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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…

US History in Two Wars & A Movement

Thank you to 2020 FFT Fellow Angie Hubbard for this Fourth of July post. Angie is an 8th grade teacher in a self-contained classroom at Elkton Charter School in Elkton, OR, where she has been for 10 years. She has taught a variety of subjects and especially loves teaching United States History and Geography. Angie…

All Eyes on Tulsa

The national spotlight will focus on Tulsa this Saturday when President Trump hosts his first campaign rally since the outbreak of COVID-19. Originally scheduled for Juneteenth, the day celebrated by African Americans commemorating the end of slavery, organizers shifted the event to Saturday, when Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt hopes the President and Vice President Pence…

EdEquity Resources

Fund for Teachers is working to compile a trove of resources on Education Equity from diverse sources for the collective learning of our Fellows and everyone in our community. Check back often for updates. Have a resource you’d like to share? Email liza@fundforteachers.org. Teaching Anti-Racist, Anti-Bias Themes in a Racial Pandemic: Fund for Teachers Fellow and…

Fellow Friday – Meet Chris Dolgos

In one week, many will commemorate Juneteenth, the day the Emancipation Proclamation – issued on January 1, 1863 – was read to enslaved African Americans in Texas. Today’s Fellow Friday highlights Chris Dolgos (Genesee Community Charter School – Rochester, NY): the inspiration for his 2020 fellowship researching Frederick Douglass’s UK speaking tour, and resources you…

Being a Black Teacher in America Today

I am a Black woman in America. I am a Board-Certified teacher in America. I am fighting for America. Like many Black Americans, I have experienced racism my entire life. I have been followed while casually browsing in stores. My brothers have been thrown to the ground by police and by white neighbors. I have…

The Intersectionality of Pride and Equity

Enid Lee, anti-racist professional development specialist, leadership coach and writer, defines educational equity as “the principal of altering current practices and perspectives to teach for social transformation and to promote equal learning outcomes for students of all racial, cultural, linguistic and socio-economic groups.” For three-time FFT Fellow Danielle Murray, the socio-economic group is LGBTQ students….

Learning Out Loud: The Stonewall Inn Riots

On Monday, we shared the work of an FFT Fellow to educate his Tulsa students about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre for the first time. Today, as Pride Month begins, we elevate another lesser-known, yet seminal event in our nation’s quest for social justice — this time for the LGBTQ+ community. On June 27-28, 1969,…

Fellow Friday – Meet Laurel Cardellichio

We are so proud of our 2020 class of Fund for Teachers Fellows and believe Teacher Appreciation Week is the perfect time to begin a weekly series that introduces! Through individual profiles, as well as those focusing on themes these exemplary teachers will pursue in the summer of 2021, you will appreciate these Fellows commitment…

The Pandemic Pivot – Literacy Edition

By school days, Laura Nunn is an elementary reading interventionist with Chicago Public Schools. By weekends & pandemics, she teaches yoga. Laura is offering a free virtual class this Friday at 12:30CST. Register with this link to usher in your weekend in peace. Laura designed her fellowship to retrace the steps of Odysseys through Sicily,…

Fellow Friday – Meet Joey Cumagun

We are so proud of our 2020 class of Fund for Teachers Fellows and believe Teacher Appreciation Week is the perfect time to begin a weekly series that introduces! Through individual profiles, as well as those focusing on themes these exemplary teachers will pursue in the summer of 2021, you will appreciate these Fellows commitment…

Earth Day the FFT Way

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, an initiative that got its start at a school (college, to be exact). According to EarthDay.org, a Wisconsin senator was inspired by student activism surrounding the Vietnam War and he wanted to direct the same level of passion to protecting the environment. Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed a…

A Pandemic Road Trip

On this day in 1861, the Confederate Army attacked Fort Sumter, beginning the War Between the States that would kill 620,000 soldiers from combat, accident, starvation, and disease. Two states over and 159 years later, Blake Busbin teaches high school students why and how this period of our country’s history continues to influence their lives….

Confronting Slavery’s Legacy of Racism Together

Today marks the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade History, an annual commemoration established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007. The aim of the day is “to inculcate in future generations the causes, consequences and lessons of the transatlantic slave trade, and to communicate the…