Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December — the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR is a milestone document that proclaims the inalienable rights which everyone is entitled to as a human being – regardless of race, color, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Last summer, Jenn Nekolny and Christine Halblander (Jefferson Junior High School – Naperville, IL) used a Fund for Teachers grant to explore how physical and societal divisions in historical and contemporary Poland, Czechia, Austria and Germany impact human rights. They now supplement Social Studies and Language Arts curricula with their insight and experiences to enhance students’ knowledge around migration and refugee issues. In honor of all those striving for human rights, we share this reflection of “Team Mending Fences” and how their fellowship is impacting students’ awareness of humans’ rights. 

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Our fellowship allowed us to look at forced movement of targeted groups in Krakow and Warsaw and the ghettos and camps that swallowed once peaceful lives. Museums and cultural centers in former East and West Germany allowed us to trace the lives of individuals and families. We then met today’s refugees and NGOs who work with them in Vienna and Berlin. Finally, we stayed with Jenn’s host parents and explored how small towns are welcoming asylum seekers.

It was very important for us to share our Fund for Teachers experiences with our students and school community. We were able to speak genuinely about the places we visited. When we shared our interviews and work with asylees, NGOs and individuals who are helping refugees, we spoke of them like they are true friends. Our students felt included in our FFT experience from the beginning; this enabled us to encourage even the most reluctant readers to read Refugee and create an Open House event for our community. 

Our Open House was a great success! Each character/ time period/ journey of the novel Refugee, had a room with student-driven projects, maps, activities, and a food item that represented the culture. We were even able to expand the learning with a graphic novel, Illegal, and mini research boards that gave a refugee. migrant, or internally displaced person a personalized story.

As guests entered the main entrance of our school, they were greeted by one of our School Board members who explained the reason for our event and the passport. As guests visited each of the four themed rooms, they earned a stamp in their passport for trying an activity, sampling a food item, or participating in a learning experience. After visiting all four rooms, completed passports were entered into a drawing to win gift cards to a local bookshop. Parents and kids had a great time with a little friendly competition to see who could earn their stamps!

To add to our theme of learning about refugees, we collected school supplies to be donated to our local World Relief organization. Binders, backpacks, pencils, notebooks and folders were dropped off by families attending our event and will be given to newly- arrived school-aged children who need them.

Our entrance lobby was full of activity! This is where guests picked up and dropped off their passports, and also where our 8th grade students held a bake sale. Families donated baked goods and student volunteers were there to receive them, price them, and tell people about BikeyGees, an NGO that teaches refugee (and other women) how to ride bikes in order for them to have more freedom. BikeyGees is located in Berlin, Germany, and we were fortunate to work with them on our fellowship. We had a large poster explaining their mission, including photos taken while volunteering there. It was important for students (and families) to see where their donations of effort, time and money were going.

Our lobby was also the location for our one-of-a-kind bracelets. Each bracelet had a hand-stamped message (like HOPE or JOURNEY or our school mascot, PATRIOTS) and hand-tied strings. Students worked during lunch periods to create them and then asked for donations and talked with guests about the mission of BikeyGees and what is being done to assist refugees and asylees in other parts of the world. 

Things were a little quieter in our focus rooms. Students spent weeks reading, discussing and organizing their work based on a character in the novel Refugee. Here are some scenes from Josef’s room (Nazi Germany, 1939). A poster asked “What’s in the family’s suitcase?” and the packed items chosen by students were labeled with detailed notes about a party dress that Josef’s mother might have worn, a Torah that Josef needed for his Bar Mitzvah, a stuffed bear for Josef’s little sister, Ruth, and a shawl for covering heads and shoulders for religious activities. Students practiced research and writing as they worked together on this, then guided guests in Josef’s journey. Staying in the heart of Kazimierz and visiting Auschwitz- Birkenau allowed us to discuss some of the connected historical events. Next to the suitcase, visitors use Post-its to write something they would take if they suddenly had to leave home.

Mahmoud’s room (Syria, 2015) welcomed visitors with a summary of his story and the “official” flag of Syria and “rebel” flag of Syria. Students explained the symbols on a poster and students sewed the flags with fabric and felt, guided by our Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) teacher. Here, students and one of our EL teachers get the room ready for guests. Students designed the room as if guests were following Mahmoud’s journey on land and sea. Chapter highlights explained where he went and why with maps, photographs, and research. The tension of his journey built as each station was reached by visitors. Students learned how to make hummus in their FACS classes and paired it with vegetables for guests to enjoy. Each plate is divided into fourths, with the name of each country written on one fourth of the plate. This helped us to cut down on waste and allowed guests to start in any room and travel “around the world” with their plates and passports.

We met several Syrian refugees on our fellowship–a car mechanic, a dentist, a student, a mother–all had such a love for their country and a desire to help others. We were able to show students that a country might have issues with politics and war, but the individuals each have a story that isn’t what’s portrayed on the news.

In Isabel’s room (Cuba, 1994), students wanted to mimic the sights, sounds and tastes of Cuba so guests would feel a little of the island on our cold February Open House night. There was a selfie station with a “wet foot/ dry foot” beach theme to represent Isabel’s goal of taking the boat to “El Norte” (the United States). Students used bright colors as a tablecloth for the pineapple and mango skewers dusted with Tajin fruit spice. They did a great job encouraging people to try the Tajin! Our population of families from Mexico and the Caribbean were happy to taste something familiar to their culture.

The entry to Isabel’s room included a game of chance (after all, that’s what we saw over and over in our fellowship) that directed guests to different experiences, including a station with QR codes that linked to videos that taught the rhythm of the clave. Our music teachers worked with students to create short videos at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels and provided the clave percussion instruments to try. 

To enhance our learning, we added the graphic novel Illegal, by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin. Families were introduced to the story of Ebo, a Ghanian boy who leaves his village in search of his brother and sister, who had led before him. Ebo must travel by land and sea, across lonely deserts and through huge cities, always alone. The people he meets along his journey help to guide him as he learns about his own strength. We were able to connect the idea of the “helpers” in his fiction story with what we had learned from Mohammad, Bahar, Tarik and Mo, asylum seekers we had met in Vienna, Berlin, Puchenstuben, and Leipzig. As students read Ebo’s story in Language Arts, we were also talking about cocoa farming and labor practices in Social Studies. As we researched, students found that the Lindt chocolate company had made significant changes to their practices and their cocoa harvesting. Because of this, students chose Lindt chocolate as the snack to represent Ghana (and families were very happy to have this sweet treat at the end of their passport tours through the rooms!).

