Kass Minor
Human Teacher. Fierce, warm includer. Searching mind, soul-to-earth type person. Educator.
Meet the Minors
Meet the Minors
What does it mean to hold the line in our current reality, where the freedom to teach and to learn is deeply complicated by policies.
Kass Minor is a teacher educator and learning strategist who is deeply involved in local, inquiry-based teacher research and school community development. Her current research focuses on teachers’ becoming, humanistic pedagogies, and the secular-spiritual dimension of teachers’ work. She is the author of Teaching Fiercely: Spreading Joy and Justice in Our Schools and Co-Founder of The Minor Collective, a community-based organization that works to develop sustainable, equitable change across school ecosystems. While she has worked in numerous capacities in partnerships with The City University of New York, The University of Chicago, Teachers College, The Author Village, and the New York City Department of Education, classroom teacher has been her most coveted role. Kass reads books like other people listen to albums, and the classroom is her concert space, and her pedagogy is centered in joy from the communities that surround her and motivated by the idea that every adult can teach, and every student can learn. Teacherhood, paired with motherhood, has driven her love of information sharing and redefining who gets to be a knower in the fiery world we live in today.
Kass firmly believes that teachers are compelling people, and her research corroborates this idea! Kass’ current research is centered on teachers’ becoming–the intimate connection across time between who we are, the work we do, and the world we live in. Her work considers what it means to “be human” and to cultivate the teacher work educators care about most in an educational landscape filled with competing expectations. Findings show that to “be human” in education spaces means to lean into our adaptive, critical, responsive, and growth-oriented capacities. For many teachers’, becoming is spirited–motivated by “found beauty” in classroom aesthetics- the synergistic, shared student-and-teacher learning characterized by nurturance, care, joy and love. Spirited becoming is sustained by an extension of grace–the radical acceptance of human flaws and human error, the right to rest, forgiveness, and prioritized care.
Within all Kass’ consulting, coaching, teaching, and speaking that supports teachers, school leaders, and kids, the multi-faceted nature of what it means to “be human” is considered and applied to her work.
Kass has worked with hundreds of teachers and schools throughout the world to develop curriculum that is student centered and standards-based. Additionally, her extensive background in inclusive and special education allows her to address the varied spectrum of students’ learning needs with care, attentiveness, and sound instructional design. With Kass, teams of teachers have engaged in curricular analysis and audits, lesson study, and appreciative inquiry to create learning experiences that make space for all students’ learning, and all teachers’ capacities.
The “power” of a classroom community has many parts-from the students to the teachers, to the curriculum to the environment, from the routines and the rules, and from the mandates to the community’s needs. As teacher, as consultant, and as caregiver, Kass has learned to work with all different partners through many different perspectives; combing the ecosystem of school and a classroom with a keen eye and vision-driven education. With Kass, learn to develop a classroom aesthetic where everyone can learn to see, feel, and experience the beauty of teaching and learning.
Kass has worked with multiple schools and districts to create meaningful partnerships between home and school, growing shared culture, understanding around learning resources, as well as engaging in rich literacy practices. Additionally, she has served on her own children’s school’s School Leadership Team!
With Kass, work to develop action-oriented community groups who study together, take action, and change how families and school work together to center children and educators’ humanity; especially their learning and their joy.
Minor, K. (2025, September 1). Fierce pedagogy: blueprints for a better future. Voices in the Middle, 33(1)
Minor, K. (2024, May 1). Increasing the psychic rewards of teaching. Educational Leadership, 81(3), https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/increasing-the-psychic-rewards-of-teaching
Minor, K., & Harden, M. (2020). Love as a qualifier: Building literacy culture across a school. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 64(2), 127–133. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1091
There are pedagogies of joy and love that live deep within the heartbeat of a community. Sometimes they show up in school, and sometimes they do not. I see my role as a former teacher, present parent, and forever learner to surface and center that joy and love with educators, families, and most of all-kids! With books, with art, with inquiry, communities get to work towards more just schools: redefining and remaking school that is radically pro-kid, joyous and loveful.
Most recently, along with her partner and husband, Cornelius Minor, she has established The Minor Collective, a community-based movement designed to foster sustainable change in schools. Within the past three years, The Minor Collective has worked with multiple cohorts of schools across all grades and community sectors in New York City, nationally, and globally. TMC constituencies include parents, teachers, school leaders, and especially, students, to redefine what it means to develop affirming, welcoming school culture and instructional practice through the lens of racial justice, decolonization, and liberation. She is also a proud member of author-educator collective The Author Village.
Growing up in a military family, Kass got used to moving a lot, going to the dentist for free and making something out of nothing. Her early nomadic lifestyle exposed her to intersectional ways of life, and her family’s resourcefulness provided a blueprint for reshaping, reimagining, and rebuilding structures that do not yet exist. Kass facilitates critical conversations for rebuilding school communities through the use of art, youth culture, storytelling, and inquiry, leading communities to fresh perspectives and the unlearning of old habits—making ways for loveful pedagogies to persist in the realm of teaching and learning.
Kass reads books like other people listen to albums, and the classroom is her concert space. While Kass’s organizing work in school communities is inspired by her NorthStars Myles Horton and Fannie Lou Hamer, her pedagogy is centered in joy from the communities that surround her and motivated by the idea that every adult can teach, and every student can learn. Teacherhood, paired with motherhood, has driven her love of information sharing and redefining who gets to be a knower in the fiery world we live in today.
These days, you’ll find Kass rekindling her inner-child through ongoing experiments in urban gardening with her two daughters, curating numerous at-home libraries (different ones-full of tea, recipes, and yes, books!), and designing jewelry for her own brand (HumanMuseStudio!), in the company of her fluffy Siberian cat, Boris, and her husband, Cornelius, in Brooklyn, New York.
Kass Minor has a powerful way of keeping equity, love, and reflection at the center of her work. She moves with integrity and a deep commitment affirming the humanity of all children. Whether it is through her publications or curriculum design, Kass pushes educators to examine their own beliefs, biases, and practices. She has extensive experience in nurturing partnerships among educators and school communities while navigating a range of lived experiences and perspectives.
Kisha Howell, Doctoral Candidate, Owner of Bold Hues
Teachers College, MA; Founder of The Harambee Collective
