Alumni Spotlight: Devin Evans
Did Mr. Evans know he wanted to become a teacher from a young age?
“I used to grab chalk from my classrooms and teach my teddy bears on my mom’s steps,” he says. He was also inspired by a litany of fabulous educators - including Ms. West, who made learning engaging, interactive, and fun.
Cut to 2025, and Mr. Evans now teaches English 3 (a world lit curriculum) to 11th graders at Kenwood Academy High School in Chicago Public Schools. He practices a style called “pentecostal pedagogy” modeled by Dr. Chris Emdin, a public speaker, author, and education professor at the University of Southern California. He’s not teaching about religion, but using a style designed to get kids engaged. This means his teaching is filled with passion, call-and-response, and helping students take ownership of their learning. (You can see a video of this on his YouTube channel!)
Mr. Evans studied history and social science education in undergrad at Michigan State, and felt comfortable with theory, but saw that he could use more support with the practice of teaching. So he enrolled in Relay’s Master of Arts in Teaching program in Chicago, graduating in 2018.
“Relay taught me a lot,” he says. “Number one, the power of making sure every student is engaged in the lesson. Also so many practical skills, like classroom management, writing standards-aligned lesson plans, how to differentiate…so many of these skills are just embedded in my practice now. I use the unit-planning template to this day.”
Of course, being a teacher can still be challenging, even with more than seven years of experience. But what keeps him motivated is the mission and vision of his work - seeing all of his students attend college and become leaders in their community.
At the same time, Mr. Evans is building his own leadership skills. He has served as 11th grade team lead and course content lead for world literature, and is also enrolled in the Aspiring Principals Fellowship, jointly run by Teach for America and the University of Illinois at Chicago. In this program he had to lead an “impact initiative”, and he chose to focus on coaching, observation, and feedback as a tool to raise student performance on the English section of the ACT.
After implementing more structured and frequent observations as well as greater team collaboration, the 11th grade teaching team saw their students’ English scores go up from 17.2 to 20 on average from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year on ACT-prep assessments, and the percent of students who scored proficient rose from 59% to 68%. Mr Evans is eagerly awaiting his end of year results!
Of course, the most rewarding work is still seeing students grow. He thinks of one student in particular, who started off the year very quiet and shy. He took her aside and told her that he believed in her. Towards the end of the year, she gave an excellent presentation in front of the whole class - and even told Mr. Evans she is thinking of becoming a teacher herself!
“I saw that with that one small choice, I could impact maybe 100s of other students through her,” he says.
Mr. Evans loves social science and literature because it’s about the human experience. “History is a powerful tool you can use to curate the reality you want for yourself and the future,” he says. “The only way we can change the narrative is by knowing history and saying ‘Let’s try something different.’" In his classroom, he’s helping students gain the skills to chart their own paths for a different future - and he’s building a future of educational leadership and impact for himself.