In addition to reading the novels, students had a unique opportunity to design a complete experience for our Open House guests. From designing the room layouts to determining who would greet guests, explain stops in the rooms, and take care of set up and clean up, students worked together to create something to be proud of! Originally, we had planned to work with 7th grade Language Arts and our EL teachers and students, but as our project was building, many other staff and students became part of the event. Our FACS teacher worked with students to design and sew the Syrian flags and to make the hummus, our band and chorus teachers volunteered to teach students the clave rhythm and how to use the percussion instruments, our library staff offered a selection of books that went along with our theme and 8th grade students provided book reviews to encourage others to read them, the families of our 8th graders made goodies to be sold at the bake sale, a School Board member volunteered to work with World Relief to collect school items and greet guests in the lobby, and countless others offered support to our students for our event.

In Social Studies, students selected a photo from #everydayrefugees and did further research on the reasons why that particular person or group would flee their country. They then added an enhanced caption and a map to show the refugee as an individual and not just a statistic. Students in our Dual Language Spanish classes practiced their reading and writing in the target language of Spanish with the same activity.                

The 8th grade students read connected fiction books and wrote reviews of them to encourage further reading. These were the students who helped with the idea of our fellowship last year as 7th graders; it was very special to have them as part of the Open House, too.

FFT granted us the opportunity to be students and explore the world in a unique way together. We asked a question and designed a plan to answer it. We wondered and through the journey learned about a global challenge and what other countries are doing to help. Our professional perspective changed because we are a team committed to creating a welcoming school community where we model and teach others to open our minds and hearts to the world and all it has to offer.

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Learn more about Jenn and Christine’s learning by reading their post-fellowship report here and accessing the Facebook page they made for students and families to follow.

On this Election Day, we’re focusing on a different type of vote, one conducted by students at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies. Inspired by their teachers’ fellowship in Mexico, seventh graders explore colonialism, feminism and the indigenous history of Mexico to  vote on whether the female translator and daughter of an Aztec chief was a hero, victim or traitor. Thank you for FFT Fellow Glen Meinschein for this story of turning an original idea into action…

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”50px 0px 50px 0px”]

It seems that now more than ever it is important for us to learn to think like historians. To think critically. To determine the reliability of sources. To analyze and corroborate evidence. To try to understand perspectives that are different, even contrary to our own.

When we started our grant proposal for Fund for Teachers, we had the goal of reframing the typical “American History” curriculum. We sought to teach American history not as the history of the United States, but the history of the Americas: an entire hemisphere, two continents, 35 countries whose histories are inextricably linked. We wanted to root it in narratives often ignored in history- by drawing from perspectives of indigenous people, women, and people of color. We wanted our diverse group of New York City students to see themselves in the history we taught.

We saw the perfect opportunity in the story of La Malinche – best known as the indigenous translator and lover of Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes. A woman forced into slavery and given to Cortes as a gift upon his arrival in the “New World.” In Mexico today, her name is synonymous with “traitor,” but her legacy has evolved as the country has grown.

As we interviewed locals about their opinions on La Malinche and her role in helping the Spanish during the conquest, we quickly realized how divisive this topic could be. The interviewees often had to take time to really think through the question, and had strong and complicated feelings about the subject. Seeing people grapple with this question proved to me how important picking a challenging central question is to push students to think deeply and to care deeply about learning history.

Read about this fellowship and student impact here.

Three years after our fellowship we continue to use the story of La Malinche and the research we were able to conduct in Mexico as the learning expedition which kicks off the year in this Brooklyn 7th grade Social Studies class. It is the introduction that we hope teaches students the importance of understanding context, analyzing bias, looking at history and current events through multiple perspectives, and learning the power one individual can have to create change in the world around them.

Here are a few student samples showing their perspectives on the legacy of La Malinche:

• “Today in history many people see La Malinche as a traitor for helping the Spanish instead of her own people, but it is important to remember that she was a survivor. La Malinche should be remembered as a hero because she helped to unite two cultures to create the place we know of today as Mexico.” -Ella
• “La Malinche is a traitor because she turned her back on her own people. She helped Cortez and the Spanish who only wanted to find gold. As Cortez and his men arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, Malinali didn’t think twice about helping Cortez wipe out the entire Aztec capital.” -Julian
• “The reality is, even with the ability to speak three languages she was still a woman in an era where women held no power or importance. Her job was to translate. She did not command the battles or fire the cannons. So, in a time where women could be regarded as property to be passed on as gifts from one man to another with no say in all aspects of their own lives, are we to believe that this woman’s ability to translate could be seen as betrayal that brought down a whole empire? Her natural intelligence allowed her to survive, creating a better life than the one she had. She was a victim not a traitor.”  -Lia

My fellowship through Fund for Teachers allowed me to learn first hand about a topic that had fascinated me for some time. Through our explorations, museum visits, interviews, and conversations, we were able to better understand the legacy of the conquest of Mexico, and local perspectives on La Malinche’s controversial role in helping the conquistadores. Learning about these perspectives first hand has challenged me to think more deeply about the way history is often taught at home.

Read Glen’s fellowship summary here.

[minti_divider style=”1″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Glen Meinschein is a middle school social studies and special education teacher at Brooklyn Collaborative, Brooklyn, NY. After graduating with concentrations in Spanish, International Studies, and Business from the University of Oregon, Glen spent two years teaching in Spain. Soon after, he moved to New York to join the NYC Teaching Fellows and finish his graduate studies at Long Island University, Brooklyn. Glen is currently the Social Studies department head at Brooklyn Collaborative.

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

“As for why I agreed to the EAC, I LOVE everything about and for FFT,” said Andrea. “I feel like I get so much value and respect as an educator (especially an early childhood/elementary educator) from this organization. It’s such a privilege to interact with other like-minded educators around the country. Plus, it gets me out of my comfort zone to practice being an advocate for early childhood/elementary education.”

We caught up with her and asked about updates with her students:

The good news: Our school PTO was so inspired by our AGENTS (Always Always Getting Everyone Nicely Together Significantly) working to get a larger shade structure for our small playground that they teamed up with the SPARK Park program and Trees for Houston to add additional play structures and shade to the playground.  So I (eventually/hopefully all AGENTS and the advisors) can volunteer with Trees for Houston when allowed to as well!  The bad news: My district has suspended all after school clubs in elementary school until further notice.  This means that no new AGENTS right now. ? Only alumni that are in 6th-10th grades.”

