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 of EL Education culture, building exemplary character, driving outstanding academic achievement, and instilling an ethic of “citizen scholarship.”

In 2008, Lindsay, along with two peers, designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship to research the Ladakhi society in India concerning their efforts to balance globalization with preservation of culture and resources. The teaching team’s insight into their experiences align beautifully with the award’s criterion:

“As we experienced a fascinating cultural exchange, and grew individually, we also expanded our thinking about development. We began to ask more and more questions. What makes development sustainable? Whose responsibility is development? What role should local Ladakhis play in deciding how their society develops in the context of a globalized world? What about local, state and national government, what role should they play? And what about us, citizens of a powerful and developed country, what responsibilities do we have for development in places like Ladakh? Our visit to Ladakh and other parts of India are helping us to make sense of these important questions.”

For more information about Lindsay’s honor, click here. An FFT Fellow also won this prestigious award last year; click here to view Chris Dolgos’ acceptance speech and enjoy the blog he kept researching Hadrian’s Wall here.

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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 completing her fellowship/road trip this summer investigating major landmarks across the northeastern United States, Shannon decided to let her students become the primary sources.

She started the school year by sharing from her itinerary artifacts and videos of her at landmarks discussing the symbols, reading the signs and telling stories about what she was learning in

Washington DC at:

• the U.S. Capitol Building
• the White House
• the Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington Memorials
• Ford Theater
• the Smithsonian American History Museum
• the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum
• the Newseum

Philadelphia at:

• Independence National Historic Park
• the Liberty Bell Center
• Independence Hall
• Congress Hall
• the National Constitution Center
• One Liberty Observation Deck

and Boston at:

• the Old North Church
• Paul Revere’s home
• the Old State House
• the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, and
• the John F. Kennedy Presidential Museum and Library.

Then, she invited students to research one of the sites or symbols and present their findings to the school community.

“My students loved seeing, touching, experiencing and even becoming history during my lessons by dressing up as different monuments and symbols,” said Shannon. “By acting out their research, they compared and contrasted stories and were inspired to write pieces about their own version of history based on my fellowship research and our new curriculum.“

Shannon is passionate about teaching young students American history and believes that by going to these sites and researching them first-hand during her fellowship, that passion “revolutionized” how she taught the subject.

“History is not just stories in a book, it is real people and real events, which my students are learning through non-fiction texts,” said Shannon. “On my fellowship, I learned about the history of these famous historical figures, however, the most important thing I learned is that we have all come together to form this great country and create it as our life and culture evolve.”

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Shannon has taught for 15 years in the Dallas and Oklahoma City Metro Areas.  Her recent accomplishments include winning the Moore Public Schools PTA Pat Henry Award and being a nominee for the South OKC Chamber Teacher of the Year Award.

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 high school English teacher in urban schools that serve mostly Latino students and students of African descent. This work is particularly challenging given the low literacy skills that student possess because of their disadvantaged backgrounds. Coming from a similarly impoverished community to that of my students, I do not pity them; rather, I recognize ways in which the lack of role models, poverty, substance abuse and trauma distract students from being able to prioritize school.

I have found solace in lessons and units, like youth participatory action research, human rights education, and social justice – projects that ignite within my students an impetus for learning that did not previously exist. For example, a rhetoric unit I designed this year allows students to apply the skills acquired in to persuade the school and outside community to take action against issues such as police brutality, gang violence, discrimination and bullying against the LGBTQ community and sex trafficking.

[minti_blockquote]To further this work, I designed my Fund for Teachers fellowship to work with People’s Watch India, an organization that works with a number of schools throughout the country on how to incorporate human rights education (HRE) in school environments, curricula, governance, and relationships.[/minti_blockquote]

I was particularly invested in carrying out this research in India because of the variety of human rights violations and social justice issues that exist in a democratic nation of this size. India, known for its cultural diversity, richness and beauty, is equally known for oppressive caste systems, racism, and discrimination against women and girls.

People’s Watch works with private (wealthy) and government (poorer schools) alike, and having the ability to study the ways in which this organization partners with schools, administrators and educators to design and implement a HRE program gave me the tools to replicate these practices into my school community.

I prepared for my fellowship by studying the work of Dr. Monisha Bajaj, an Indian-American scholar and professor in the HRE field who originally directed my to Amnesty International as an ideal research location. I then Skyped regularly with People Watch’s program director to learn about the organization’s logistics and program operations.

Upon my arrival in Bangalore, I spent the first week undergoing training that exposed me to policies and procedures before spending the remaining two weeks volunteering in two public schools. While Amnesty International operates under a “whole school approach” model that focuses on how to implement human rights into school governance, curriculum, relationships and environment, I focused primarily on gaining tools, resources, and practices around curriculum development.

India, like the United States, is plagued with disparity and inequality, so witnessing how Amnesty International works in schools to interrupt and eradicate existing social ills was invaluable. It is difficult to imagine being able to get an experience of this caliber elsewhere. I learned deeper ways to dive into literature in ways that not only expose the ills that plague characters in the societies in which they live, but also gained tools to do this work on a larger scale within my entire school community. Finally, as an educator who has multiple connections in the field of education (I am a freelance writer for Teaching Tolerance, for example, a member of the Woodrow Wilson Rockefeller Teaching Fellows, a UNCF Education Reform Fellow, and a member of the Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers) I am eager to share this work with other networks of educators who can benefit from the resources that I gained on my fellowship.

After observing implementation of an HRE human rights education in India, I am now teaching a new elective course designed to teach about human rights and how to preserve and promote them. Additionally, my literature students are being exposed to human rights violations and social justice issues through the study of global texts. In designing lessons and units, I am more intentional about incorporating mindfulness and aspects of human rights education into our classroom spaces and will continue to see curriculum, instruction and pedagogy as a means to deliver both content and a vehicle to shape and sharpen character. With my peers, I plan to share this work by inviting them into my classroom and identifying ways to collaborate so they are able to join this work. I also plan to continue writing about and publishing this work in spaces for educators on a broad spectrum. Perhaps most importantly, I will continue to seek out research, resources and ways to integrate larger altruistic beliefs and practices in the classroom.

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While much of Jamilah’s professional career as an educator has consisted of working with urban youth, she has also taught in the Dominican Republic and China. Jamilah is an avid traveler, dancer, and writer whose work is threaded by themes of social justice, and human and women’s rights advocacy.

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 in their lives. Engineers, computer scientists, members of the military, medical professionals and business people talk about how they use math in their jobs and industries. However, my students resonate more with people who talk about using math outside of work, in their hobbies and personal interests. When one guest talked about his 3,700 mile cross country bicycle trip, my students were wide eyed and mesmerized. Talk about using math flowed effortlessly as students asked How long the trip was both (in time and miles? How much did it cost? Where did you stay? What did you eat? and What sort of issues did you have?

I enjoy riding my bike and was also inspired by this long adventure, but I didn’t think I was ready for a cross country trek for curriculum’s sake. After I found a bike tour of the Great Parks North with Adventure Cycle Association, I felt like that was something I could tackle and I started my Fund for Teachers proposal to cycle 800 miles from Missoula, MT, to Jasper, Alberta, Canada.

My goal was to create real world math calculations and connections for my students and to model personal growth, perseverance and grit. I wanted to see what other math connections I could discover from the seat of my bicycle. I am a firm believer that math is all around us, we just have to make sure we’re looking hard enough.

• Looking at the trip route, I was calculating total mileage, daily and average mileage, vertical assent and decent, speed, time to complete the daily ride, the rate I’d likely be traveling and the impact of road grades.
• Reading the maps, I applied scale factors and used my compass rose to help figure out where I was and where I was going.
• Packing for the trip, I was concerned about the weight of the gear I was carrying translating into a more difficult ride and wanted to make sure I was carry enough ounces of water and electrolyte replacement to stay hydrated.
• Pedaling, I was also running numbers with nutrition thinking about my calories consumed and how many calories I was burning.

