Remembering Karen
Karen Cunningham was born in 1966 in Northbrook, IL. Though she only grew to a towering five feet tall, Shakespeare anticipated her arrival among us, noting that “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” With that “fierceness” lodged in her heart, she committed to love of family, friends, colleagues, students, learning, and activism.
Karen loved learning—as a student, teacher, and leader.
Her own school experience was one of belonging and excelling. As a student at Glenbrook North High School she soared and tumbled to become captain of the gymnastics team, learned the value of student community as a peer group leader, discovered the rewards of service as a member of student leadership and SA board. Senior year Karen was named Outstanding Girl, an honor that reflected the admiration and respect student and teachers had for her. She knew the importance of belonging and being affirmed by her community, and she dedicated her career as an educator to making that happen for as many students as possible.
Graduating from GBN in 1984, Karen headed off to the University of Michigan, enjoyed a year abroad in Scotland, and graduated with honors and a degree in English Literature in 1988. In 1990, she received her Master’s in Education and Social policy from Northwestern University and joined the GBN English Department where she would remain for the next thirty-two years. She was more than just an English teacher as she committed herself to being a coach, a Peer Group Faculty Advisor, a Guided Studies Teacher, a staff representative for the Student Assistance Program, a Faculty Leader for Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity program, a New Teacher Mentor, and eventually she became the instructional supervisor for the English Department.
During her time as an English teacher, Karen had the chance to teach every class the department offered. She knew the program from the inside out. She worked to capitalize on its strengths and improve its weaknesses. Quietly, fiercely determined, she also worked to make that program reflect the realities of the world. The content needed to not only provide windows for the students, but mirrors, as well. They needed to both see the world around them, but also find paths to see themselves and others within that world.
Karen’s gift was her presence.
It was important to her that people in her life, and especially students, felt her personal attention, felt that she knew them, and she committed to turning classrooms into communities. Simply put, they needed to know one another’s names. Only when we know one another as equally human can we ask hard questions, challenge accepted injustice, embrace rather than reject difference. She provided her students a living example of the power of learning, of the joys of noticing, of the fulfillment in sharing and connecting. She further empowered her students by making certain that they knew she was learning from them just as surely as they were learning from her.
Those of us lucky enough to have been counted among her friends and family know what it means to be cherished, genuinely to be heard, to laugh so hard together bodily fluids might escape. Her family experienced her as the “glue” that kept them connected to her and to one another. She had a gift for carefully noticing the intricate beauty of everyday nature and marveling at the joys and profound humor of being human. However, Karen also came equipped with what Henry James described as an “imagination of disaster.” The world is full of suffering and cruelty, and that reality weighed on her. She tempered this heartache with the joys of constantly pursuing new learning opportunities.
Lifelong learning is jargon until you see it in action.
Karen read insatiably; pursued opportunities to talk books; relentlessly took courses and attended conferences on curriculum, diversity, critical thinking, poetry; and she traveled whenever possible. She masterminded extended stays in Italy, Costa Rica, and South Africa where she and husband David taught for a year. More recent adventures with family included visits to Peru, Mexico, Southwestern US, and Hawaii. She felt strongly that travel and books open hearts and minds.
Karen was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer in June 2017, just one month after she became Instructional Supervisor for the English Department. She was able to work through her treatment for two more years continuing to highlight issues of equity, social justice, and critical thinking in the curriculum and school culture, before she needed to step away to attend to her health.
On September 20, 2021, Karen Cunningham, deeply loved mother to Lucas and Mateo, wife, daughter, sister and aunt, treasured teacher, admired colleague, and needed friend passed away. Her warm spirit, infectious laugh, and passion for learning remains in the lives of all who loved and admired her.