Andrea’s second fellowship was spent researching in Kenya how Wangari Maathai and her Green Belt Movement catalyzed environmentalism to inspire similar strategies as a framework for student leaders’ community action plans. Andrea designed this experience to add tree planting to the agenda of the AGENTS to provide students at an older, low socio-economic elementary school with time and space to nurture their ideas of leadership and ownership. Read about this fellowship here,  her Ph.D. dissertation about this work at here and her fellowship researching peaceful activism below in honor of Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday next week…

[minti_divider style=”1″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]”What would Gandhi do?” This is the guiding question for a group of students at Lakeshore Elementary in Humble, TX. Their teacher, Andrea Barela, used her FFT grant to research Mohandas Gandhi’s style of peaceful activism at the Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya in Mumbai, India, and the National Gandhi Museum in New Delhi. Her goal was to facilitate students’ application of similar strategies as a framework for developing action plans within their community. Watch this video to see the result…

Last week, we shared about The Ramsden Project, our network of Fund for Teachers Fellows across the world who are bringing their bold discoveries into their classroom and communities. This community will provide continual resources beyond a teacher’s summer learning experience and lift up their voice as a collective of trusted professionals who can lead their own professional growth and make the best decisions for students’ learning.​ Today, we’re going a little deeper into what this network represents. In short, it’s teacher leadership at the highest level.

We are continuing to construct aspects of The Ramsden Project that will add the most value for our Fellows. The pandemic and the fact that we didn’t have Fellows learning around the world this summer provided an opportunity to explore the possibilities more diligently. A Fellow Educator Advisory Council agreed to serve as ambassadors for our entire cohort and they, along with thought leaders in education and philanthropy, inform each new aspect of The Ramsden Project, including:

• A Mentor Program that matched each 2020 Fellow with one who has gone before them to maximize fellowship learning and support instructional innovation upon the return to the classroom.
• A Circles Program that organizes Fellows around topics they deem most relevant. Led by Fellows for Fellows, current Circles are collaborating about Virtual Teaching and Learning, Equity & Justice and National Board Certification.
• Convenings of Fellows in geographically-concentrated areas (when appropriate per the pandemic)

Ultimately, The Ramsden Project falls in line with the same mission Fund for Teachers has followed for 20 years:

[minti_blockquote]Strengthening instruction by investing in outstanding teachers’ self-determined professional growth and development in order to support student success, enrich their own practice, and strengthen their schools and communities.[/minti_blockquote]

How we talk about these teachers’ will pivot slightly to demonstrate ways in which they, and our organization ignite teacher leadership both through their fellowship and membership in The Ramsden Project, by:

• Leading the Way
• Seeking Opportunities
• Embracing Risk
• Turning Ideas into Action
• Discovering Resources, and
• Collaborating to Build Solutions

“Fund for Teachers is nationally unique in its motivation to trust teachers to know what they and their students need to achieve,” said Liza Eaton, director of The Ramsden Project. “As a Fellow myself, I experienced the validation this organization provided me in the form of a grant. Now, we’re making sure that Fellows don’t lose that initial sense of empowerment and possibilities the fellowship provides.”

[minti_divider style=”1″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Read the Charter that guides describes the caliber of teachers The Ramsden Project strives to serve.

Turning ideas into action is nothing new for Tracey-Ann Lafayette. As a student at the University of Connecticut, she founded Leaders in Diversity within the Neag School of Education after recognizing that students from underrepresented backgrounds lacked a support system. Upon earning her Masters in Education and beginning her career at Robert J. O’Brien STEM Academy in East Hartford, CT, she founded a statewide LID initiative for BIPOC teachers and even organized a virtual summit last summer called Melanin Magic for educators of color to to embrace and empower their identities in educational spaces. Student activism, however, was the focus of her Fund for Teachers fellowship. Specifically, Tracey-Ann and her colleague researched in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa, the history of apartheid as influenced by Nelson Mandela to empower elementary students in social activism and restorative justice.

Read about Tracey-Ann’s learning in South Africa here.

“I continually shared with my students experiences and knowledge rooted in our fellowship – especially student activism while in South Africa,” said Tracey-Ann. “I think it’s important to teach my students to think critically and form their own opinions about the world so I try to give them information about a variety of topics that really make them think.”

And when they thought about Columbus Day, it didn’t make sense.

“They couldn’t understand why anyone would want to celebrate someone who caused so many issues and treated people so poorly so they wanted to speak up about that,” said Tracey-Ann. “We did talk about how even though they feel strongly about something that there are others who feel strongly on the opposite side of things, but they were determined to take action.”

Tracey-Ann felt it was important to support her students and show them that even as a third grader you can make a difference in the world. When the students decided to take their case to the school district, Tracey-Ann helped make it happen. The superintendent and assistant superintendent accepted the class’ invitation to dialogue about why they believed the school district should change the calendar to annually honor Indigenous People’s Day on October 12.

“My FFT fellowship was transformative for my teaching because it allowed me to engage in authentic learning experiences,” said Tracey-Ann. “Learning in South Africa about Apartheid made me curious about the local histories that are surrounding me that I haven’t considered. It also solidified the importance of teaching students about social justice and social comprehension, reminded me of the power that passionate individuals can have, and showed me the impact that children can have on their communities.”

[minti_divider style=”1″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Tracey-Ann, who holds a Masters degree from the Neag College of Education at the University of Connecticut, is active on social media. You can follow her work on Instagram, Twitter and her blog, Learning with Lafayette. You can also learn more about why she teaches on this short video produced by UConn.

FFT Fellow Rebecca Zisook (Helen C. Peirce School of International Studies – Chicago) also facilitated learning around this topic with her elementary students. Read about their learning here.

 

 

The flatlands of Oakland — where most of my students live — have often been described as a war zone. Nearly every student of mine has lost at least one family member, classmate or friend to gun violence. My students face discrimination for their race, gender, country of origin, religion, immigration status, and usually a combination of these. I have students who are refugees and immigrants from Yemen and Iraq, Burma and Vietnam, Guatemala and El Salvador. Additionally, because of the pervasiveness of gun violence, racism, poverty, and grief in our city, experts estimate that 30 percent or more of Oakland children suffer from PTSD, my immigrant students are now in a state of heightened uncertainty and fear with deportations on the rise. What’s more, my students belong to a generation that is increasingly suffering from tech addiction.

It’s not hard to see why I designed my Fund for Teachers fellowship around the need for more mindfulness, social-emotional learning and focus-building activities in our school. My two-week fellowship at the Penland School of Craft mixed the arts, writing, and mindfulness with an innovative movement program in the peaceful Blue Ridge Mountains. My time spent there also allowed me to build my own practice of slowing down to live more fully and intentionally so that I can help my students do the same.

Why Penland and not a more standard mindfulness program that attracts many Fund for Teachers Fellows? Why not Thailand or Japan? I was more interested in going to Penland because it combines mindfulness with the arts and writing. I also believe we need to build bridges between rural America and urban America, between a red state and a blue state. Another benefit of this particular workshop is the way Penland embraces the word “craft.” This was clear when I read the school director explain why his institution changed its name from “Penland School of Handicrafts” to “Penland School of Craft” in a recent blog post.

