Chance the Rapper honors CPS teachers at inaugural Twilight Awards

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Chicago Public School teachers were among the first educators to be honored by Chance the Rapper at the Twilight Awards.

In the first of three Instagram Live streams, the Chicago native hosted the inaugural award show highlighting talented teachers.

"Today we're focusing on our own teachers here in my own backyard, Chicago," Chance said.

Chance the Rapper exclusively featured four CPS teachers, including Mahmoud Aliamer, a 4th grade math and social studies teacher at Sayre Language Academy.

"I asked them a couple of times on the phone if they had made a mistake," Aliamer said.

The 25-year-old has only been teaching at Sayre for two years.

"I don't think any of that credit goes to me," Aliamer said. "I think a lot of it goes to the other teachers at Sayre, I think it goes to the principal at Sayre, because in a lot of ways, I was the right person in the right place at the right time."

Aliamer, or Mr. Moody to his students, was humbled by the honor and the overwhelming support.

"On the whole, we're learning to be a little more empathetic, we're learning to be a little more understanding and what brings me a little bit of optimism is that everybody is changing in this way," Aliamer said.

Chance also surprised the Chicago teachers' schools with tens of thousands of dollars' worth of donations on behalf of Box Tops for Education.

"It just really breathed life into schools, when you're really trying to be creative and bring new programming to students," said Dr. Folasade Adekunle, principal of Sayre Language Academy.

He wasn't the only Chicagoan honoring educators, though. Former President Barack Obama shared this montage of his video calls of appreciation to CPS teachers.

Chance the Rapper's Twilight Awards are just a precursor of what he hopes will be a larger ongoing awards show honoring teachers across America.