BFA and teacher licensure in hand, Winebrenner’s journey next took him to a long-term substitute teaching position at Asheville Primary School, which turned into a permanent role as the school’s visual arts teacher for pre-K through fourth grade students.
“It’s not for everybody,” Winebrenner said. “I have lots of patience. I have lots of love for kids. I have lots of concern for the future of these young people, and I am trying to do my part to make sure that they get started in the best way possible.”
It’s a challenging job, and those challenges were compounded by the pandemic. But Winebrenner’s sense of purpose helps him rise to meet those challenges.
“I honestly give everything that I have, because these kids deserve it,” he said. “They deserve to have amazing futures. They deserve to have the most amazing lives.”
Teaching young children in particular is important to Winebrenner. “My mission is to get to kids young so that I could help to plant seeds in them…I'm planting seeds in hopes that wherever they go, that I've done my part and I have given them the information that they need to be able to make it in this world,” Winebrenner said.
“One of the other reasons that I wanted to work with this age group is because I'm a Black male educator,” he continued. “I wanted to make sure that all of these students—black, white, Asian, Native American, Latino—I wanted to make sure that that they had an opportunity to experience a black male teacher. Not that I'm going to teach every kid in Asheville. I'm not. But I think it's important that I am in this role.”
Showing his students that teachers are “real people,” and not just some figurehead at the front of the classroom, is also important work for Winebrenner. “I'm really open and really honest with students. I stopped a class last week, there was just something that was on my mind. I said, ‘Hey, I don't know if I've told you this lately. But I love what I do. I love that. I get to come over here and hang out with you and be creative. I love my life and I love you.’”
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)