[minti_blockquote]”The word craft,”he wrote, “suggests process, skill, commitment, and perfected attention.” The director added that those values are what the school promotes for the world. “They suggest an ideal, not something specific.” Penland’s values are the same I hope to instill in my students. My time at the rural artist community helps me do that.[/minti_blockquote]

My days were spent immersed in a clay workshop and evenings I participated in “movement” courses. I also conducted field research by talking to artists and other educators about the creative process, even those who are in different workshops than mine. Most of my action research, however, took place in Catherine White’s “Woodfiring & the Expressive Hand” course. In that intensive course, I made all types of pottery and discussed the creative process. It is here that I experienced one of my most profound lessons. “That badness becomes part of your goodness,” was a quote from my teacher that I inscribed in the foot of a bowl that I’d apparently “ruined.” Instead of throwing it out, I looked at the unintended grooves and found a way to accentuate them because they looked like the Penland mountains. I want my teaching to evolve like my learning. I want to be more daring with my lessons, turning them into something good — even better — if they fail to go as expected. I want students to also learn this way.

Now, with distance learning, the way that my FFT fellowship helped me with mindfulness is even more important. I am partnering with several teachers to provide mindful literature lessons to my students. Just this week, we did a nice lesson on embodiment. We did a full body scan to focus our awareness on our own body. We then wrote poetry based on Elizabeth Acevedo’s poem “Afro-Latina” in which we explored how she came to love parts of her body and identity that originally caused her shame and learned to love her mixed heritage. The partnership with the ceramics teacher is on hold due to distance learning! However, I am using ceramics in my own life to continue to center myself so that I can be more present with my students.

This fellowship allowed me to be a “newcomer,” which is what my most recently enrolled students are called in my English Language Development class. I was a newcomer in the ceramics studio and to a special vocabulary that wood firers share. All but one of my classmates had had years of experience with clay. My teaching is consequently transformed because I felt the need to create safe spaces for students to question and make mistakes in an environment similar to the one I experienced on my fellowship. Lucy Morgan, who founded Penland in the 1920s, said this about her school: “I’ve never known a place where one experiences such a feeling of liberation, of a taking for granted that mistakes are a normal part of the learning process; of tolerant acceptance of people as they are, yet faith in their desire and ability to grow.” We must build similar environments for all learners, especially English learners.

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

This was Lisa’s third FFT fellowship. With her first grant in 2008, Lisa traveled to Japan to research its high schools, teenagers and media; in 2015, she studied multiculturalism in Australia, New Zealand and Tonga, where she explored with a journalist Sydney’s minority populations with multimedia storytelling. You can read more about that experience here.

Lisa Shafer is passionate about delivering an equitable education to all students and giving them the opportunity to voice their opinions through journalism, debate and public speaking. Armed with a Master’s degree in journalism from the University of Michigan, Lisa currently teaches English at Skyline High School in Oakland, CA. Prior to that, she taught journalism at Oakland’s Media Academy of Fremont High School and worked as a professional journalist at several newspapers, including the Toledo Blade, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Contra Costa Times. She started teaching in 2001. 

 

Since we got married, we have spent our lives together working with children in our community, other communities and in our school. We are driven by our desire to make a difference in the lives of children. We met in Arizona and assisted with the Grandma/Grandpa Corp, which was a community based program to help children in need. We later helped indigenous kids both in Mexico and Guatemala. When we came back to Connecticut, we became active members at  our church and with Children’s Community School because they are driven by parental involvement and exist only because of community involvement. We are deeply passionate about developing social emotional skills, creating experiential learning curriculum and making community and family connections. Since reading about the SOS Children’s Village programs in Europe, we have wanted to learn more about how this works and how we can bring this back to our schools, so we designed a fellowship to observe social emotional/experiential learning and family strengthening programs in some of Austria and Italy’s SOS Children’s Villages and Reggio Emilia schools to replicate the proven social emotional learning practices in classrooms, small group instruction and community collaborations.

Our students are faced with difficult academic, social, and emotional demands daily.They lack coping skills and often require assistance to manage their stressors and difficult home life. SOS operates in 135 countries, making it possible to drive impact on key issues that are similar to our school district. In spite of the fact that all children in Europe have access to good quality, free education, those from families with lower incomes are less likely to succeed educationally. This inequality is reflected in the type of school they attend: about 80 percent of children living at risk of poverty go to a general secondary school and only 20 percent to a more academic secondary school. In addition, according to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, there are significant differences between the performance of children with a migrant background and that of native students. Poor educational achievement affects their chances of finding future employment. This is similar to our district. Our fellowship will help us learn techniques to apply social emotional skills, experiential learning, improve community involvement and better family collaboration.

SOS Children’s Villages has been supporting unaccompanied refugee children for over 15 years. In 2015, and in response to the refugee crisis, they provided individual care for children and young adults who arrived alone in Austria. They live in SOS families or are cared for in small group homes throughout the country. SOS Children’s Villages are very active in Austria, adapting its work to the needs of children and families. In addition to the SOS Children’s Villages, where children who have lost parental care can be looked after by the SOS mothers, there are a number of programs working with families and young people in the community. Young children can attend the SOS Kindergartens while their parents go to work or receive training. Family strengthening programs are an important component of the work carried out. We will tour, observe and meet with directors at SOS Villages in Imst and Vorarlberg, and Dornbirn/Vorarlberg, Austria; and Mantua, Ostuni and Rome, Italy. We will also stop in Reggio Emilio, Italy, where the Reggio Emilia approach to education was founded on the belief that every child is full of intelligence, curiosity and wonder. The basis for development in the early years is a child’s ability to use The Hundred Languages available to him or her. These hundred languages a child might use go beyond speech and include “languages” for expression such as drawing, music and dramatic play.

Our guiding questions for this fellowship are:

1. How can we apply what they are doing to meet the social and emotional needs of their students in our district?
2. What social emotional techniques, community involvement strategies and family collaboration ideas can we apply to our existing curriculum and supports?
3. What is the sustainability of the program they run in relation to student learning? And,
4. Does this sustainability equate to quantitative and qualitative data that demonstrates improvement in the school community?

Young students struggling with hardships is a familiar theme for Donnie. One of five children, his mother died in a car accident when he was 12 and he was raised by his grandparents. Read more about Donnie’s story and path to becoming a teacher here.