In the farmland of Montana, as we passed hay bales, I wanted to measure the volume of the cylinders and the rectangular prisms to see if there was a benefit to how they were packed. I pondered how you would then go about calculating the surface area that each bale would cover. I continued to think about geometry in how my bike was designed, the frame made of triangles and how much smaller my bike frame was as a 5’ tall person, compared to another rider that’s 6’ 4″. Climbing the Canadian Rockies in the lowest gear of my bicycle chain, most affectionately known as the granny gear, I wanted to go back to my bike mechanic and understand how the cogs work together in the chain ratio to make climbing most efficient. At one point, as we were crossing the continental divide, one of my fellow adventures shared with me their observation that the speed we were going up hill was just under 3 mph, and we could probably walk fast than we were riding.

You really get a lot of time to think when your objective is to pedal six hours in a day. I thought about what we call distance/time graphs in algebra and how we often write a story to describe a situation and have students match a graph and table to the situation. For example:

“Mrs. Parenteau leaves camp at a rate of 13 mph with fresh legs in the morning. She stops for second breakfast at The Greatful Bread for 15 minutes. She gets back on her bike and rides up a big hill, down it and then stops for lunch. She then leisurely rides into camp at a rate of 10 mph.”

The question would match to a graph that increased my distance over time, but with speeds that relate to the story and flat lines where I’m stopped for lunch. Other real life word problems I started thinking about was solving a system of equations where my friend and I travel at different speeds and I might need a head start in order for us to meet for lunch together. All and all, I didn’t realize there was so much math involved, but I am so excited to bring it to my students this year!

I vividly remember a startling math moment. Our total mileage for the day was 72 miles. I had been riding for several hours and watching the mile markers decrease as we approached our destination. I think the last marker I had seen was something about 40ish miles left to our camp destination. Then, the next marker said 63. I thought to myself, HOW in the world, did I end up going backwards?! Then it dawned on me. I had crossed the Canadian Boarder and things were now in km! From there on out, I was trying to come up with the best way to mentally convert between km and miles.

In addition to the math connections, my project had another purpose – to be an example for my students to step out of their comfort zones, embrace challenge and struggle productively. I had never camped before this fellowship and my longest bike ride was 150 miles in two days. Yet, on this fellowship I camped for three weeks, including a couple days of rustic camping, without flushing toilets or access to a shower. I adapted to a new pace, literally traveling through life slower than one is used to in a car. From the seat of my bike, the mountains, glaciers and lakes took my breath away; majestic and beautiful – like nothing I had ever seen. I truly think you take it all in better from your bike than a car.

My sense of accomplishment pedaling into the Columbia Icefields on our second-to-last day was all the more overwhelming having persevered through prior “valleys.” Many times (such as when walking would have been faster than biking) my self talk sounded like: “You just have to go a little bit further. Just keep pedaling. t doesn’t matter how fast you go, each pedal is progress in the right direction. I can do this!” This is the same self talk I want my students to have in and out of the classroom.

Recently, growth mindset has become a buzz word in education. I started this year teaching my students about growth mindset, doing activities to see what they would do if they knew the wouldn’t fail, setting goals, looking at brain development studies and seeing the benefits of making mistakes and learning from them. Yes, this mindset – and my fellowship – totally apply to the math classroom, and also to extracurricular activities and life in general. I believe that by cycling 800 miles in three weeks on a fellowship I designed and pursued, I set an example that encourages my students to take risks. It’s in that stretch zone that we start to grow.

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Alyson is a middle school mathematics teacher in New London, CT. She is part of the innovative Teach to One team, where students receive an individualized, multi-modality math education. Alyson believes in creating experiential learning opportunities for her students, including field trips, conferences, after school activities and community partnerships.

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 arts with an emphasis on Mexican culture in an urban PreK-8th school comprised of a 96% Latino population. Her fellowship came full circle last weekend, as she shares below…

Saint Adalbert Elementary is a preK-8 school that serves the highest concentration of minority students in a city of 100,000 and, as of three years ago when I started teaching there, our school had no formal visual or performing arts program. My principal succinctly described the students during my initial interview, saying, “They are in a cultural no man’s land. They know very little about their Mexican culture and very little about their U.S. culture. Neither their English nor Spanish is fluent.” I chose to design my Fund for Teachers fellowship to address these cultural and academic gaps.

My Spanish language instruction prior to the fellowship was limited to exchanges with the preK teachers aide. Therefore, I spent one month last summer at the Academia Hispano Americano learning basics of the language, as well as Mexican folk art, singing and dancing. My goal was to better inspire, relate to and teach my wonderful students who grew up in poverty, yet display exceptional natural gifts in the visual and performing arts. In addition to attending daily classes and the Folk Singing and Dancing Workshop, I absorbed Mexican culture through visiting galleries, museums, plazas, restaurants, churches, festivals and ruins, including gallery of Fabrica la aurora, Galeria Atotonilco, the ruins of Canada de la Virgen, the Parraquia de San Miguel Arcangel and the Fiesta de la Virgen del Carmen.

My knowledge of Spanish improved exponentially on my fellowship. Although still a beginner, I am able to speak with people who only speak Spanish, as well as write and read the language. Equally as important, my instructional practice has had a paradigm shift. While trying to soak in the new people, language, culture, environment, I couldn’t help but empathize with my students who are in a very similar situation, but in reverse. They are in the US learning English, and, at the same time, learning a new culture. It is truly humbling! I am now far more patient with my students and brought back a sense of humor to the classroom – just as my wonderful instructor, Jessika, did for me!

Last week for our school’s Fundraiser/Art Auction, my sixth graders created “Corazon” piece above, inspired by the gorgeous art I saw in Mexico. Seeing their work and learning was a profound step in my ongoing journey to establish credibility and authenticity with my students and families, increase respect for the values of different cultures in the school community, and deepen my personal sensitivity.

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In addition to teaching, Jeannie has served as artistic director and founder of a 501©(3) musical theatre in Seattle, Washington. For more than 30 years, she has inspired youth in music, drama and art and has led hundreds of youth from audition to theatrical performances. In addition to her Visual and Performing Arts background, she has enjoyed producing television shows for a local PBS affiliate.

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 wife and I were students at the University of Miami in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida. We witnessed first-hand the destruction to structures and the environment. It took literally years to clear hurricane debris from many areas. Hurricane Irma was an entirely different beast of a storm and while not there for the aftermath, we have friends and relatives in southwest Florida and the Keys giving us information. Many people remain without power and the damage is much more extensive than with Andrew.

I was awarded my fellowship in 2014 for a marine ecological field study in the lower Florida Keys.  In fact, we stayed and studied between mile markers 20-22  – Ground Zero for Hurricane Irma.  One of the major realizations I took from our studies was how fragile and integral coastal marine habitats are for the sustainability of ecosystems – both local and offshore. Many areas are already under pressure from human activities, pollution, development and over fishing / harvesting. A natural disaster as extensive and devastating as Irma will undoubtedly have major implications now and for decades to come. In the case of the Key deer, their only habitat – Big Pine Key – has been decimated and this already endangered subspecies may be lost forever.

Ecology and human impacts on the environment are already hugely important aspects of the Biology curriculum I teach, but as I strive to prepare students to be smarter global citizens, the impact of natural disasters consumes an increasingly significant portion of our discussions.

The students in my district for the most part are very limited as far as their experiences outside of their hometown, due in part to the demographics of the surrounding community (rural, with few parents being college educated). Therefore, seeing footage of me collecting data in what ended up being Ground Zero of the largest hurricane to hit the United States gives them a glimpse of life beyond the city limits and aids their understanding about how science is DONE. Undoubtedly this will inspire some to want to further their education so that they too can one day participate in a similar research study.

I am very anxious (and frightened) to return to the lower Keys this summer to survey the damage – both above and below the water.  Many delicate sea grass flats, coral structures, and sponge communities are most likely destroyed and the effects on invertebrate and vertebrate populations will be significant for years to come. The human toll is of course horrific, but south Floridians are strong and they will rebuild. It saddens me deeply to think how this magnificent and environmentally influential area will suffer due to Irma.

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Mike graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in Marine Biology and continued there for partial fulfillment of M.D./Ph.D. requirements. He earned his Masters in Ecological Science from Rutgers University in 2016 and has taught Honors/AP Biology and Anatomy & Physiology in southern New Jersey for the past 17 years.

