![]() ![]() He’s been featured in People and Cosmopolitan and was publicly lusted over by the former talk show host Wendy Williams. Steal Your Grandma, a moniker he received in the summer of 2016, after photos of him went viral, trending along with the hashtag that would become his nickname. Outside the classroom, Randle is best known as Mr. He’s not just a celebrity to his students, he’s also one of the most successful social media influencers of his generation, a leading member of the “grandfluencers,” a group that is, according to the New York Times, “sharing a new vision for what it means to live meaningfully with age.” Randle in his elementary school classroom. Randle also enjoys going on talk shows, walking runways, and interacting with his 650,000-plus Instagram followers. What the bio didn’t include-but what most everybody in the school knew anyway-was that Mr. ![]() Randle enjoys cooking, traveling, movies, exercising, and spending time with his two grandchildren.” ![]() Over the door, a short bio informed all who entered that “Mr. But even that looked fly, and Randle’s appearance felt incongruous with the kitschy, handmade butcher paper posters that adorned the faux-wood walls. The only part of his outfit that seemed vaguely teacherlike was the candy-striped red apron tied around his waist, with a convenient front pocket to store pencils, pens, and dry-erase markers. He wore slim-cut designer jeans and a form-fitting red polo, accessorized with a tweed newsboy cap and brown leather shoes. It didn’t hurt that Randle looked as if he’d walked right out of a fashion magazine and exuded a charm and sense of self-possession that could captivate all ages. When he hollered, “I need everybody to pay what?” he was met with a resounding “attention!” When he said, “Today is April 26, two thousand and what?” there was a chorus of high-pitched “twenty-twos.” It was a classroom full of aspiring teacher’s pets. Randle commanded the room, thanks to one of the staples of his teaching style, a remarkably effective use of call-and-response. It was a Tuesday morning in late April, and the sixty-year-old Randle was teaching math at a southeast Houston elementary school, as he has most weekdays between August and May for the past 25 years. Some even rose to their feet, propelled by anticipation. They wiggled in their seats and pumped their arms. It was a big day: the students were finally learning their multiplication tables, and the excitement inside the portable classroom was palpable. “Oh my God, have you been waiting for this?!” Irvin Randle asked his second graders. ![]()
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