Social Emotional Learning includes instruction in recognizing and managing emotions, solving problems effectively, and establishing positive relationships with others. We believe family strengthening programs, community collaboration and experiential learning schools will give us the ability to develop programs at both the elementary and high school levels to dramatically elevate SEL across our district. For us, community collaboration will be key. We plan to forge partnerships with:

• The Women and Families Center which fosters empowerment for children and families
• Robyn’s House which provides short term housing to young people and assisting with independent living.
• Open DOHR which focuses on developing opportunities in human resources employment and training
  programs, and,
• Goodwin College nearby, which supports the Reggia philosophy.

We plan on having the high school students help teach some of the lesson plans and work collaboratively with Kindergartners across the district. We will differentiate based on grade level and areas of concern (absences, behaviors, referrals and overall school performance). Students meeting with success after completion of a developed plan will eventually be able to plan, implement and assist other students meet with success. When taught daily embedded social emotional learning skills, we believe students will be able to practice these skills in a
safe setting and feel confident applying them in the moment throughout their school day and at home. The students will also work with community partnerships to bring 6 to 8 week programs from Woman and Families and Goodwin College to our schools. School community will benefit by the discussions about developing a school wide curriculum to build and maintain social emotions skills and improved relationships. Authentic learning and problem solving will be acquired through collaboration with staff, parents and community partnerships.

Short term plans also include utilizing lessons from units taken from our districts new social emotional learning curriculum and the curriculum from Reggia Emilia and SOS schools to enhance student learning. Our ultimate long range goal is to collaborate with our home based school colleagues so that they understand that relationship building is something that can shape the school culture and climate.

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Teaching is Donnie Dupree‘s third career. After several years in the Army and several years in the technology field, he earned his teaching degree at the age of 35 and currently teaches kindergarten at Israel Putnam Elementary School. Mikki Dupree is a school psychologist at Orville H. Platt High School. They share the same philosophy that it is their job to teach and guide children to be successful in all areas of life.

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.

---

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

---

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.

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 will tour with him Tulsa’s Greenwood District, the site of one of America’s worst race massacres.

Watch this 60 Minutes piece on the Massacre.

Ninety-one years later, Kyle Peaden designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship in which he explored the culture and history of South Africa to develop a curriculum that compares/contrasts Apartheid with Tulsa’s Race Massacre to cultivate a zero-tolerance view of racism at Tulsa’s Patrick Henry Elementary, six miles away from Greenwood District. We are grateful and proud to share his insights…

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

 

In 2012, I wrote in my grant proposal:

I see history repeating itself. I see that my students do not know or comprehend of the hate and bigotry that violated our city in the early 20th century in what is regarded as one of the most destructive race riots in the 20th century. While my students may not be involved in the repulsive actions of racist groups of individuals in the past, I can see hints of the same distance from understanding. Students are letting bullying and anger fill the voids where communication, discussion, and understanding should be. I hope to bring about understanding of racism, hate, and intolerance by contrasting the history of South Africa to the history of our city. By visiting South Africa to show the history and recent developments in Apartheid and segregation I can bring students to look closer at their own local history. This quiet city holds scars and wounds from one of the largest race riots in America and it remains a difficult subject to face. These wounds are ignored, and the impact of the race riots still linger. By bringing students to my experiences in South Africa I believe they will be able to use an unbiased process of examination to the history of South Africa and eventually to our history.

Sometimes it is too difficult for a child to think that something so awful could have happened in their home town. A sense of favoritism holds strong in their heart that would leave them less willing to hear or realize what happened here not too long ago in their own backyard. It is my hope to go to South Africa to learn firsthand why one person can do terrible things to another and how the goodness in humanity can prevail. I hope to bring a community of students closer to understanding what did happen, what can happen, and what we can do to make sure none of that will happen here ever again. By looking at examples of strength, ignorance, and hope abroad in South Africa and right here in our own back yard these students will work through questions dealing with morality and morality that can help their own understanding of such subjects.

My exploration started at home in Tulsa. I wondered how a city could recognize and reconcile the immense tragedy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. This question took me on a journey over 8,700 miles away to South Africa. South Africa is a country that exemplifies the evils of racism and the hope that can bring a society from those dark times. I wanted to study the culture of South Africa, its art, food, and people, so that I could gather a greater understanding of what happened and how the country has adjusted from Apartheid.

My journey began near Johannesburg where I spent a week in Soweto, the largest and arguably most influential townships during the resistance against Apartheid. During my stay I met the most welcoming people during my whole stay in Africa. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to teach a lesson at a local art school as soon as I found one and my work with Emilia Potenza, the curator at the National Apartheid Museum, gave me a greater background understanding to the reasons and history behind Apartheid. Not far from this epicenter of struggle I visited the Cradle of Humankind where the fossilized remains of our direct ancestors are found. From Johannesburg I traveled through Kruger National Park driving amongst natures most raw surroundings to the Drakensberg Mountains. The Drakensberg site is home to thousands of Bushmen paintings throughout the mountain ranges. After hiking and documenting these ancient works of art I continued south toward the Cape of Good Hope.

In Cape Town I visited the many cultural and historical sites that represent so much of this diverse country. The blend and recognition of cultures reminded me so much of the country I grew up. I started to understand and recognize the steps towards reconciliation in South Africa and a small step to what might be needed at home. The art and history of this wonderful country helped me to see what steps my students and I can take to repair and resolve our troubled past. While my journey is a personal one, I know that the impact of my steps and my efforts will help students to further their own passage through the difficult topics of race, racism, hate, and hope. In my exploration our dark history nearly broke my heart, the people of South Africa filled it with joy, and my students carry it forward with hope.

I stayed in Tulsa teaching for another two years and my wife and I moved to Wisconsin. I ended up working with the Title I program at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction because I felt like much of what I learned is the systems and structures established during Apartheid had some of the deepest impacts on South Africa and the black community of Tulsa. I wanted to work on addressing those policies and by working at the state level I could work towards a more equitable education system.

My Fund for Teachers experience has helped to inform the decision making and policies in programs I work with. By acknowledging the impacts of multiple landscapes and their relationships with race I am more prepared for the injustices that our youth face. Wisconsin has some of the largest gaps for students of color and our state agency has made the work of closing those gaps one of our highest priorities. Personally, I work not only with Title I-A but in programs that support incarcerated students, students that are placed in foster care/out-of-home care, and I am a part of some of the equity work occurring in our agency. I’ve worked on teams that developed and train all staff in our agency on equity to build a foundational experience for our work. I think it is from the experiences in South Africa, learning from the Apartheid museum, the cradle of humanity, Soweto, and the people (most importantly the people!) that could tell their story that helped me build an understanding of how I can listen and work towards a more equitable education system for all our students.

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Kyle recommends the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation as a starting point for those wanting to know more about the Tulsa Race Massacre. He also encourages us all to reframe language you might here this week referring to the event as the Tulsa Race Riots. “I’ve learned since my fellowship that the word riot incorrectly places blame on Tulsa’s Black community, which acted in response to an unlawful arrest and subsequent rounding up of 6-8,000 Black Tulsans – many for up to eight days,” he said.