Thanks to Suzanne Almon for this account of how her fellowship in the Florida Keys and Hurricane Irma are engaging students at Asian Studies Academy in Hartford, CT. Suzanne used her FFT grant to research the life cycle, habitat and rehabilitation of sea turtles in Florida and the Galapagos Islands to design a first grade, project based learning science unit on animal habitats.

As a first grade teacher in an urban school, I strive to bring learning to life by bringing into the classroom artifacts, books, posters, magazines, pictures and videos. I was so excited to apply for the Fund for Teachers grant, because I knew it would be a great opportunity to bring in another element to enhance my teaching – making me the primary source! Deciding on what to pursue was simple; I knew instantly I wanted to study sea turtles. I designed my fellowship with a new Sea Turtle unit in mind, a component of our science curriculum that would cover anatomy, natural environment, natural and unnatural issues facing sea turtle survival and rehabilitation. My inspiration during the proposal phase was Gail Gibbons’ book Sea Turtles, a non-fiction book about sea turtles, that includes ways to help keep sea turtles safe.

All around the Keys, there is an awareness to conserve native animals; Key Deer crossing signs, alligator crossing signs, clean up your garbage and no balloons at the beach signs, etc. I was fortunate to witness first hand how sea turtles are nursed back to health through a visit to the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, Florida. The Turtle Hospital is a safe haven for injured and sick sea turtles and also has a museum in their front lobby full of information. The guide introduced me to the different sea turtles that make Florida their home and to the hospital’s marine residents. The hospital has cared for and released more than 1500 sea turtles since its beginning in 1986.

I was also able to do research on Juno Beach, one of the most active sea turtle nesting beaches in the world. I witnessed loggerhead sea turtles coming to shore and laying eggs.  It was an amazing experience! These sea turtles are massive and lay about hundred ping-pong sized eggs while in a trance. The Loggerhead Marine Center’s volunteers invited me to observe this life experience and provided an immense amount of information about their Marine Center, Loggerheads, and the beach.

I returned home from my fellowship on August 22 and ten days prior to Hurricane Irma. In preparation for the storm, The Turtle Hospital moved all “patients” to special hurricane tanks to protect from winds and storm surge. All of the Loggerhead Marine Center’s sea turtles were transported to the Georgia Aquarium. Unfortunately, the nests were not so fortunate. It is reported that due to the heavy storms and increased wave action, the sea turtle nests were wiped out, exposing eggs. The Center informed supporters that they would continue to take in injured sea turtles and hatchlings. Since Hurricane Irma, they have re-opened and have received about 200 hatchlings!

Hurricane Irma hit Florida shortly after school started. My heart was full of dread and anticipation; hoping the hurricane would turn east. Entire oceanside roads were wiped out, trailers and boats were flipped, severe flooding and high winds knocked down palm trees and hurled debris everywhere.  Eight people died from natural causes and the storm and another 40 have been injured (30 are from Key West) at the time of this writing. Businesses and homes have been destroyed, as well as the beaches.  I love the Florida Keys and I know with time, hard work, and love, the Keys will be rejuvenated and better than ever.

When school started, shortly after Irma’s devastating arrival, students from last year streamed into my class, excited to see me and my photos and hear about my sea turtle learning! They and my new students could not believe that I saw sea turtles and even swam with them! They were so excited to see my videos and especially enjoyed seeing me feeding the sea turtles at the Turtle Hospital and watching them snort water out their noses.

As of today, the building remains closed due to substantial amount of damage in Marathon and the Florida Keys; however, our sea turtle unit is in full swing. Students are watching my interviews with marine biology professionals, as well as my snorkeling in the marine reserves. They are developing writing skills and integrating art into their own non-fiction texts about sea turtles, similar to Gail Gibbons’ exemplar; eventually, they will turn the texts into presentations for their peers at a school assembly.

Lastly, we are scheduling a field trip to our own beach habitat. In conjunction with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP), students will replicate the experiential learning on my fellowship to learn how they can help sea turtles in Connecticut.

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In addition to the Florida Keys, Suzanne also researched sea turtles in Myrtle Beach, GA, and the Galapagos Islands on her fellowship. Suzanne started teaching preschool 2001 and has taught in Hartford for 11 years and was recognized as Teacher of the Year in 2011. Shestrives to build competent and confident learners to be successful and have positive influences in the world.

Fund for Teachers grant recipients regularly head to the Florida Keys to research marine biology and conservation; therefore, we wanted to get their insight into Hurricane Irma’s devastation. We are grateful to Lucila Telesco (Newfield Elementary School – Stamford, CT) who, in the midst of Open House – for which she was organizing translators and buses – shared her story…

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I embarked on my fellowship to Florida’s Everglades and the Key’s Coral Reef during the peak of summer vacation, which happened to coincide with Florida’s wet season. Though I, a fair-skinned northeasterner, had mentally prepared myself to contend with the Florida’s notorious heat and humidity, I didn’t fully understand how unpredictable the wet season could be.

The first stop on my journey was the Everglades, a place I had always pictured as an expansive swampy grassland teeming with scaly alligators. While partly true, I came to see that the Everglades are so much more than that. On my first Everglade adventure, a boat assisted kayak eco-tour of Ten Thousand Islands, the Everglades revealed itself to be a proliferation of magical salt dwelling mangrove trees extending endlessly into the Gulf. My savvy naturalist guide navigated our small boat through the labyrinth of mangroves in Chokoloskee Bay, while explaining the area’s wonders. I learned that the Everglades are home to the one of the largest mangrove ecosystems in the world and the Ten Thousand Islands are comprised of three types of mangroves: red, white, and black; red being most prevalent. As our boat inched closer to a cluster of densely packed mangroves, I got my first glimpse of the red mangroves’ prop root system. The network of overlapping roots seemed to jut out of the water like clumsy acrobats on stilts. As we glided along, my eyes were drawn to the hundreds of seedpods, called propagules, dangling from the branches. I learned that propagules are buoyant and can stay afloat for over a year before they taking root, how incredible it that? Those hardy mangroves were captivating. They had found a way to thrive in the most inhospitable of places.

During my excursion, we anchored in an inlet to explore a sandbar connecting Lumbar and Rabbit Key by kayak. But, no less than 50 yards out the weather turned. Pavilion Key in the distance, which had been visible just minutes before, was enveloped by a dark grey fog. Before I knew it, we were caught in a deluge. My guide, fearful that lighting and thunder might follow the rainstorm, quickly led the way back to the boat. As if on cue, the moment we ambled into boat the sky dried up and returned to its stately shade of blue. It was baffling to see a storm build and subside that quickly. My guide pointed out some large fluffy clouds on opposite ends of the sky and began explaining that though they looked harmless, they had the potential to merge into a serious thunderstorm. Luckily the skies remained clear for the rest of the afternoon, allowing me to explore the sandbar thoroughly. I examined conch and lightning shells up close, and I even learned how to identify sea turtles tracks in the sand to locate their nest. By the end of my time in the Everglades, I had caught glimpses of blue herons, snowy egrets, white ibis’, ospreys, a hungry pair of dolphins, and the fleeting muzzle of a shy manatee, all of which was quite remarkable.

The next stop on my journey was Marathon Key to learn about dolphin and sea turtle conservation. I was set to drive down to Marathon when Tropical Storm Emily made landfall. But, I had places to go and dolphins and sea turtles to see, so I cautiously made my way to Marathon that day. The drive was slow and the rain was relentless, but I arrived safely and in time to see the amazing work being done at Dolphin Connection. As part of the dolphin smart wild dolphin conservation program, they rescue dolphins that have been kept in captivity and can no longer hunt, providing them with food, shelter, and training.Similarly, the Sea Turtle Hospital works to rescue, rehab, and whenever possible release sea turtles back into the wild. They have helped hundreds of sea turtles return to the wild, but the ones whose injuries are too severe to successfully survive in the wild become permanent residents of the hospital. I learned of one such injury that has been endearingly termed bubble butt syndrome. In these cases, the turtles’ shells are damaged by boat impacts, causing them to develop air pockets that render them permanently buoyant, which is a problematic state for a sea turtle that must dive for food. Researchers have attempted weighing down the shells, but since sea turtles shed the scales on their shells periodically, weights are not a permanent solution. Until we can learn to co-exist safely together, I am thankful for organizations like this that are working to protect these animals and their unique habitats.

