November 3, 2025
By Jenna Fournel, Chief Curiosity Officer
Listen to this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast episode for Jenna’s conversation with Cosby Hunt, Director of Instructional Design at Inspired Teaching and a history teacher at Richard Wright Public Charter School in Washington, DC. Cosby shares his insight into how this current moment can shape what he teaches.
Cosby works with students in the Real World History program, which he started more than a decade ago.
It has always been the case that the politics of the moment—no matter the city, state, or country—help shape what is happening in our classrooms. Whether it is the funding we get for new technology or the standards we teach to, education is inextricable from the outside world.
In this moment, however, for many teachers in the United States and undoubtedly elsewhere around the globe, the influence of that outside world feels increasingly unavoidable. From local politicians to lobbying groups to the federal government, there is no shortage of opinions on and efforts to control what happens inside our schools.
But does that mean teachers need to cede ground? Or are there opportunities to leverage this moment—as chaotic, disruptive, and sometimes scary as it may be—to deepen our students’ understanding of the world and their role within it?
To help us pick apart this question, I recently spoke with my colleague Cosby Hunt. Cosby is the Director of Instructional Design at Inspired Teaching, who, among many other things, created and taught our Real World History program for more than a decade. He is also a long-time history teacher in Washington, DC, currently at Richard Wright Public Charter School. I encourage you to listen to the full conversation on the Hooray For Monday podcast, and I’ve included an overview of several of his insights below.
Two of Cosby’s students earned top honors in the National History Day competition last year.
Use what is happening in your students’ lives to guide or support your classroom’s focus.
Making connections between what your students learn inside the classroom walls to what they see, hear, feel, or are questioning outside of them makes learning relevant and more engaging. In Cosby’s case, the members of the National Guard he and his students encounter on their commute to school each day offer an opportunity to explore issues he otherwise wouldn’t, like authoritarianism and fascism.
A question to ask your students: What are you curious about right now when it comes to politics?
Help students understand the why behind what or how they are learning—and empower them to take a role in shaping these things.
Many high schools in Washington, DC imposed a cell phone ban at the start of this school year. In advance of that decision, Cosby had students reach out to local legislators to lobby for their position on the issue. This activity supported students’ agency, encouraging them to be informed and vocal about the issues that impact their lives, and made tangible a political process they otherwise would encounter only in theory.
A question to ask your students: What are some rules you’d like to change or implement when it comes to your life in or outside of school?
Keep a focus on students’ thinking rather than letting your perspective drive the bus.
While there is a debate around the inherent political nature of teaching vs. classrooms as apolitical spaces, Cosby believes it is possible to avoid the influence of teacher bias if student voice is centered. Teachers can provide content and facts—and then provide the space for students to form their own understanding of that content and discuss where their understanding may differ from that of their peers.
A question to ask your students: What information do you need to help you shape your thoughts and feelings about this issue?
For additional insights, resources, and information on Inspired Teaching teacher and youth programming, subscribe to the Hooray For Monday newsletter!
Hooray For Monday is an award-winning weekly publication of Center for Inspired Teaching, a social change nonprofit organization that champions the power of curiosity and is dedicated to transforming the school experience from compliance-based to engagement-based. Inspired Teaching provides transformative, improvisation-based professional learning for teachers that is 100% engaging – intellectually, emotionally, and physically.