 

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 Teaching Tolerance advisory board member Jamilah Pitts suggests that when teachers choose to remain silent about moments of racial tension or violence—violence that may well touch students’ own communities or families—these children are overtly reminded of their inferior place in society. Engaging in dialogue about mass incarceration rates; the militarism of police and the killing of innocent black men and women is but one antidote to systemic racism.  Apple podcast | Spotify
• Scaffolded anti-racism resources: We love how this document is organized by the stages of identity development in relation to race. It is an amazing collection of resources to facilitate white persons’ growth.
• Teaching for Black Lives:  A collection of materials and resources highlighting the ways educators can make their classrooms and schools places of resistance to white supremacy and anti-Blackness, as well as sites for knowing the hope and beauty in Blackness.

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 can use in your own classroom.

Chris is a veteran teacher within EL Education, an innovative network of schools across the nation dedicated to equal emphasis on students’ mastery of knowledge and skills, high-quality work and character. The school’s unique approach to curriculum divides the school year into distinct, cross-curricular “expeditions” culminating in a final products. The inspiration for Chris’ 2020 fellowship focusing on Frederick Douglass was catalyzed by such a product that, interestingly, had its roots in Chris’ 2015 fellowship research on how Romans constructed public works projects (such as Hadrian’s Wall) to divide, as well as unite, people in a multicultural society.

Chris’ sixth graders’ AdobeSpark presentation Whose Renaissance Is It? led to a grant from Teaching Tolerance for a collaboration with community-based artists, to four murals the painted across Rochester. And just last week, the students presented this final presentation to the Genessee Comunity Charter School board of directors via Zoom. The board immediately motioned to revise the school’s code of conduct based o the recommendations of students’ work.

“After a year like this – it was satisfying and timely to see the students’ work received so warmly,” Chris said.

Read about the Teaching Tolerance grant and watch this video about the mural project. #ROCBeliever

We asked Chris how he arrived at this particular fellowship (his previous ones focused on Hadrian’s Wall, bird migration and Neanderthals – what can we say, there’s a reason why he’s one of 5 four-time FFT Fellows). Chris’ response mirrored his path toward becoming the the anti-racist and abolitionist teacher he wants to be.

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

“Working with amazing  Shawn Dunwoody, our kids helped paint four murals across the four quadrants of Rochester. It was the first time we’d engaged the class to see neighborhoods beyond their own and see our city as a whole – flaws and all and it was a powerful moment for all of us,” Chris said. “It also laid bare just how much work there is to do in understanding the inequity in our city. Seeing it through my students’ eyes forced me to see the systemic barriers and my own role in upholding them.”

Chris dug into Layla Saad‘s “Me and White Supremacy” workbook, which launched months of facing up to “biases, classism and even racism that had no doubt seeped into my interactions with kids.”

[minti_blockquote]”I picked up the work and with other white people, dug in. I wrestled with my prejudice and sat with the guilt of not doing enough – or even worse – just enough. I cycle back through that workbook every few months. A few weeks later came the news that a Frederick Douglass statue – one of many celebrating the bicentennial of his birth – had been vandalized. I don’t really know why that hit me as hard as it did, but I was furious.”[/minti_blockquote]

“We talked about it as a teaching team and with the class (now a new group of students) and posed the question – what do we do?” said Chris. “Naturally, the kids had the answer : ‘We show up.’ So we did – we alerted parents that we’d be taking a walk to the site where the vandals struck on the day a new statue took its place to show that hate and ignorance has no place in our community. Highlight of the day? Seeing Margaret Finch, my mentor from my first year of teaching (20 years ago!) thanking me for making time in the day to have our students be a part of this. That day was really the day I knew I needed to commit to becoming and anti-racist teacher and anti-racist human being. I had started with baby steps, head down making sure I didn’t trip over my words and actions and now was ready to look up and fail forward, as often happens when taking risks.”

“That year our students were examining food justice and the need for a food policy council in our city. A lot of our work was around the intersection of race and class. The data told the story of systems of oppression and discrimination towards people of color. Diminished health outcomes, food deserts and nutritionally empty foods in black and brown communities, poverty and time constraints that limit food choices – the kids learned about all of it. It was a privilege check time and I realized I still had more to do and more to learn.”

“For the 2019-20 school year, Alexis and I were approached by our school leader and members of our board to examine our school’s code of conduct and have the kids help us reframe the rules through the lens of restorative justice. That was eye-opening work and we’re just about ready  to share those recommendations with our board.  That and lots of reading and reflection of the past few years’ projects helped bring into focus my 2020 FFT Fellowship – to explore what it means to be an anti-racist educator and abolitionist teacher.”

Chris’ reading list included: Dr. Ibram Kendi (How to Be an Anti-Racist) and Bettina Love (We Want to Do More than Survive: Abolitionist  Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom). His other inspiration was local hero Frederick Douglass.

Read about Frederick Douglass’ deep connection with Rochester here.

“Douglass’ travels to Great Britain, where he spoke to white people to reject and dismantle slavery and join the abolitionist cause, were unfamilar to me. It was on these trips that enough money was collected and donated that would allow him to purchase his freedom and buy the printing presses that gave birth to his abolitionist newspaper, The North Star.  I made contact with professor Hannah Murray in the UK who had done the research on Douglass in Great Britain that shaped the itinerary I proposed,” Chris said.

“And then came COVID. Schools closed. Travel was suspended. Fear and anger raged as the death toll climbed. FFT made the wise decision to postpone all fellowships until summer 2021. And then Breonna Taylor was murdered. Then came Ahmad Aubrey. Then came George Floyd. Then came the righteous anger of hundreds of thousands of Americans, followed by many more thousands around the world. A lot of folks were in the shallow end of anti-racist work when this tidal wave hit. Being only a few years into this work myself with any real sense of commitment, I struggled with how to best serve my students – but our team opted to simply listen and let them share and process through a listening circle. It was a start and a conversation that is hard to maximize through the tiny boxes of a Zoom meeting. And with the year drawing to a close, we want the kids to know they should keep speaking and keep listening and be active in questioning the status quo. Several went to the protests. Others joined in the clean up of the looting and vandalism that followed. I keep thinking, “Man, I could REALLY use that fellowship this summer!” but a lot of the work that needs to be done in my classroom needs to be done internally, by me.