The final stop on my journey was the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, home to the third largest barrier reef in the world. The chance to snorkel in the blue waters off the coast of Key West [pictured above] and see the vibrant array of coral and fish dancing beneath the surface of the water was unforgettable. It was like a whole little universe onto itself, unawares of the goings on in the terrestrial world. The coral ebbed and flowed as if it has never been rushed a day in its life and a school of vibrant blue fish assembled and dispersed with the agility of Olympians. I learned that the corals iridescent quality is a result of bioluminescence, a chemical reaction that releases light, which many fish also possess. Bioluminescence, much like a school of fish, is employed to appear more threatening and ward off predators. Some corals can even release luminescent particles with toxins when touched. Luckily, my guide thoroughly warned me not to touch anything before the snorkel, so I didn’t get to experience the luminescent toxin. But, the sights I did get to experience were incredible.

Another highlight of Key West was the Butterfly and Nature Conservatory. While there I overheard a little boy’s reaction, which I feel sums up the experience best. He said, “Mommy, I feel like I’m in a Disney movie and I don’t want to leave,” which is how I felt too at the end of my visit. Blue monarch butterflies fluttered about in groups and stopped momentarily to feed on honey and fruits, while bright pink flamingos bobbed in a shallow stream. A turaco, with a bright green crest on the top of it head that resembled a mohawk, was perched in a tree making a ruckus. Even though I was in a glass enclosed climate controlled conservatory, it felt like the middle of a magical forest, capable of producing Snow White and the seven dwarfs around the next bend. Key West is one of the most vibrant and colorful places I have ever visited, and turned out to be the perfect culmination to an extraordinary fellowship.

So, it is with a heavy heart that I learned the Keys and South West Florida were among the most devastated by Hurricane Irma. I want to remember it as it was, thriving, chock full of passionate people dedicating their lives to protecting and restoring it. In aftermath of the hurricane, I was relieved to hear stories of hope from the many remarkable people and places I visited. I learned my Everglades guide is safe and unfazed by the blackout. The staff and dolphins of Dolphin Connection in Marathon Key were safely evacuated to facility in Orlando prior to Irma and are glad to report their dolphin lagoon survived the worst of the hurricane. The Sea Turtle Hospital is operational. Its staff and recuperating turtles also weathered the storm successfully, and they are already admitting new patients. As if by miracle, the glass enclosed Butterfly and Nature Conservatory in Key West was untouched by Irma. If I learned anything on my fellowship it is this: plants and animals possess an incredible ability to adapt to their environments. Hurricane Irma showed me that people do, too. They were all tested, but remain, and like the resolute mangroves are determined to thrive in the most inhospitable of places.

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Lucila is an ESL teacher with a passion for conservation. In addition to Masters degrees in TESOL and Reading Instruction, her accomplishments include: Presidential Arts Scholar and member of the Arts and Cultural Cohort of the Women’s Leadership Program at George Washington University. In the future, she hopes to combine her love of nature, storytelling and languages to pen a multicultural children’s book.

Saturday, September 16, is International Coastal Clean Up Day, the world’s biggest volunteer effort to protect our oceans. Fund for Teachers Fellow Gina Anderson(Concord Elementary – Bessemer, AL) got a jump on us this summer when she researched the relationship between the Gulf Oil Spill and the economic and environmental effects in the region to establish a STEM unit to design, test and revise solutions for cleaning a polluted environment…

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April 2016 marked six years since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded sending billions of barrels of crude oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico off of the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. My 5th grade students and I watched live coverage of oil gushing out of the well into the ocean. We saw video of birds, dolphins,fish, sea turtles and other wildlife coated in oil because of the spill. I was on the beach when the first tar ball washed ashore. The experience was very sobering, but gave me a first-hand account of what was about to happen. In the days and months following, the size and number of tar balls that were washed ashore multiplied exponentially. I am able to share my personal experience with students and describe what the tar-balls looked like, felt like and smelled like and bring into my classroom different oils and lubricants to recreate the smell of the air that I experienced, even over a mile inland.

This year I taught a fifth grade Project Based Learning class in all subject areas, and we conducted research to determine the economic and ecological impacts still being felt in the coastal region after six years. During the research, students began to realize that even though this was the largest oil spill into the ocean in history, they could not find answers to a lot of their questions. As they continued searching for answers, they learned that scientists who conducted the research on the ecological effects were not allowed to publish their findings because of continued litigation which made our research difficult. The students still wanted to know:

• if the estuaries have rebounded and are now suitable for young;
• if the trees that were lost have had an effect on the number of nesting birds such as pelicans and cranes; and,
• if the numbers of nesting sea turtles has started to increase in the Mobile Bay and Fort Morgan area.

With my Fund for Teachers grant, I researched these environmental effects as I explored the areas of Bon Secour, Fort Morgan, Mobile Bay and Gulf Shores. I biked the Hugh Branyon Back Country trails, where countless rabbits and alligators could be seen daily prior to the spill. An interview with the owner of Bon Secour Fisheries shed light on the economic and ecological impact of the oyster industry in Alabama and Louisiana. A meeting with Bon Secour National Wildlife Early Restoration Project equipped me with ideas that will help guide students when working on a disaster recovery and restoration project of their own.

The biggest area of professional growth for me resulting from my fellowship is classroom innovation. I discovered that learning is most effective when it is authentic. I was interested in this project because I was there seven years ago when the oil came ashore.This made me take ownership of my learning and, consequently, I did not have to rely on what others thought I should learn. I knew what questions needed asking in order to see the big picture.This removed a ceiling to my learning!

Similarly, I am now going to give students opportunities to complete projects based on their personal interests, also not bound to traditional research avenues such as books or online searches. They will have access to professionals and experts invited into the classroom or via live-stream conferences and interviews in order to make the learning authentic and make those important real-world connections. Three years ago, I began an annual Math and Science night at our school. This is a school-wide event in which we invite stakeholders from the community to set up interactive science and engineering booths where they engage with the students and adults. Each grade level also creates a booth for the students and parents to work on a hands-on activity together. This year, I will have my students oil spill projects on display and they will be able to conduct mock oil spills with their adults.

Around our school community, we have to pay to have trash pickup and pay if we want to use the county landfill. This has resulted in a large problem of illegal dumping of trash on the side of the road. Currently, there have been two volunteer clean-up days. Because of the lack of volunteers attending the events, my students and I will help to promote as well as participate in the event this year, another great opportunity make environmental connections to their oil spill projects.

This fellowship has helped me become more reflective when planning projects. I didn’t realize that while I was giving the students an opportunity to conduct research and learn collaboratively I was also putting a cap on their learning by providing too much guidance as far as questioning. I now see the tremendous value of allowing students more autonomy and independence in their research and project designs. My new motto is to let them go where they want to go without restrictions!

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Gina is a National Board Certified fifth-grade teacher and was recognized as Teacher of the Year at her previous school. On only seven years of teaching, she is a two-time recipient of the local ABC affiliate’s “Once Class at a Time” grant, as well as a Jefferson County Foundation grant recipient. Gina enjoys being a life-long learner and works diligently to instill this into her students through Project Based Learning.

In support of the recent International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, we share the learning of Jodie Harnden (Sunridge Middle School – Pendleton, OR) who joined an atmospheric aerosol research project with scientists at NASA Langley to develop a similar student project modeling how authentic science is conducted to collect and analyze data useful to the community.

In emergency medical practices the airway, or being able to breathe, is the first priority, making air pollution a major threat to those who breathe…which is everyone! In my seventh grade science classes we study the structure of the atmosphere and air pollution problems and students learn about different pollutants and how they affect our location. While students do develop an understanding of air quality conditions, they do not have the opportunity to collect their own data and analyze that data in order to answer questions, as scientists would do.

