Mark Robinson

As a teacher for nearly 26 years, Mark Robinson has compiled an impressive list of accomplishments in the field of education. Throughout his career, he has taught World History, US History, Western Civilization, World Geography, Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry. He currently teaches at St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque, where he has taught since 1998.

Mark faces two different challenges in his work: a lack of professional development and convincing students and parents that “history is not merely a collection of facts to be memorized and then regurgitated verbatim on a test.” However, Mark has taken advantage of professional development opportunities from Liberty Fund and the Bill of Rights Institute, and he is doing his best to show his classes that history is “an ongoing conversation about great ideas like liberty and justice.”

Mark was selected as a 2017 Golden Apple Fellow for his work in the classroom, which he considers his proudest achievement. “To be recognized by my peers for excellence in teaching is a tremendous honor,” he recalls.

Mark is also extremely proud of the work he completed in transforming the World History curriculum at St. Pius X High School. “Rather than continue to rely on a traditional textbook,” Mark states, “We created our own collection of secondary essays and primary source excerpts. We could then truly have a course organized around the discussion of great ideas rather than simply demand that students memorize a collection of facts.”