• Listening more.
• Revisiting my reflections on Layla Saad’s workbook.
• Working with other white educators to check our bias and challenge the assumptions we have of our students.
• Decolonize our curriculum and make sure the policies and systems within our schools are culturally affirming so when we say Black Lives Matter, the students believe it.Taking a virtual abolitionist walking tour in London with Dr. Murray later this month. And,
• Participating in a Gilder Lehrman Institute online course about the History of American Protest.

“While it’s no substitute for my fellowship, current events and these activities are already conspiring to shape the direction we’ll be taking with next year’s sixth graders. And in June of 2021, as I begin to follow in Frederick Douglass’ steps in the UK, I will already be one step closer to becoming the anti-racist and abolitionsit teacher I want to be.”

[minti_divider style=”1″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Chris is a sixth-grade teacher at Genesee Community Charter School in Rochester, NY and is a three-time Fund For Teachers Fellow. History and geography are two passions he brings to life in his classroom, through field work, guest experts and product-driven Learning Expeditions. Chris has contributed to EL Education publications and Common Core curricular efforts, was awarded EL Education’s Top Teacher Honor for the nation, and is a NY Educator Voice Fellow. Follow him on Twitter at CJDTeaches.

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, New York City police raided Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village bar known for its gay, lesbian and transgender patrons. The BBC story “Stonewall: A riot that changed millions of lives” proposed that Stonewall was to the gay rights movement what Rosa Parks was for the civil rights one. “And just as Ms Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama to a white man had the effect of animating the civil rights movement 14 years before,” wrote author author Tom Geoghegan, “so Stonewall electrified the push for gay equality.”

For more information, watch this “Stonewall Uprising” episode of PBS’ American Experience.

Use these Learning for Justice resources on this topic in your classroom.

Five miles south of Stonewall Inn sits Eleanor Roosevelt High School, with the mission of “challenging students to act with courage, integrity and leadership [while] preparing them to embrace the moral, social, and intellectual challenges to come.” Leading this work is Tony Cacioppo, humanities teacher and faculty advisor for the Gender & Sexuality Alliance.

In 2015, Tony was named the Live Out Loud Educator of the Year for ensuring his LGBTQ+ students receive the highest quality education and feel supported emotionally and socially throughout the process. To support this work, he designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship to explore how London schools give voice to the LGBTQ community in their curriculum and to strengthen representation and support of LGBTQ students and their allies.

“Statistics show that when compared to heterosexual students, queer students all across the country miss more days of school, experience higher levels of depression and other mental health issues, and are much more likely to drop out of school,” wrote Tony in his grant proposal. “I want my school to do more to fight this trend.”

Tony’s guiding questions throughout his month-long tour of the United Kingdom included:

1. How do we ensure that all students—queer or not—truly understand the history and current lives of LGBTQ people?
2. How do we eliminate bias, even when it’s unintentional, from the school community?
3. How do we include LGBTQ achievements, concerns, and topics in the curriculum of all courses in a way that feels authentic and purposeful? And,
4. How do we ensure that queer students are not singled out and or marginalized in any aspect of school life, including in classes, sports teams, extracurricular activities, school dances and field trips?

His exemplars were individuals and organizations at the forefront of the effort to expand the inclusion of LGBTQ voices and issues in schools through the 2017 Children and Social Work Act in England, which requires all schools to teach sex and relationship education (SRE) from the age of 11 on, with plans in place to begin this fall. Tony’s itinerary included:

Gay Pride Flag, National Museum of Dublin

• An interview with a former SRE educator/current staff member at Stonewall (a London advocacy helping to make schools more LGBTQ inclusive) that led to introductions at Stonewall’s School Champions network, where staff have been trained on best practices for LGBTQ inclusion.
• Meeting with Peter Tatchell, a longtime human rights activist and founder of The Peter Tatchell Foundation that turned into a strategy session on implementing his recommendations for inclusion of marginalized students at Eleanor Roosevelt High School.
• Workshops through Bish Training, a group that specializes in providing SRE training for schools, and Brook, an organization dedicated to ensuring the sexual health and well being of young people, which yielded best practices to better support the development of healthy sexual identity in adolescents and teenagers. And,
• Discussions with Dr. Polly Haste, the Head of training and Practice for the Sex Education Forum, focusing on ensuring that LGBTQ content is embedded into curriculum rather than discussed for one day so that the school can say it has “covered” the topic.

“One unexpected result was being told by several of the professionals that I spoke to that when it comes to addressing the mental and physical health needs of young people, doing certain things badly is worse than not doing them at all,” said Tony. “We must be extremely careful and thoughtful when talking to students about healthy relationships, sexuality and gender, drug use and eating disorders, etc. We don’t want to do more damage to an already fragile student who is in need of support.”

Tony’s long-range plans include incorporating more LGBTQ+ literature into his 11th and 12th grade English classes.
The culmination of the school year, pre-COVID, was to be a unit specifically on the Stonewall Riots, which he provides here.

“This fellowship helped me to see that there is amazing work going on all over the world if you take the time and have the opportunity to go exploring,” said Tony. “The people that I met and learned from were not just other classroom teachers; they were activists and advocates who care about the same things I do–namely the well-being of young people–and have chosen another path for helping to achieve a similar goal. This showed me the power of educators forming partnerships with anyone who is willing to help.”

“As teachers we get extremely focused on what is going on directly in front of us and with the things that we need to do by the end of the day, week, semester, or year,” he continued. “This project gave me to the opportunity to step out of my own small world and see the big picture. I now recognize that lesson plans and grades have their place, but that teaching can truly be powerful and transformative when it supports who students are and helps them become the people that they are meant to be.”

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Listen to Tony’s acceptance speech at the Live Out Loud Educator of the Year Award Ceremony.

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 to their profession, students and school communities.

Today, meet Laurel Cardellichio, science teacher at Croton-Harmon High School in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. Currently, she teaches AP Environmental Science and Regents Chemistry, but she’s also taught Biology, Animal Physiology, Forensic Science, and Psychology. Prior to being named a 2020 FFT Fellow, Laurel earned recognition as a Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms Fellow, Regeneron STEM Teacher Fellow, and her National Geographic Certification.

On her CardClassroom global education guide/blog, Laurel shares her mission statement:

[minti_blockquote]“Create scientifically and geographically literate students who, have passion for discovery of the natural world around them have the knowledge, the confidence and the skills to communicate ideas respectfully and, have the drive to become positive agents of change as globally competent citizens”[/minti_blockquote]

The Fund for Teachers fellowship Laurel designed, not surprisingly, is right in line with her mission. With her grant, Laurel will research traditional knowledge-based agricultural practices in Italy to create partnerships with local farms and learning that promotes traditional farming methods:

• mitigating climate change
• improving food security, and
• conserving biodiversity.