And neither did I – until my Fund for Teachers grant.

One of the challenges of being a science teacher is that I had never been an actual scientist. While I have spent my career learning to be the best teacher I can be, I lacked in experience that relates to the actual processes of scientific research and data analysis. For me to lead students to think and work as scientists, I needed the experience myself. The two-week fellowship collecting air quality data with NASA Langley provided an intensive and exciting opportunity to interact and work alongside actual scientists, followed by developing related classroom applications for students.

I had the opportunity to participate in the data campaign as a volunteer intern under the direction of NASA scientist Dr. Margaret Pippin. My air quality data research took me to sites around Hampton, VA, monitoring aerosols, or tiny solids that are considered pollutants. I became proficient in using the Calitoo, a device that measures aerosol optical thickness, and indicator of particulate matter. I learned what the impact of clouds can be on the accuracy of measurements and established my GLOBE account for submitting my own data.

Previously I had only demonstrated the Calitoo with borrowed units. Now I will be having students collect and submit data on a regular basis to the GLOBE Project. Collecting data for a long-term project is a change from just occasional measurements. Students will now be the scientists,
collecting and submitting the data for use, and have access to the data for future use, as well.

The greatest accomplishment of my fellowship was developing a true understanding of the different stages of scientific research. Data campaigns have a planning and funding period, then, if approved, all participants coordinate for the campaign period (in this case, two weeks), then hope for good weather. Collection days can be very long! After rest and recovery, analysis of the data begins and will be the focus for the next year, prompting future research.

School has started and smoke from regional wildfires has created a difficult situation for many. Outdoor activities have been cancelled as we come to grips with the loss of beautiful forests. We can’t even make aerosol measurements because the smoke blocks the sun. Students are getting an early introduction to the air quality unit. We have begun to enter data into GLOBE, but the smoke prevents the collection of quality data (a good lesson for students!). Normally our rough time is January and February when cold, high pressure settles in to create an inversion, trapping the smoke from wood stoves; however, this year may mark different conclusions. I have taken note of an unusual ozone
concentration near one city west of the Cascade Mountains, a problem we don’t have, but can study from afar.

While there are numerous environmental issues that are worth studying, air quality continues to be a challenge in our area. While the causes may sometimes be out of our control (such as weather and wild fires) awareness and understanding is not. Mitigation of contributing factors that are human-caused are something we will continue to study, learn, and take appropriate action when possible. This August we have experienced a severe air quality issue, something to study further in the fall.

Along with my personal experiences at NASA Langley, I was able to witness the inclusion of student interns in the research process. I came away more convinced that ever that science is a process and something to be understood, not just a set of facts to be learned. The future of science depends on doing science, and I must give my students opportunities to contribute to the field of science. School, in many ways, is an artificial microcosm of life and I will be able to expose students to so much more now that I was exposed to more myself.

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A National Board Certified teacher, Jodie is in her 33rd year of teaching science at the middle
level, most of it in Pendleton, Oregon. She thrives on the opportunity to learn, bringing experiences back to the classroom and sharing with others professionally. While it won’t be a problem until retirement, rock collecting is a favorite activity.

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 Montessori.

A team from Alighieri Montessori School in East Boston attended the International Montessori Congress in Prague, focusing on Montessori techniques as a path to social change and a higher-quality education that cultivates life-long learners and responsible citizens. Achala Godino, Lisa Schad and Maureen Magee-Quinn networked with more than one thousand “Montessorians” who embraced their founder’s message: “It is the role of education to create peace in this world.”

“Maria firmly believed that children did not need to be taught ‘peacefulness’ – rather, it was the role of education and educators to help remove the obstacles that stand in the way from children revealing their true nature, which is peace, joy, and kind regard toward others,” said Achala. “It was jolting to reflect on her socio-political writing of the early 20^th
century. She was looking upon a world embroiled in two World Wars and looking upon the child as the answer to the militarism, xenophobia and authoritarianism of the day. Sadly, her writings on the topic are as relevant to the 21^st century as they were 100 years ago.”

A three person team, also from East Boston, crafted a slightly different fellowship, but one that also increased competency in the Montessori system. Deborah Arlauskas (Tynana Elementary), John Arlauskas (Murphy K-8) and Margaret Arlauskas (Alighieri Montessori) studied in the Netherlands Dutch culture’s intersection with Montessori and early childhood learning to better teach/reach their English Language Learners and their families.

After a guided visit of Amsterdam’s Association Montessori Internationale (where Maria’s study was preserved as a museum), John, Deborah and Margaret spent the next five days volunteering and observing at the 2 Voices Montessori School. The fellowship concluded with second school visit at Casa Bilingual Montessori School in Pijnacker. Following AMI’s recommendation, the team visited this particular school due to the bilingual instruction (English and Dutch) and the 50 weeks-a-year schedule.

“My content knowledge of Montessori instruction has deepened to a more advanced level of understanding,” said Margaret. “Specifically, I learned how teachers and instructional leaders in the Netherlands adapt the Montessori curriculum and manipulatives to meet student needs. For example, the Montessori approach to education should be the vehicle to help students meet state standards and content/language objectives for lessons and units.”

Maria Montessori’s legacy lives on on the work of these teaching teams, dedicated to developing children as well-rounded individuals. Throughout the first two of four developmental phases outlined by Maria (self construction from 0-6 years and peace/happiness 6-12 years), students at three East Boston school will now benefit from heightened instruction in this discipline.

“As public Montessori teachers in East Boston, serving a mainly immigrant community living under the strain of poverty, we are committed to delivering the highest quality Montessori education that will usher forth the next generation of global citizens and peacemakers,” said Achala. “We were grateful to have had the opportunity to engage in these conversations and be again re-inspired to manifest Dr. Montessori’s vision.”

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 Claremont, NH, she shares below “A Day in the Life” of her Fund for Teachers fellowship volunteering with Wildlife ACT in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in Zululand, South Africa, where she learned data gathering techniques used to monitor endangered animal populations to create a science unit teaching young students the scientific method.

My fellowship to Africa in winter was more than I could ever imagine. I arose before sunrise, gulped down breakfast with a half cup of instant coffee and headed for the truck while loaded down with my camera equipment. Our troop of five volunteers climbed in, wearing multiple warm layers and wrapped in blankets. We headed off with our researcher to be in position before the sun rose to find some of the most endangered species of the animal world.

After six or seven hours of searching for and observing African wild dogs, lions, and cheetahs, we returned to camp for a few hours of food, rest and a review of photos taken from the morning jaunt only to return to the truck for our evening rounds. After dark enveloped us leaving us with no ability to spot any more animals, our troop returned to camp to cook dinner, do dishes and crash into our beds for much needed rest so we could be revived enough to do it all over again the next day. I did this routine for 2 weeks. I loved every minute.

The mammals I saw during our drives left me in awe.  We tracked a pack of African wild painted dogs along dirt roads as they ran through the terrain on a hunt. We found lions resting near the road and observed them for hours as they slept. Elephant herds blocked the road in front of us as we traveled, allowing us to observe them closely as they fed.  We watched rhinos feed with their babies beside them. A cheetah emerged from the grass and jumped on a tree beside our truck. We observed him for thirty minutes before he left to watch impala in the distance. Giraffes fed from the tops of trees, then silently,
with the grace of the finest ballerinas, slipped away.

Amazing; experience of a lifetime; a childhood dream come true. These words only scratch the surface of the emotions I felt during this fellowship to Africa. Populations of many African mammals are dangerously low. Through our morning and evening drives, I witnessed many of these species roaming freely in their natural environment while collaborating with researchers working to protect them from their greatest threat – humans. This work wasn’t glamorous, nor did it seem heroic; it was hard work under difficult conditions. Yet, these people were working at it every day, living on the reserve to gather needed scientific data. And their work is making a difference. Numbers of African wild dogs and white rhinoceros are slowly on the rise. Although cheetah numbers are down, our data collection will allow more to be brought into the reserve to aid in genetically diversifying the population there to continue to promote the species. The beauty of these creatures is beyond words and now, after my fellowship, thought of loosing them brings a rising panic from deep inside. However, the knowledge that there are teams of people working these long hours under tough conditions to prevent their extinction brings admiration.

