Changemaker Profile: Cat Lum
Cat Lum is a passionate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion facilitator with experience teaching and training hundreds of students and adults. For six years, Cat worked at the Uncommon Schools Network in multiple roles. As an AP History Teacher and Co-Department Chair, she developed new curriculum and increased the rigor and alignment of history classes in the network across 50 schools and 6 regions. As an Instructional Coach, Cat worked with new teachers to develop the confidence and skills needed to manage students with purpose, not power.
As a D,E, &I specialist, Cat founded the school's Confronting History to Change History programming for staff and teachers. These trainings pushed individuals to consider actionable ways to adopt anti-bias and anti-racist practices. The sessions also focused on creating open lines of communication between individuals of diverse identities in order to better serve the students and community. Cat’s commitment to social justice, education reform, and equity inform and drive her work. As a teacher, she discovered her passion for engaging students by helping them draw connections between class and their own identities. One such highlight was analyzing lyrics from Hamilton, working with students to craft their own, and then taking them to see it live on Broadway! Cat holds a B.A. in Theater and American Studies from Wesleyan University and an M.A. in Teaching from Relay Graduate School of Education.
As a D,E, &I specialist, Cat founded the school's Confronting History to Change History programming for staff and teachers. These trainings pushed individuals to consider actionable ways to adopt anti-bias and anti-racist practices. The sessions also focused on creating open lines of communication between individuals of diverse identities in order to better serve the students and community. Cat’s commitment to social justice, education reform, and equity inform and drive her work. As a teacher, she discovered her passion for engaging students by helping them draw connections between class and their own identities. One such highlight was analyzing lyrics from Hamilton, working with students to craft their own, and then taking them to see it live on Broadway! Cat holds a B.A. in Theater and American Studies from Wesleyan University and an M.A. in Teaching from Relay Graduate School of Education.