs.
“I wish I’d known about spoken word earlier,” Colucci said. “I went the athletic route. There are students who need a voice early and who need to be writing poetry. I’ve dedicated a lot of my time to getting that program off the ground.”
Dan Sullivan, a spoken-word artist who earlier this year was a part-time poet-in-residence at one of the middle schools through the spoken-word program, reinforced Colucci’s point during an interview with Wednesday Journal last January.
“I think, at their ages in particular, the students are just beginning to define themselves and to speak out about who they are,” Sullivan, 33, said. “There aren’t a lot of platforms for them to get up in front of a group of their peers and say, ‘This is who I am.’ When they get that opportunity, they light up.”
Colucci said much of his teaching is informed by the River Forest-Oak Park area.
“Having grown up here, you don’t realize what a cool place this is until you go away,” he said. “I’m always trying to work into my curriculum why Oak Park is such a special place. Going off to college and realizing, ‘Wow, there’s only one black kid in my dorm? I didn’t grow up like this.’ When you have the opportunity to sit in the same classroom and breathe the same air as a kid who is different than you, who didn’t grow up like you … that makes what I do all the better.”
That, and a certain kind of attentiveness that Colucci says is another characteristic of his teaching.
“I would say that I’m an advocate for all my students,” he said. “I’m all about learning their names by the first week. I take the time to do that. Little things like that make kids realize you care about them and want them to learn.”
The winner of the Illinois Teacher of the Year award will be announced at a banquet in Normal on Oct. 22.
In a recent statement, D97 Superintendent Carol Kelley said the whole district will be rooting him on.
“John is an outstanding teacher who is truly deserving of this prestigious honor,” she said. “His strong commitment to education, passion for learning and tireless advocacy for children have had a profound and lasting impact on his students both in and out of the classroom.”
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com