26-05-2025
Illinois Teacher of the Year from Indian Prairie District 204 has hosted dozens of discussions across the state on belonging
Rachael Mahmood has taught at Indian Prairie School District 204 for the past 20 years — the district gave her her first teaching job, she said, and she's worked there ever since.
But her connection to the district goes back a bit further, to when she was in college. She began attending meetings of the district's Parent Diversity Advisory Council, she said, with one of her professors at the time.
That group, which focuses on equity and diversity in District 204, hosted what's called a 'World Cafe' about 15 years back, Mahmood recalls. It became a yearly event, she said, and was what first exposed her to the initiative that would later become the focus of a year-long sabbatical she took as Illinois' 2024 Teacher of the Year.
'I just remembered feeling … agency, feeling belonging, feeling like I had (a) voice as an educator,' Mahmood said.
The World Cafe is a technique 'based on the understanding that conversation is the core process that drives personal, business and organization life,' per its website, and 'a way of thinking and being together sourced in a philosophy of conversational leadership.' The methodology is outlined in a book, 'The World Cafe Book: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations that Matter,' by David Isaacs and Juanita Brown.
According to its website, the basic format is a series of small-group conversations at small round tables, often modeled after a cafe setting. Each round of discussion is started with a question, and individuals are later invited to share insights with the larger group.
Mahmood called it 'a dialogue model' that's meant to solve issues in communities via grassroots conversations.
'It's built on the idea that the collective wisdom to solve any issue in society already exists inside the community,' Mahmood said. 'We just need systems to draw out that wisdom.'
Now, 20 years later, Mahmood has spent the past year hosting these World Cafes at school districts across the state, as part of a sabbatical she was awarded to serve as an ambassador for teachers after being named the 2024 Illinois Teacher of the Year.
Mahmood was named Illinois' Far West Suburbs Regional Teacher of the Year in 2024, which put her in the running for the statewide title, which she was awarded last May. Being selected as Illinois Teacher of the Year comes with a paid, year-long sabbatical to serve as an ambassador for teachers at events and engagements across the state.
District 204 Superintendent Adrian Talley has said Mahmood is the first teacher in the district to be selected for the award, according to past reporting.
Recipients of the statewide award typically give talks across the state about teaching, but Mahmood chose to do something a bit different by hosting World Cafes at school districts across the state.
'There wasn't really a lot of opportunities to collect voice-back from educators,' she said. 'So this was a great way to do that in reverse and say, like, 'I'm not just giving inspirational speeches, but I'm also collecting your stories and your inspiration, your ideas.''
The questions Mahmood asked at the discussions she facilitated were about defining belonging in a school, the strengths of their particular school environment, what challenges exist to feeling a sense of belonging and what action steps can their school take to increase feelings of belonging.
The World Cafes were originally geared toward educators, Mahmood said, but soon districts asked if parents and students could be part of the conversations.
'We are this delicate ecosystem,' Mahmood said. 'It's kind of like all three pieces — the parents or the community, the students and the educators, their sense of belonging is kind of dependent on each other.'
She chose to focus on the feeling of belonging in schools because of her own experiences as a mixed-race student. Mahmood is the daughter of a Russian Jewish mother and an Indian Hindu father, according to past reporting, and grew up around cultural and religious practices from both sides of her family. Indian Prairie's commitment to equity is in large part what informed her interest in working for the district two decades ago when she was first hired, she said.
Now, with her sabbatical ending on July 1, Mahmood said she estimates she's spoken to around 6,000 people through World Cafes — mostly educators, but also some parents and students, and hosted around 50 World Cafe discussions so far. The discussions have taken place nearby at schools in Aurora and Plainfield and at districts downstate, for example.
Throughout the year, she has been compiling surveys from the discussions, which she is providing back to the school districts. She also has plans to write a book or manual with her findings, she said.
In addition to hosting dozens of discussions, Mahmood has also been a part of other events — from speaking at conferences to meeting with government officials to leading fans in singing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' for the seventh-inning stretch at a Cubs game during Teacher Appreciation Week in early May.
The latter event she tried, unsuccessfully, to keep under wraps.
'I was kind of embarrassed because I'm not a great singer,' she said. 'Joke's on me because everyone watches the Cubs game. And so, my phone was blowing up … It was just all over the place. There was no hiding.'
Recently, she's also been preparing this year's winner, East Leyden High School science teacher Víctor Gómez, for the experience of being Illinois Teacher of the Year.
And — though she said she has discussions booked out past the end date of her sabbatical, and will continue her responsibilities through January as a state winner of the Council of Chief State School Officers' 2025 State Teacher of the Year — Mahmood is returning to Indian Prairie next school year.
Before her sabbatical, Mahmood was teaching fifth grade at Georgetown Elementary. Next year, she's back in the district, but in a different position: teaching fourth grade at Builta Elementary.
'Maybe, I'll have some really good guest speakers,' she laughed, as she described coming back to the district.
Mahmood said she's excited to be back, but said she's not sure yet what kinds of changes the past year will bring to her teaching.
'I think that, maybe, most of the changing will be something going on inside my heart,' she said.
In the time she was away from the classroom, however, the world of education has experienced considerable change and uncertainty, from threats to federal education funding to federal investigations into alleged racial discrimination at Chicago Public Schools and the University of Chicago as part of a federal crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Despite the uncertainty, Mahmood believes that the Illinois State Board of Education and Indian Prairie District 204 can weather what's to come. And she hopes the discussion model she's shared can help districts across the state handle any challenges that arise.
'I'm hoping that I've left the communities that I've been a part of with a tool that they can continue to use as they move forward with the uncertainty and they are faced with some real issues,' Mahmood said. 'Maybe they can turn to using a World Cafe and the collective wisdom of their community to help to cope, grapple, support, understand, fix, solve what they're facing in the year to come or the years to come.'