I am inspired students to help students realize that we have a gift freely given to us and we need to learn all we can to protect it. To let them see the images of these animals through my photographs and bring them outside to their own piece of the world to see it’s beauty and teach them ways to learn about it, protect it, and love it as I do is a privilege.

I now plan to educate my students on authentic methods of scientific research. Bringing the classroom outdoors will expose them to learn about their own neighborhood in a new way and help them connect to nature.  By providing them the instruction, modeling and practice they need to feel proficient at these skills will give them the confidence and desire to continue to learn and expand their knowledge.

Thank you, Fund For Teachers, for this rare opportunity.  I will share with my students how to observe animals, record their numbers and learn ways to identify each one. I hope to instill in my students the desire to learn how to care for the land for the benefit of all and I look forward to sharing with my
colleagues about this amazing opportunity through your organization to learn in hopes that they will be inspired to apply for their own chance at an adventure.

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Leanne has worked as an educator, occupational therapist and principal. She uses these experiences to reach out to all her students to inspire in them the quest of knowledge of the world around
them and to use their unique talents for the benefit of all.

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 fear and discomfort. Along the way, she faced her own fear and discomfort, as well.

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Iceland totally amazed me. I attended the Creativity Workshop in Reykjavik and had the opportunity to work with some of the greatest minds in education. We discussed obstacles and hurdles that keep us from stretching our students’ comfort zones in the classroom and how to pull beauty from chaos – which is a pretty good description of most classrooms now and then – chaos.

Like a lot of teachers, I have a side-hustle that keeps me busy after school. I have a small photography business that grew from taking family portraits of my low-income students who otherwise wouldn’t have such memories captured. It just grew from there. Part of my own personal journey with this fellowship was to challenge my own notions of perfection and creativity in photography. It is the medium in which I feel I am the strongest, but also that which I am the most critical of myself. I had a tougher time with this than I thought. Iceland is full of ridiculously picture-esque vistas, and my inner critic was screaming much of the time: “Kate, you are not giving this justice. Way too over exposed. Crappy composition. You didn’t bring a filter for long exposures at the waterfalls, are you kidding?”

I gave myself a pre-test of sorts when I arrived and again at the conclusion of my trip after attending the Creativity Conference. The biggest change I saw: I was noticing my critic and allowing that quiet voice to fade out to another ear. As an art teacher, I do not expect or want perfection from my students.  A fantastic book called “Beautiful Oops” helps prove this point in my classroom: mistakes can create something amazing, something new, something we never knew was possible.

I realized I have to practice this same philosophy in my own artwork, despite carrying the “I’m an art teacher, therefore my artwork should be pristine” mindset. I am still working on this, as any habit takes time, but taking what I learned from the workshop to apply to my OWN work really set the concept and its significance into stone for me and jazzed me up for the new school year. And let’s be honest, that is tough for everyone after two months of eating slow-cooked omelettes, going to the pool and watching Ellen 🙂

Check out Kate’s photography here.

I also learned a lot of small things by simply talking to locals and having the awesome opportunity to visit a family’s home and dine with them and their children for a night. Here are a few big categories that resonated with me and make me want to return to this amazing country:

Iceland & Animals:

• Bugs: Almost none. No mosquitoes. No ticks when hiking. No screens on windows. It’s
  glorious.
• Horses: Everywhere. And their hair is always photogenic and luscious in the crazy
  Iceland winds. They are used for farming, hobby, transportation and touring.
• Sheep: This is a big industry here, both for wool and for meat. Farmers let them roam
  free all summer – truly all over. You see them in little families climbing
  mountains, drinking from glacier streams and hanging out by waterfalls. In the Fall, at least one farmer from each farm is required to help wrangle up all of the sheep to return them to their homes for the winter months. They are tagged, so after they are all herded, they are then sorted by farm. Horses are used most often, but some farmers now use drones so they can have more of an idea of where to put their herding efforts.
• Puffins: Puffins are both beautiful and edible here. However, the country monitors these populations really closely with strict regulations. If there is ever a dip, hunting puffins becomes illegal nationwide until they return to a healthy population. Puffin is usually described as a gamey taste.

Miscellaneous Info I Learned and LOVED:

• Mr. and Mrs. are just not used here. People refer to you by your first name if you are a friend, neighbor​, teacher or even the Prime Minister.
• Speaking of, the Prime Minister’s address is well-known to the public, and it isn’t uncommon to run into him at the grocery store, walking his dog or to just visit at his home.
• When you have a baby here, mothers get 3 months guaranteed paid leave, fathers get 3 months, and the couple gets an additional 3 months to divide up to whoever needs it. We just had dinner with a local who has 7 weeks of vacation to burn in addition to his baby leave.
• There is also a dating app to check if you are related to people in Iceland! Since the country’s population is so small, if you meet someone at a party or a bar that you’re interested in, you want to double check if you are related in any way before pursing them.

I would highly recommend the Creativity Conference to any teacher who feels stagnant or that they want to reach students who strive a little too hard for perfection or to the student who feels lost in numbers and reading does not come easily. This conference can be a benefit to all types of classrooms. And Iceland, of course. Definitely go, but go to Costco ahead of time to bring snacks because a cup of soup is $25.

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Kate works in urban education in Kansas City, MO, where she teaches elementary art. Prior to teaching art, she taught English as a second language, writing and social studies at a dual language school. While born and raised in Wisconsin, Kate attended Iowa State University where she received a Bachelors of the Arts in Art and Deign with a minor in Spanish and Psychology. She received her Master’s in Education from the University of Missouri St. Louis in 2015. She has 3 pet free frogs who are regulars in her classroom named Sam, Brown Sugar, and Reina.

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 students.

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Our students cross borders every day. They switch from home language to school language and back again.Their warm presence, giggles, and questions invite new families inside our school buildings. And, everywhere they go, our students carry the imprint of their family members who came to Boston for refuge, for freedom, for opportunity. Every time these young people change spaces, they reconcile their identities and pasts with their presents and futures.

We know that for students to truly succeed academically, they must see mirrors of themselves in our curricula – art, media, and text – and validation of their identities in our classroom spaces. While we can empathize with our students, as white female teachers, we do not truly understand the depth of our students’ experiences. To effectively understand our students’ experiences, we need to cross borders ourselves and experience the displacement our students have experienced traversing these borders.

Today, the last day of our trip, we are energized by the Borders and Identity Unit that we have built and will use to launch the year with our students. We are flooded with all that we’ve seen in our seven cities. We are entrenched in the creative part of teaching, the part that involves being an interesting, engaged individual to better support the interesting, engaged individuals in our classrooms. The part that means we learn something new in order to teach something new. The experience of being a learner better prepares a teacher to teach, and this summer was an opportunity for us to authentically learn about murals on different borders, to confront not knowing and to investigate, to use art as a lens into community.

Watch in this video the artistic expression Kat and Alice captured in three countries and seven cities to help students answer the question: “How do we show other people the depth of our past and the strength of our future?”

This month, we immersed ourselves in adult project-based learning. We’ve tried lots of new things, from food to cloud-mountain hiking to driving to places we’d never been (while blogging) to talking about art from sunrise to sunset. And we’ve done the whole thing together. Often, in our classrooms, we create groups that we believe will benefit from the individuality of each member. We build in scaffolds meant to allow the group to discover each individual’s strengths and to make empathy a non-negotiable. Though we embarked with empathy and respect already in place, our twenty-six days together have illuminated the strengths and areas of growth (thanks, BPS, for the language) of our partnership. We both value efficiency, and, in the face of less-than-such (e.g., when the internet goes as turtle-pace, when people get motion sick, when you walk up the wrong side of the mountain, etc.), we have learned much about each other. That knowledge has made us better collaborators and better friends.

