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Conducting Dialogues

One could say that Harriet Tubman founded the Black Lives Matter movement. After escaping from a Maryland plantation in 1849, she helped establish the Underground Railroad and became its most renowned “conductor.” Almost 170 years later, Houston students take their own Tubman-inspired trek during school-wide “Freedom Nights.” Students from Quail Valley Elementary and Burton Elementary…

Our Executive Director’s 2017 Reflection

We all remember a teacher who touched our lives. No matter how old you were or what they taught, I guarantee that our favorite teachers shared common traits… • They believed in us. • They believed we could be better and do more. • They challenged us. • They brought passion, purpose and joy to…

A Year of Learning, One Fellowship at a Time

It’s the New Year’s Eve song most of us mumble through, but the English translation of “Auld lang syne” is “times gone by.” Looking back over the year in fellowships, our grant recipients spent their time actively pursuing what they determined will best impact student achievement. Specifically, 546 prek-12 school teachers completed fellowships on 6…

Inquiring Students Want to Know…

So where does our cafeteria food come from? Lu Ann Carey’s father grew peaches for most of his life and, at 84, still operates a fruit truck offering fresh produce to his community. Lu Ann inherited his passion for agriculture and has for 15 years engaged students in sustainable gardening at Bradley Central High School…

Teachers of the Year Share End of Year Thoughts

Three exceptional FFT Fellows made time amidst grading tests and hosting classroom parties to share with us their year in review. Sydney Chaffee spent 2017 on sabbatical from Boston’s Codman Academy Charter Public School to represent the Council of Chief State School Officers as the National Teacher of the Year. In 2011, she used her…

Refugee Children & Brooklyn Students Find Commonalities Through Art

Thank you, Amie Robinson, art and special education teacher at PS77 in Brooklyn, NY, for sharing your fellowship story with us. Last summer, Amie researched the impact of sketchbooks as communication tools among displaced youth and non-native language learners at a refugee camp in Greece. She’s now incorporating this experience into an alternate assessment social…

Pearl Harbor Day Re-Remembered

I teach Japanese as a foreign language to elementary and middle school students, many of whom come from immigrant families. Some families are from Central and South America, some from the Caribbean Islands, and others from Southeast Asia. I share this heritage. I grew up in Japan. My mother is sansei (third-generation Japanese American) from…

FFT Fellow’s Best Seller Makes Bill Gates’ Top 5 Reads

Bill Gates just released his suggestions for holiday reading, and FFT Fellow Thi Bui made the list! This gorgeous graphic novel is a deeply personal memoir that explores what it means to be a parent and a refugee. The author’s family fled Vietnam in 1978. After giving birth to her own child, she decides to…

A Crusade of a Different Color

On this day in in 1095, Pope Urban II called all Christians in Europe to war against Muslims and regain the Holy Land, beginning the first of nine crusades. Two Chicago Public School teachers/Fund for Teachers Fellows have set out on a related, conciliatory quest rooted in culture. We share their student impact below… Sounds…

Happy Veteran’s Day!

Happy Veteran’s Day! In honor of our favorite veteran (and FFT founder, Raymond Plank) and all those who served, we proudly share several FFT Fellows’ pursuit of learning that introduces the next generations to those who helped secured their freedom: Chicago teacher Dan Lundak, who retraced his grandfather’s participation in the D-Day invasion to give students a…

World Science Day for Peace and Development

Per a proclamation by the United Nations, today is World Science Day for Peace & Development – an apropos time to highlight the fellowship of Emily Hart, chemistry teacher at KIPP NYC College Prep High School in the Bronx. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) celebrates this day in order “to underscore the role scientists play in…

Lighting Up STEM Learning

Pam Ulicny’s students are capturing lightening in a bottle. Using solar energy kits and curriculum she created, students in the heart of coal country are bringing photovoltaic energy to peers around the world through online tutorials. In 2013, Pam developed a STEM curriculum for her students to make solar powered lanterns using an upcycled glass…

FFT Fellow Receives EL Education’s Highest Honor

Congratulations to Lindsay Slabich, founding teacher at the Springfield Renaissance School in Springfield, MA, who just received EL Education’s 2017 Klingenstein Teacher Award and its $5,000 cash prize. Voted on by peers within EL Education’s national network of schools, the Klingenstein Award is given to the teacher who most successfully transmitted to students the essence…

Monumental Learning

[minti_spacer height=”25″] As a second grade teacher at Southlake Elementary in Oklahoma City, Shannon Cross is charged with teaching events, symbols, landmarks, holidays and historical figures associated with American History. She scoured the web, library books and You Tube for interesting resources, but found little age-appropriate information that would also interest a fidgety seven year old. After…

Researching Human Rights Education Where Gandhi Pursued It

by Jamilah Pitts | Harlem Village Academy High School – New York, NY As a product of urban schools and a first-generation college student, I have spent my professional career working to secure and foster better educational opportunities for students of color in urban schools. I have spent the past four years working as a…

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Miles and Miles of Math

by Alyson Parenteau Science Technology Magnet High School | New London, CT As a math teacher, the most common question my students ask is, “When am I ever going to use this?” In response, I’ve organized Making Math Career Connections days, when community members come into the classroom and tell us how they use math…

Introducing Mexican Arts into a Cultural No Man’s Land

As Hispanic Heritage Month draws to a close, we share the fellowship of Jeannie O’Meara, teacher at Saint Adalbert Elementary School in South Bend, IN. With her Fund for Teachers grant, Jeannie completed a Spanish Language Immersion Program at Academia Hispano Americano in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, to inspire, resonate with and teach the…

Research In the Florida Keys

In 2014, Mike Monteleone (Delsea High School – Franklinville, NJ) used his Fund for Teachers grant to conduct marine biology, ecology and marine research in the Florida Keys. He took the time to share his thoughts on that experience, its impact on students and Hurricane Irma’s role in demonstrating how science is a verb. My…