Kevin Greene knows a thing or two about strength, resilience and empathy. After all, he learned about these qualities from his mother.
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Challenged with a learning disability during her grade-school years, Greene’s mom, who later worked in a variety of warehouse jobs for some 30 years, struggled to read and was shamed in the classroom by ill-informed teachers. Vowing to never allow that to happen to her two sons, she channeled this shame into determination, continually stressing Kevin and his brother the importance of education, surrounding them with books and taking them to libraries and scholastic fairs.
“She turned her shame into advocacy,” said Greene, a first-generation Cal State Fullerton grad student who, next month, will receive his master’s degree in reading and literacy education.
“My mother said, ‘Just because I struggled doesn’t mean my kids have to.’ ” The result: a young man with his own strength, resilience and empathy, a professional devoted to those neurodivergent kids lucky enough to be in his classroom.
Greene has had his own challenges. “I’ve been marginalized as a person of color who is African-American and Latino, and as a gay man,” he said. “I’m going to make sure that my students feel welcomed and accepted, knowing that they can come to me for whatever they need, whenever they need it.”
While Greene shared about the future helping neurodivergent students, he’s actually been doing this for years, long before he entered CSUF’s Reading and Literacy Education Department. He’s in his fifth year at Frostig School, a private institution in Pasadena that works with kids with learning disabilities.
He first embarked on his master’s work during his second year at Frostig. While there, Greene discovered that, “The key is to make literacy an experience where children can see themselves in the pages being turned. Children need to see themselves through these books and throughout the teaching process.”
Madeleine Mejia, CSUF associate professor of literacy and reading education, first met Greene when he took her course READ 507: Literacy in the Academic Disciplines. “Kevin is extremely intelligent and dedicated to the profession,” she said. “He is, by far, one of my top students. He’s very thoughtful and intentional in the ways that he’s taking the work that I present — what the research states around literacy and instruction — and he makes them his own, implementing them in his classroom of neurodivergent students. The work created by his kids points to high-quality instruction.”
Greene’s own high-quality instruction is, thanks largely to Mejia, rooted in rigorous academic research. He became involved in a program, Critical Literacy Research Apprenticeship, launched by Mejia last year that teaches grad students, through coursework and mentoring, every element of Institutional Review Board–approved studies. And Greene, a fellow CSUF grad student and Mejia recently attended an American Educational Research Association meeting in Los Angeles.
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In addition, Greene is serving as a co-principal investigator and second author of a Mejia-led study that examines the importance of combining lived experience, classroom study and scholarly analysis to create a more effective classroom experience. The upshot: a doctorate degree is likely looming in Greene’s future.
That doctorate, however, may be on hold for a while. For now, Greene wants to do what he does best: teach and empower neurodivergent students. “I’ve already had a few job offers,” he said. “One is at Frostig West, a sister school of Frostig in Los Angeles, as a reading specialist. A second offer is from another private school in L.A. I’m weighing both offers now.”
Greene’s last course, READ 581: Strategic Interventions for Literacy Specialists: Practicum, included time spent working at CSUF’s Hazel Miller Croy Reading Center. “I learned so much there,” he said. “It’s been the perfect way for me to end my involvement in the master’s program.”
His academic excellence, leadership and commitment to social justice in education hasn’t gone unnoticed, resulting in both the CARR Fellowship Award and the Dr. Greta Nagel Scholarship. “These mean a great deal to me, since they affirm the kind of educator and advocate I strive to be.”
Given all that he’s accomplished, it’s no shocker that Greene has been selected to give a speech at a department reception before CSUF’s College of Education commencement ceremony, on May 18 at Titan Stadium. “This will be a full-circle moment for me,” he said, “and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to speak.”
“I’m just excited to see Kevin evolve as a scholar,” Mejia said, “and I’m thrilled to walk alongside him as he continues to grow and develop.”
“Neurodivergent students are capable of incredible things in this world, as long as they have someone to guide them,” said a fellow likely to one day be known as Kevin Greene, PhD. “That’s been my mission: to be that guide.”
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