In San Francisco, where we started our trip, we were oriented to the idea of looking. This was not just because there was so much to look at in The Mission, but also because we did our first day with a guide, who was able to re-frame what we had seen and interpreted in the context of history and community. Carla made us cognizant of how much we needed other people’s knowledge and understanding to build our own. The Pacoima (L.A.) murals added a layer of “looking around corners” to that concept. On the hottest day of our trip, we spent the majority of it seeking out art on the walls of automotive dealerships and in the parking lots of community centers. It wasn’t always going to be all in one alley. In San Diego, a park once occupied by people and now occupied by art, had us looking for four hours and not seeing enough. We returned home those nights googling Aztec symbols and stories, trying to learn enough to know something.

Tucson and Dr. Acosta gave us yet another frame through which to experience our learning. Freedom of education does not mean freedom to learn about the American Revolution and the Civil War through a lens of whiteness. Precious Knowledge, to our generation of “urban baby teachers,” is a reflection of our intentions. Though we (the generation of “urban baby teachers”) are in no way united in our vision or our understanding of social justice, the power of conviction in ideas, history, and lifting stories and voices drove us into the work of education. We wonder if Dr. Acosta knows how many teachers who are only five or six years in are tracking his legal battle and celebrating his victories, most recently the repeal of Arizona’s ban on ethic studies which a district court deemed racist and targeting of Mexican Americans.

In Santa Fe, we absorbed the International Folk Art Market, how artists envision and reimagine, how tradition can morph modern and can accommodate the present day without reneging its roots. This mirrors the murals we’ve seen and the art of Frida Kahlo, taking symbols from the past and bringing them to life in the now. In Mexico City, we saw so much. Teotihuacan, Frida, Diego, the Anthropology Museum, street art, the culinary art of Pujol, the stained glass and craters of Toluca. With American eyes and feet, we navigated the city, and learned all that we still had to learn.

It is hard to classify this experience, and even harder to know all that it will bring to our classrooms. It falls somewhere in the vicinity of sabbatical – an intentional, purposeful break that brings new insight – but also touches the realm of professional development, continuing education, and a creative project. We envision a unit with three parts. First, with our students, we will read several memoirs that broadly address the topic of borders and walls, thinking with our students about potential barriers and how to scale them. Second, we will all generate and share memoirs from our own lives on the same topic. The author of each memoir will formulate his or her own theme about the topic, communicating a piece of knowledge gained from navigating–either adeptly or crudely–a border. Finally, after examining many primary sources collected on our trip and within Boston, students will co-construct a mural combining the themes of their memoirs to create a community creation.

The idea of “insider and outsider” has been, in many ways, the crux of our travels. We asked questions and navigated our identity as visitor, as white visitor, as American, as woman. In our classrooms we are often the the outsiders to the communities in which we teach. However our ethnicities and upbringing reflect the dominant histories and tools that are demanded from dominant culture. In this unit, we hope to illuminate these walls, supporting students to name them, scale them, and ultimately paint them. As humanities teachers, we believe that providing students vocabulary and time to think and discuss the world and its issues leads to a brighter, more creative, and smarter future than the two of us can imagine. Solutions lie in the writing, in the art, in the conversations, and in the relationships that students create. Just as we wrote in our FFT proposal, students must see themselves reflected in curriculum, in physical space, and in pedagogy in order to be successful. Because we do not physically reflect our students’ identities, we think constantly about how to make all other facets of our teaching affirming. This unit and this project will be a launching point for discussions about personal identity, community, and what comes next.

In Mexico City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Tucson and Santa Fe, this fellowship made space for us to be learners. After the twelfth grade, those opportunities almost always come with one (or many) literal costs. And Fund for Teachers (along with the school year calendar) gave us the time, space and finances to learn more in a way that will support our students, but also in a way that sustains us as teachers, professionals, and individuals. It made it possible for us to end the trip feeling rejuvenated rather than depleted. There is a constant push for teachers to continue professional development; it is indeed essential. But driving this profession development experience (and literally driving more than 900 miles) meant that we could pace our learning and reflection, and that we could intentionally choose meaningful experiences that hit our “zone of proximal development.”

If you’d like to know more about our trip, we’ve been writing the whole time. Read our blog at www.writingisthinking.org

In Solidarity,
Kat + Alice

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Alice is a 7th grade Humanities/Special Education teacher at the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Dorchester, MA. She infuses arts into her Humanities classes, most recently taking students to do pop-up Shakespearean theater in several Boston Public libraries. She works on a cross curricular team of teachers who study the intersection of English Language Learning and Special Education to build inclusive writing experiences in all contents.        

Kat is a 7th grade Humanities teacher at Gardner Pilot Academy K-8 School, a Pilot School in the Boston Public Schools. Katharine was a 2012-13 Donovan Urban Teaching Scholar at Boston College where she earned her Master’s in Secondary Education. Prior to becoming a teacher, Katharine built a college access program in rural Pennsylvania that continues to help first generation and undocumented students find the appropriate post-secondary fit while developing college and financial literacy
within the community.

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, and genre studies to engage her K-8 learners.

“Ms. V” enrolled in three opportunities – Dance Education Lab (DEL), Broadway Teachers Workshop, and Finis Jhung Ballet in New York City – to rethink how her curriculum can engage all of her dance students whether they are ballet dancers or breakdancers or just not sure about dance at all. Her excellent blog documents her learning, and we share a post written to her students
below…

Dear Students:

I’m sharing some photos here of my incredible workshop last week at DEL: Planet Dance: Multicultural Dance Education. I attended this workshop with all of you in mind as you are always telling me you want to learn different forms of dance. Words can hardly describe the overall experience of this workshop, which had many interesting strands to it. But I’ll say a few:

We began our week by talking about what culture is and what it embodies. (how would you answer ‘What is Culture’? Think about it). Seeking an answer, we:

 

• looked at our own cultural makeup and created dances about it
• viewed several dances from around the world and analyzed the movement in each
• discussed the reasons why people dance and create dance: recreation, work, communication (to name just a few)
• learned a welcome dance and song from Ghana
• practiced and explored flamenco steps and rhythms from Spain
• viewed a Japanese dance where the dancers used umbrellas
• created new dances inspired by all of these sources, and more!

We danced, created, and we discussed dance in great detail. The question we kept coming back to was:

 

How do you teach a cultural dance if the culture is not your own?

 

What do you think, readers? We talked about this at length. We talked about problems, concerns, sensitivity in exploring dance of other cultures. We did not come up with a final answer, but I know that I came  away from the experience with much to think about and share with you. This year I will be able to bring in even more residencies that I am hoping will expand our cultural dance knowledge and literacy. Do you have something you can teach me?

 

Included in the photos are pictures of my collaborative group. At DEL, we finish each intensive week by collaborating in a group and engaging in practice teaching for our fellow teachers. I am very excited about the work my group did because my collaborators and I really worked well together and listened to each other. Crystal, Eva, Monica, and Halley are smart, inquisitive and sensitive beings and I learned so much from them. Oh, they are great dancers, too!

 

Together we created a lesson around examining bias in dance criticism. It was written for high school, but I think it has relevance to you, my K-8 students. We looked at images and text from a review and created short dances based on it. Then we gave each other feedback on the dance. Finally, we looked at the whole review and discussed the issue of bias and who gets to critique dance. We talked about how to respond to dance by naming what you see before placing judgement. It was fascinating and I am excited to do some of this with you!

 

I also have some flamenco inspired movement to share with you, courtesy of my teacher, Puela. And there is so much more!

 

Dancing at you from New York,
Ms. V

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M.K. is an eight-year veteran of the Chicago Public Schools and has been teaching and creating in Chicago since 1996. She  is passionate about curriculum development, advocacy and inclusion in arts education.  A dedicated and energetic teacher, M.K. has been awarded grants from numerous institutions including Chicago Foundation for Education, the Target Corporation, and the Oppenheimer Family Foundation.

 

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 the Brontë sisters, especially Charlotte – regarded as “the first historian of the private consciousness.”

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On my Fund for Teachers fellowship, I navigated through five European countries in the hopes of learning more about Carol Gilligan’s work on the ethic of care in connection to the lives and histories of women. Among the women I journeyed to “meet” were Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, authors and sisters.

