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Turning Students into Montessorians

Honoring Maria Montessori’s Birthday by Carrying on Her Vision Happy (belated) birthday to Maria Montessori, born on August 31,1870, and founder of the eponymous learning style characterized by independence and freedom within limits. Two teams of teachers used liberty afforded by Fund for Teachers to design fellowships that further enhanced early childhood education informed by…

Queen of the Jungle

Yesterday was National Wildlife Day, created in 2005 and carried forward in the memory of animal lover and conservationist Steve Irwin. Irwin sought to educate the public, especially children, about conservation and endangered animals. FFT Fellow Leanne Mortell and her fellowship in South Africa perpetuates his dream. A kindergarten teacher at Bluff Elementary School in…

Silencing Students’ Inner Critics

Kate Moore (Citizens of the World Charter Schools – Kansas City. MO) used her Fund for Teachers grant to explore at a Creativity Workshop in Reykjavik, Iceland, the concept of creativity. Her goal in attending was to support diverse thinkers and learners and implement strategies to help students, staff and the community hone creativity despite…

If These Walls Could Speak

On the final day of their fellowship, Alice Laramore and Kat Atkins-Pattenson shared with us their reflection on a four-week, 9,000 mile road trip along the United States/Mexico border exploring language arts, visual arts, immigration and identity. Thank you, Team Paredes Que Hablan (or Walls That Speak) for sharing your experiences and hope for future…

Learning New Steps

While many schools are forced to eliminate access to the arts, Franklin Elementary Fine Arts Center in Chicago was established to integrate artistic talent with academic success. Dance teacher M.K. Victorson designed her Fund for Teachers fellowship around intensive teacher workshops that would help her rewrite her existing curriculum, focusing on creative dance, multicultural dance,…

Reader, I Studied Her

Charlotte Brontë, who sent her Jane Eyre manuscript to a London publisher on this date in 1847, wrote, “Your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.” This summer, Amanda Kingston (Odyssey Leadership Academy – Oklahoma City) used her time (and a Fund for Teachers grant) to research…

Teachers Looking for Troubles

This weekend marks the 48th anniversary of Ireland’s Battle of the Bogside, a riot between Protestants and Catholics that initiated a three-decade conflict known as “The Troubles.” FFT Fellows Saul Fussiner and David Senderoff (New Haven Academy – New Haven, CT) are currently in Ireland researching this period of history and share their experiences below… We…

The Politics of Music

As tensions heated up this summer between Russia and the United States, Kathy Morse served as a self-appointed ambassador of education, researching the arts in St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Moscow. She returned to ACES Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School in Hamden, CT, with insight into how the arts plays such a vital role in Russia’s past and…

International Day of the World’s Indigenous People

August 9th marks the first meeting of the United Nations’ Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982 and the occasion designated by the UN General Assembly for honoring 370 million Indigenous People living across 90 countries who remain subject to political, economic and social oppression. Indigenous People are defined as ethnic groups originally in a…

Climate Change from A (activism) to Z (Zanzibar)

Supriya Kotagal reclaimed her time in an airport to send us these beautiful images and update from her fellowship. Supriya used a Fund for Teachers grant to explore the methodology and best practices of community-based efforts in the Maldives and Solomon Islands to mobilize youth in island nations and Brooklyn confronting climate change. “My hope,”…

HBD to JKR!

Happy birthday to J.K. Rowling, who brought the magical world of Harry Potter to readers of all ages! Last month, we sent two Fellows off on their Potter Trail journey. We’ve checked in with them to learn more about the author’s inspiration for her beloved books and how the librarians Vilma Martinez and Christina Stark…

Teaching Minority Students Environmental Advocacy

Frank Mangan and Brandon Hubbard-Heitz (The Howard School – Chattanooga, TN) are assessing the past and present effects of people’s interaction with the Alaskan wilderness to empower students to embark upon future conservation work in their contexts. You can follow their learning on Twitter and read more about their adventure below… “Late in life, noted…

Get on the Bus, Gus

Think The Magic School Bus meets a bookmobile and you have the classroom on wheels changing students’ lives in Chattanooga, TN. Brittany Harris (2013 FFT Fellow) and her colleague Colleen Ryan re-purposed and “tricked out” a short school bus they now take to students’ homes on the weekends to extend lessons and connect with working…

Erosion of Land & Educational Philosophy

As I think about my teaching practice, I believe it is important to provide my bilingual second grade students with a well-developed and engaging science curriculum. I recently read a study that showed only 10% of workers in science and engineering fields were African-American or Latino. As a teacher of students who are 98% Latinos,…

FFT Fellowship Inspires New Graphic Novel

Congratulations to FFT Fellow Thi Bui, newly published author of The Best We Could Do, which chronicles her family’s escape from Vietnam and resettlement in America during the 1970s. A teacher at Oakland International High School at the time of her grant, Thi had never attempted comics before her fellowship. With books such as Maus…

Teachers Helping Teachers

I teach high school Spanish, serve as chairman of the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY) and am an FFT Fellow. All three of these roles converged in December when I co-led a group of 50 Connecticut FFT Fellows in a one-day workshop asking the post-fellowship question, “What’s Next?” NNSTOY is a…

FFT Fellow Publishes Book on Survivor’s Story

Amy McDonald (Shades Valley High School – Birmingham, AL) recently sat beside Max Steinmetz at Temple Emanu-El, signing books and greeting visitors at an event hosted by Birmingham’s Holocaust Education Center. The two are old friends and partners in educating the next generation about the Holocaust, but on this day, they are author and subject…

Clear Your Mind, And the Rest Will Follow

Today mark’s the third annual Mindfulness Day, but an increasing number of FFT Fellows use their grants to incorporate mindfulness into EVERY school day. Deborah Howard and Judith Fitzgerald (Naubuc Elementary – Glastonbury, CT) spent a week this summer at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, MA. “When we arrived at Kripalu,…