After teaching for over a decade in middle and high schools in Richmond, Virginia, he became a social studies and history teacher for grades 6 through 12 at the Virgie Binford Education Center, located inside the Richmond Juvenile Detention Center.

It goes back to the equity versus equality argument – give every student what they need, not necessarily what is fair.

[2] Robinson's students at Virgie Binford are normally in his class only for short periods of time, during which he tries to get many of them who are behind academically back on track so they can graduate.

[3] The rules of the detention center limit the kind of teaching he would like to do, making it harder to do project-based learning for instance.

[4] Robinson is a volunteer coach and officiator for Little League games in the East End community of Richmond.

Robinson also liaises with municipal leaders and local colleges "to recruit underrepresented male teachers into the field of education".

Robinson has contributed to the Yale Teacher's Institute in the development of curricula dealing with "race, class, and punishment".

[6] He described his reaction to winning the national award as humbling and noted: "as a black male educator, we're put in this box where we're told to only coach, only deal with difficult kids, only do discipline, and we fight to try to escape that box, and now here I was being chosen to represent all teachers and students in America.