A contaminated water scare at a Manhattan public housing development gave high school science teacher Billy Green an idea for a potential lesson — both on chemistry and social injustice.
“‘What is the greatest social justice disaster this city is facing that has to do with chemistry?'” Green, a teacher at A. Philip Randolph Campus High School in Harlem, recalled asking his students on the first day of school last week. “Jacob Riis has arsenic in their water, yet the million dollar condo across the street doesn’t.”
City officials subsequently said the tests were faulty and the water is arsenic-free, but for Green, who teaches mostly Black, Latino and low-income high-schoolers, the lesson remains potent.
“I am now starting a testing project where I want every student to bring me a sample of water from their household,” he said. “Chemistry is the reason we will be able to combat these things. I want marginalized people working on this problem.”
Green’s preternatural ability to connect chemistry to the daily lives of his students is a major reason why he was named New York State’s teacher of the year, according to students, colleagues, administrators and state education officials.
“[Green] understands that for young people to flourish, they need to feel involved, appreciated, and valued,” said Lester Young, the chancellor of the state Board of Regents, which awarded Green the top teaching prize Tuesday. “Many of his students likely see themselves in him, and Mr. Green is a dynamic and caring role model.”
Green, a 19-year veteran in the city Education Department, said his instincts for turning dry academic content into flesh-and-blood lessons relevant to city teens were honed during his experience navigating poverty, homelessness and drugs as a kid in East Harlem and the Bronx while always finding refuge in education.
“I got my PhD from UCLA — the University of the Corner of Lexington Ave.,” Green told the Daily News. “I was born in the crack generation so chemicals were very prevalent in my life… it is very easy for me to see injustice” in both his own life and the lives of his students, he said.
Green found out early on that education could serve as a source of stability and hope during a turbulent childhood.
“At 12 years old I got evicted… at the same time I was dealing with coming out sexually,” Green said. “When everything was falling down in my life… one thing I was always able to confirm was that my academic experience was going to be stable.”
Green also showed an early inclination towards teaching — setting up a mock schoolhouse in abandoned building to offer after school lessons to several of his neighborhood friends.
He attended Williams College with plans of becoming a doctor, but had an epiphany after his mother’s early death that his calling was teaching in the same neighborhoods where he grew up.
Green began working in traditional public schools, but really hit his stride when he took a job educating incarcerated teenagers on Rikers Island.
“Rikers showed me I was a phenomenal teacher,” Green said. “That’s what helped me realize I had something that was very unique to urban education… I had the tools that the elders in my community used to educate me.”
At A. Philip Randolph, the high school he joined last year, Green drew on his wealth of personal experience, but also went out of his way to learn about the lives of students with backgrounds different than his own.
“We usually call him our personal Mr. Worldwide because he makes it his mission to connect our personal experiences and cultures into his classroom,” said Louisa Tetteh, a 15-year-old student at A. Philip Randolph who moved to the U.S. from Ghana in 2019.
“The moment he saw my last name he could just tell I was Ghanaian… that made me feel very included in his class,” said Tetteh.
Rhonda Pekow, Green’s former Assistant Principal, recalled that he went to bat for a group of Muslim students advocating for a prayer room in school.
Green has also devoted his considerable energy and enthusiasm to creating safe spaces for LGBTQ students — a cause that’s deeply personal to him.
Kevin Tavarez, 17, another student of Green’s at Randolph, said Green’s class was not so much a science or chemistry course, but a “a betterment class, it bettered me as a person.”
Tavarez said he’s thrilled Green is getting recognition with the statewide award, but that it pales in comparison to the true measure of Green’s success as a teacher.
“Of course being ranked number one in the state is all well,” said Tavarez. “But if you have such an impact that your students are still thinking of you even after they’ve graduated… I feel like that’s so much better than an award. Mr. Green will live on with us.”