Haworth, England, is a small town that has capitalized on the mythology of the Brontë family. It’s hard to know if the Brontës modeled their stories after the environment of Haworth, or if Haworth has wrapped itself up in the Brontës. Whether it’s chicken or egg, at the heart, they’re inseparable. And, if you can’t get enough of the gothic atmosphere, you can hike out to the Brontë Waterfall across the moors and even farther to Top Withens, a possible location for the Wuthering Heights of Emily’s imagination. In the mist and among the heather you can almost hear Cathy still calling for Heathcliff.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum itself is in the midst of celebrating the 200th anniversaries of the Brontë children: for 2017, this is Branwell. The small parsonage is preserved beautifully, with portraits of the family hung in each room; the table where the women bent over needlework, writing, and dinners; and the study of the family patriarch, Patrick Brontë, complete with his spectacles and magnifying glass. The staff were enthusiastic and kind, offering up knowledge about the family not with an air of pretension, but rather as though talking warmly about old friends. The Brontës are very much real people to this crowd. Prior to this fellowship, I did not know much about the Brontës. I did a quick reread of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre earlier this year, and watched the BBC television special To Walk Invisible. The production worked closely with the Brontë Society and the museum also includes stills and costumes from the series.

For more on Jane Eyre’s iconic line “Reader, I married him,” click here.

In researching before the trip, I learned that in the original publications, the sisters chose not to use their given names. Instead, they used pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Charlotte explained after the deaths of Emily and Anne in 1848 and 1849 respectively, they wanted their work taken seriously, not frowned upon as womenly nonsense nor praised patronizingly as female folly. The Brontës were real writers with real things to say about the real world around them. And really, in 1847 when Jane Eyre was published, only male authors were taken seriously. The museum even includes a letter from a poet Charlotte admired advising her that writing was not for women.

I realized, a few days before in Chawton, that there is a reason we don’t say that Jane Austen’s books are about the human experience, though they certainly include suffering, trials, family, love, and loss. (The Jane Austen Society, coincidentally, is celebrating her life with the bicentennial of her death this year, as well.) The Brontës recognized this also, and when Charlotte sent Jane Eyre to be published she wanted the story of a young governess, a deeply misguided Mr. Rochester, and a “madwoman” in the attic to be a story received with the utmost sincerity and gravity, a story of human experience- not just male or female. And it was: Jane Eyre became the talk of London and new editions came out almost immediately. It’s a story of human experience and human emotions that belong to all of us, and I believe people recognized this, despite knowing the true identity of the author.

I’ll be honest, I was not a Brontë fan before visiting the parsonage. I enjoyed their books, yes, and they were interesting figures to me. But I wasn’t a “fan.” However, there is something about walking in the home of a person, seeing their correspondence and their village, walking across the moors of their lives for even just a day that spins stories to a different light. It makes you not just a fan, but a friend. I learned more about their heart and the courage they had to put their stories out to the world, and to put themselves in their stories.

I don’t think that it’s any accident that the original title of Charlotte’s first novel was Jane Eyre: An Autobiography.

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Amanda serves as both a mentor and humanities teacher at Odyssey Leadership Academy in Oklahoma City and previously worked as a teacher in Louisiana’s public education sector. She is passionate about creating courses that focus on justice and empowering students to enrich and transform the community around them.

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…

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“Late in life, noted naturalist John Muir traveled to Alaska. As he sailed along Alexander Archipelago, he wrote,“To the lover of pure wildness Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world. No excursion that I know of may be made into any other American wilderness where so marvelous an abundance of noble,newborn scenery is so charmingly brought to view…”

Today especially, Alaska stands out for its 54 million acres that have been set aside as national parks, a vast expanse of wilderness that can only be appreciated by the naked eye. Even so, Alaska’s history is also a decidedly human tale of exploitation as much as conservation, abuse as much as preservation. From the migration of humans across the Bering Strait to the gold rush to the ExxonValdez, Alaska is a microcosm of the human-nature relationship within American history. Thus, it offers itself as an excellent starting point for an exploration of this dialectic that has defined the American people’s relationship with their land.

Unfortunately, this relationship often goes unexplored by students at the urban high school in which we teach. The school primarily serves children of color, many of whom lack the resources to explore the local,state, and national parks near their neighborhoods. According to the Outdoor Foundation, only 8% of black adolescents and 12% of Hispanic adolescents participated in outdoor activities in 2015, miniscule numbers compared to 71% of their white peers.As America grows increasingly diverse, this gap portends significant consequences not only for communities of color, but for the earth itself. The damaging effects of human-caused climate change are increasingly manifest and necessitate an “all hands on deck” response – one that is only possible if all people, including our students, become advocates for conservation.

Our self-guided fellowship into Alaska’s wilderness will enable us to report back to our students not only its beauty, but also the imperative to preserve that beauty. As a U.S. history teacher and an English teacher who teach juniors, we will equip our students to step into the wilderness – Alaskan and local, past and present – in order to experience the wonder of the earth and the need to preserve it for future generations. Like Muir, we are documenting our adventure, in writing and digitally, in order to create a meaningful experiential unit that transports students to the Alaskan wilds with the aim of inspiring students to seek out such experiences for themselves while also advocating for the preservation and protection of the natural world.”

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Armed with a 360 degree camera, Frank and Brandon are capturing experiences for their students, including:

• Observing the impact of the ExxonValdez oil slick and climate change on Kenai Fjords National Park;
• Witnessing the human-nature relationship on Reeve’s Field, the airstrip used to support the Pacific Theater during World War II;
• Exploring in Denali National Park and Preserve the Kantishna Mining District;
• Flying above the Arctic Circle to tour Simon Paneak Memorial Museum,
  which documents the natural, geological and cultural history of the Nunamiut people;
• Backpacking in lands preserved by the
  Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act

In addition to incorporating images and experiences into U.S. History and English III classes, the teaching team plans to collaborate with colleagues to create an experiential interdisciplinary unit that promotes outdoor engagement and conservation. They also believe their experiences will help grow the school’s Outdoor Leadership Club, which Brandon founded last year. Lastly, students will visit a local tract of land managed by the National Park Service, interviewing rangers about local issues that interact with what their teachers learned in Alaska. Students’ research will culminate in a joint English – U.S. History research and advocacy project they’ll present to peers, teachers, parents, community members and park rangers.

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Brandon is dedicated to preparing his students for active citizenship in the world by infusing his classes with authentic reading and writing. In 2016, he co-founded the school’s Outdoor Leadership Club in an effort to diversify the outdoors and expose students to the beauty of nature. In addition to being a Fund for Teachers Fellow, Frank has received a Teaching American History grant and studied the Civil Rights Movement at Cambridge University through the Gilder-Lehrman Institute.

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 parents. Brittany, a teacher at Hardy Elementary, bought the bus with her own money, so committed was she to students’ success. Ultimately, the red bus, affectionately called “The Passage,” has been underwritten by local businesses and philanthropies, as well as a T-shirt fundraiser.

Watch local news coverage of The Passage here.

“Enabling our students to succeed, despite where they come from, was oneof the major reasons I used a Fund for Teachers grant to attend the “Teaching with Poverty in Mind” and “Tools for Maximum Engagement seminars” said Brittany after completing her fellowship.“Our students come from a background of poverty and we want them to have maximum engagement in their academics.”

The vehicle for engagement is now actually a vehicle. Since last November, Brittany and Colleen spend every weekend rolling into neighborhoods and swinging open the doors for their students, who eagerly enter for math and reading tutorials.

“Fund for Teachers granted me the opportunity to learn, serve and infuse strategies that have built a better and stronger community,” said Brittany. “I learned how to teach with students in poverty, and make a positive impact on student growth. I also gained knowledge on how to engage every child daily. What truly opened my eyes during that innovative week was that the teacher holds the greatest percentage of student achievement. With that information, I created plans and goals to strive for my students to reach their greatest potential.  Fund for Teachers allowed me to build on previous knowledge and make a  powerful impact. I appreciate that amazing ability to create a strong influence for teachers to persevere and seek more.”

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UPDATE: Watch Brittany win $10,000 on The Ellen Show as part of 2018 Teacher Appreciation Week!