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Defining a Followship

Fund for Teachers awards grants to individuals and teams of teachers, and one of the most common questions we get is, “What constitutes a team?” The easy answer is “two or more teachers.” For the team from Central Ohio, the answer was “one fifth-grade teacher, a special education teacher, two sixth-grade science teachers, and four…

Blending Craft and Technology

Challenges facing Lora Taylor’s students at STEM School Chattanooga: Advantages for Lora Taylor’s students: Lora Taylor STEM School Chattanooga is a public high school deeply committed to project-based learning that equips students with essential skills for a technology-driven world. At the heart of this learning is digital design and fabrication, where students bring their ideas…

Using Historical Horrors to Face Modern Monsters

According to Monster.com’s article “The Scariest Jobs Ranked by Phobia,” teaching is one of the scariest professions out there. FFT Fellows Allison Friedman (Channel View School for Research – Rockaway Park, NY) and Carmela Gandolfo-Birkel (Baldwin High School – Baldwin, NY) decided to lean into fear – specifically by exploring horror. “Students, teachers, and community…

Collaboration Across the Nation

To reach teachers working in communities across the country, Fund for Teachers partners with local education foundations and philanthropic organizations. Together we market the program, manage and support applicants, conduct selection processes and fund grants. Perhaps our favorite aspect of these collaborations happens each fall, when many of these like-minded organizations host events at which…

Back to the Future via Fund for Teachers

Vincent Pham (The International High School at Prospect Heights – Brooklyn) designed a 2024 Fund for Teachers fellowship to go back and go forward. He spent the month of August in Southeast Asia, researching his heritage to model resilience for students sharing his experiences as a refugee arriving in the United States. The following piece is an amalgamation of…

Paying Peace Forward with Atomic Learning

Today the world remembers the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which took place 79 years ago and resulted in the formal surrender of Japan and the end of World War II. When Ariel Warshaw remembered this pivotal moment in history, she also realized that her viewpoint lacked global perspective, as well as the peace that was catalyzed…

Midsummer’s Teacher Dreams

Half-way through the summer means roughly 50% of our 2024 FFT Fellows have embarked on their self-designed fellowships. Their images and insights, make us even more excited for the rest of the summer… “We dared to dream of a self-guided and personally driven professional development opportunity for the summer of 2024 and Fund for Teachers…

Summer Reading

For decades, summer reading and school year syllabi have included The Great Gatsby, and James Sheridan’s AP English Literature class at Houston’s YES Prep East End Secondary is no exception. This spring, however, his personal experience with the text will far eclipse anything his students could Google related to the novel, the film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, or the Tony-award winning Broadway musical….

Teachers: We’re Hiring

Fund for Teachers’ fellowships are based on the belief that teachers know best what they AND their students need to succeed. We also believe that teachers know best what our organization needs to most effectively support teachers. That’s why we started our Educator Advisory Council (EAC). And that’s why we want you to APPLY for the two-year term/paid opportunity. We are…

Thank You for Paying it Forward

Four years ago, Fund for Teachers decided that because we are about teachers, we wanted teachers’ input about what we do and how. Our Educator Advisory Council (EAC) was the first outcome of that decision. A cohort of FFT Fellows were selected from a competitive application process to inform our programming in the best interest…

Fund for Teachers Announces Innovation Circle Grant Fellows

Following up on last month’s announcement of our newest FFT Fellows, we are excited to announced the 2024 recipients of Fund for Teachers Innovation Circle Grants! These secondary grants were established in 2022 to support FFT Fellows who initially took learning into their own hands through a summer fellowship grant. Led by FFT Fellows, participants…

Print-Ed

Fund for Teachers encourages a holistic approach to designing a fellowship by asking teachers to consider: what is missing from their classrooms and school communities why this grant specifically will address those gaps, and how they and their students will benefit going forward. For Jillian Swinford and Piotr Wojciaczyk (Pulaski International School of Chicago), COVID…

Meet our 2024 Fund for Teachers Fellows

Fund for Teachers has announced our 23rd cohort of grant recipients, bringing our total investment in nearly 10,000 preK-12 teachers to $37,000 million. This year’s FFT Fellows represent our largest percentage of Teachers of Color, 365 public/private/charter schoolteachers from 36 states and the District of Columbia. Meet our 2024 FFT Fellows Fund for Teachers grants…

Solar Eclipse & The Path of Totality

Today is a once-in-a-lifetime event, as he moon passes between Earth and the sun for a total eclipse — the perfect event to capture students’ imagination across math, English and art classes. That’s what FFT Fellow Jerry Hites, thought anyway, when he proposed an Innovation Circle Grant last year. Jerry’s school, Fairport Harding High School…

Teaching Trauma Recovery by Example

“We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present.” This excerpt from New York Times bestseller The…

Innovation Circle Grants | The Next Step for FFT Fellows

Today we open our third year of Innovation Circle Grants specifically for those previously awarded Fund for Teachers grants. Participants dive into one of two topics alongside other FFT Fellows – first individually over the summer, then virtually as a cohort throughout the fall – to create positive change in their classrooms and communities. Based…

“Teachers Like Us” Spy Engaging History of Women

Kicking off Women’s History Month, we share this fascinating fellowship designed by two teachers from Alpine, Texas. “An American woman with a prosthetic leg, a Black woman born into poverty and segregation, and a Sufi Muslim Indian woman facing prejudice, were not satisfied to stand still or conform,” wrote Cory Cason and Renee Parson in…

Celebrating Lunar New Year

In the aftermath of the pandemic, Christine Mitchell’s faith in the goodness of others flagged. She saw the same disillusionment in her students. Their school community is an isolated one, with little diversity in race, culture or worldview. Covid exacerbated this insular attitude and emphasized the social and emotional challenges teens already face. “I felt…