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Voting on History

On this Election Day, we’re focusing on a different type of vote, one conducted by students at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies. Inspired by their teachers’ fellowship in Mexico, seventh graders explore colonialism, feminism and the indigenous history of Mexico to vote on whether the female translator and daughter of an Aztec chief was…

2021 Grant Application Opens Today

We believe that now more than ever teachers need opportunities to look beyond limitations to enrich their practice and engage students in new ways. Therefore, we are very excited to announce that Fund for Teachers will extend 2021 grants to a new cohort of teachers. For the upcoming summer, Fund for Teachers grants will cover…

A Cycle of Embracing Risk

Fund for Teachers fellowships are about igniting teacher learning. Giving teachers the freedom to design experiences they deem relevant is tantamount to them pressing the “refresh button” and subsequently results in more authentic learning for students. For both teachers and students, FFT grants facilitate transformation that we’ve distilled into six categories. Today we share the…

Fellow Friday: Leading With Her Learning

Andrea Barela is a two-time Fellow who continues to give back to Fund for Teachers, this time as a member of our new Educator Advisory Council. In this role Andrea, with a small group of Fellows, helps guide emerging programming that provides continual resources beyond a teacher’s summer learning experience and lifts up their voice as a collective of…

Charting a Course Forward – Part II

Last week, we shared about The Ramsden Project, our network of Fund for Teachers Fellows across the world who are bringing their bold discoveries into their classroom and communities. This community will provide continual resources beyond a teacher’s summer learning experience and lift up their voice as a collective of trusted professionals who can lead their own professional growth and…

Turning Columbus Day Into Indigenous Peoples Day

Turning ideas into action is nothing new for Tracey-Ann Lafayette. As a student at the University of Connecticut, she founded Leaders in Diversity within the Neag School of Education after recognizing that students from underrepresented backgrounds lacked a support system. Upon earning her Masters in Education and beginning her career at Robert J. O’Brien STEM…

Facts > Stereotypes

On this day in 1877, Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce people surrendered to the U.S. Army on the Bear Paw Battlefield after a 1,300 mile retreat — an event previously unknown to Jenn Raub and Sara Griffith‘s US History students at East Lyme High School in East Lyme, CT. Last summer, they journeyed across…

Charting a Course Forward

We know you are wondering about the status of 2021 FFT grants. So are we. What we do know is that 2020 Fellows’ grants are deferred to 2021 and we are dedicated to making experiential learning happen for as many teachers as possible. Check back on November 1 for our 2021 plans and check out…

Better Together

One’s Fund for Teachers experience does not end with the fellowship, that’s actually the beginning. More than 9,000 public and private school teachers, preK-12, form one of the most powerful cohorts of teachers in the country. Connecting our Fellows for amplified impact is becoming an even larger priority for our organization and one aspect of…

Fellow Friday | Crafting a Mindset

The flatlands of Oakland — where most of my students live — have often been described as a war zone. Nearly every student of mine has lost at least one family member, classmate or friend to gun violence. My students face discrimination for their race, gender, country of origin, religion, immigration status, and usually a…

Circle Up, Fellows

Circles are a powerful metaphor for our Fund for Teachers learning experiences. If you imagine a group of people standing in a circle, the shape itself is an equalizing force – no one person is in front or behind. Instead, everyone stands on equal footing. Fellows will take the lead, facilitating the circle and sharing…

Fellow Friday – Social Emotional Skills for Learning & Life

Chris Toomey‘s school was implementing a new learning model called 21st Century Learning based on foundational principles called The 5 C’s: Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Citizenship/Citizen of the World. The problem: His elementary students didn’t have the emotional and behavioral skills to pull it off. The school offered professional development about implementing 21st…

Fellow Friday: Responding to an SOS

Since we got married, we have spent our lives together working with children in our community, other communities and in our school. We are driven by our desire to make a difference in the lives of children. We met in Arizona and assisted with the Grandma/Grandpa Corp, which was a community based program to help…

Starting School = Relationship > Content

In 2018, the team of Cynde Ciesla, Erika Gilbert & Monica Fitzgerald (Gillette Road Middle School – Cicero, NY) used their Fund for Teachers grant to attend the Model Schools Conference in Orlando, FL, to create an academic setting that is inclusive, focused on response to intervention, integrates standards-based learning, and provides students with social-emotional…

Fellow Friday | Hygge = Happiness

HYGGE: ˈh(y)o͞oɡə,ˈho͝oɡə/noun/ a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture). Danes’ battle the angst of isolation and environmental factors (i.e. long, dark winters) with “hygge” and FFT Fellows Meredith Hart and Leigh Cirasuolo (Haley Pilot School K-8 in Boston) believe…

Fellow Friday Flashback | Tear Down These Walls

Last summer, Jenn Nekolny and Christine Halblander (Jefferson Junio High School – Naperville, IL) used their Fund for Teachers grant to explore physical and societal divisions in historical and contemporary Poland, Czechia, Austria and Germany to supplement Social Studies and Language Arts curricula and enhance students’ interest in human rights, migration and refugees. To wind up our…

Revisiting Her Past to Model Perseverance

Her American name is Kim Elizabeth DeMarco. The name given by her Vietnamese mother and American father, a soldier, is Hoang Thi Thanh. Nuns who found her as an infant covered with mud and hay in a bombed village named her Marie Noel. On her Fund for Teachers fellowship, Kim returned to Vietnam with teammate…

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…