Laurel explained the reasoning behind this fellowship in her proposal:

“Just like my students, I learn best through experience and I propose to immerse myself in the history and culture of traditional agriculture ecosystems of Italy. There are two Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) in Italy designated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). These GIAHS, dominated by olive groves and vineyards in the Umbria and Veneto regions of Italy, provide significant examples of historical and modern human agricultural practices in harmony with nature. The traditional knowledge based practices conducted in these regions date back to the Roman Empire and smallscale family farms are exemplars for sustainability, biodiversity, and climate change mitigation. My teaching practice will be strengthened as I learn how historic food ecosystems reflect culture and sustainable land management, and how modernization and climate change has impacted them.”

Laurel’s goal for her students is for them to learn how sustainable management of agricultural land must be approached as an ecosystem and how that supports the Slow Food Movement. While she will pursue experiences and information across Italy to support this goal, her students’ work will be tied to farms surrounding their school community north of New York City. Three small-scale farms in Westchester County (Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Hilltop Hanover, and Cabbage Hill) will serve as her “homebase” from which she and students will learn best practices and develop mentoring relationships for future research projects.

Her keen interest in land sustainability stems from her personal interest in gardening, professional love of teaching environmental science and unique professional learning experiences.

“As a Regeneron Fellow, I took a course centered on the impacts of climate change on the ability of Athabascan Indians of Alaska to preserve their heritage largely centered on seasonally-based traditional methods for obtaining food,” said Laurel. “When I learned that I was going to Morocco [through the Fulbright program], I immediately started researching environmental issues in the country and the preservation of oases came up. I had never thought beyond movie depictions of the oasis mirage. I am thankful to my host teacher, who brought me to an oasis upon my request. When my research lead me to the GIAHS – completely by surprise – I found out the the FAO also has an interest in preserving human culture in the form of traditional agriculture.”

According to Laurel, the postponement of 2020 grant recipients’ fellowships until next summer gives her that much more time to prepare for an even more meaningful learning experience. COVID permitting, she plans to go ahead with her stateside portion of her fellowship, filming interviews at local farms and aligning her research for use in the classroom this year. This initial contact will lay the groundwork for students’ participation in the farms’ hands on workshops, guided tours and internship opportunities for seniors.

“Although I wish I could have carried out my fellowship this summer, I believe the delay for the Italy part will be very beneficial for multiple reasons. This extra time will allow me to: further develop my video production skills this summer for lesson plans, conduct the local farm research/visits/filming this summer giving me valuable time to better prepare for the two weeks that I will be in Italy ; and learn a lot more Italian so that I may communicate respectfully and effectively to the people I meet on my adventure.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 to their profession, students and school communities.

Today, in conjunction with Asian Pacific Heritage Month, we introduce Joey Cumagun, a special education teacher with the Adult Transition Community Based Instruction (CBI) team at Deer Valley High School in Antioch, CA. Joey currently he has also taught Special Day Class K-3, SDC 6-8 and autism intensive classrooms. A teacher for 32 years, his awards include Mary Allan Teacher Fellow 2019, National History Day Fellow 2016-17, Special Olympics Northern California Teacher of the Season 2015.

Joey enrolled in the Ateneo de Manila University with the intention of pursuing a degree in Engineering; however, after volunteering as a tutor his junior year, he switched his major to Education and started teaching social studies in a general education setting. After meeting his late wife who was a Special Education teacher, Joey added a second certification in this sphere, as well.

In designing his fellowship, Joey recognized a gap in the transition of his students from school to life post-graduation. He teaches 15 students (primary eligibility are (8 students with primary diagnosis of autism, 5 intellectual disability, 1 other health impairment (cerebral palsy), 1 with specific learning disability). Their learning goals cover:

• functional academics, which is how to apply reading and math skills in the real world such as following a calendar or reading a bus schedule
• appropriate communication and social skills to successfully navigate their community, and
• vital employment skills which is the primary rationale of this fellowship.

“As important a goal of getting a job is after high school is to my students, none of them actually gets employed after graduation,” explained Joey. “All my students end up in sheltered, non-work settings. In the state of California, only one out of every four workers with developmental disabilities are working in a community employment settings (according to CA Transition Alliance). On the national level, while unemployment rate is at an all time low, there is no evident increase in the rate of employment of people with disabilities. In my constant effort to find how I can best prepare students with special needs for employment, I researched top companies and best countries that employ people with disabilities. Then I discovered about Omron Taiyo in Japan with a long and reputable history of employing people with disabilities.”

[minti_pullquote align=”left”]Joey will use his Fund for Teachers grant to tour two Omron Taiyo manufacturing factories where the majority of employees have a disability to design a system for a workplace (simulated in the classroom) that is both conducive and motivating for students with disabilities.[/minti_pullquote]

“With this fellowship I will be able to see for myself a work flow system designed for workers with disabilities that I would never see in a textbook or curriculum,” said Joey. “In addition, I will learn more effective ways how to instill positive work values in the classroom, learn ways that Omron implements visual materials, automated signals, and workflow design to support workers with disabilities, and document methodologies and use of Japanese technology that I can bring to my classroom.”

Upon his return, Joey envisions a six-step plan for applying all he experiences in Japan:

1. Create workstations that incorporate workflow systems observed at Omron
2. Implement technology that supports work skills performance
3. Teach and practice positive work values, such as the attitude of punctuality
4. Introduce guided practice lessons that parallel work designs seen at the Omron factory
5. Present a training session during the school’s professional development day and provide handouts and support to
   teachers who are willing to implement whatever they have learned, and
6. Network with community organizations and businesses and policy makers by promoting my students
   employability

Joey’s ultimate goal is to see his students enter the workforce through this network, as opposed to attending adult day programs (bowling, library visits, etc.) in which most students remain for the rest of their lives.

“Essentially, the goal of school is to learn ‘skills to pay the bills,’ said Joey, “but in civic terms, the end outcome of education is to create productive citizens in the community both local and global. This fellowship will help develop a good success story for the community’s effort to engage students in real world learning. This fellowship will be particularly special because it caters to the needs of the special needs population, sending an inspirational message to the students and the school community that all students can succeed, no matter the challenges.”

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 “teach-in” on college campuses and that idea mobilized so many people that he hired a staff, the teach-in morphed into a nation-wide event and 20 million people demonstrated against the impacts of 150 years of industrial development which had left a growing legacy of serious human health impacts.

Fifty years later, protecting the planet is a major focus of FFT Fellows’ self-designed experiential learning each summer. This year’s theme is climate action, and we’re extremely excited to see how these members of the 2020 class of grant recipients will bring new ideas and inspiration to their pk-12 students about this topic after their fellowships:

• Laurel Cardellichio will research traditional knowledge-based agricultural practices in Italy and create partnerships with local farms to create classroom and field lessons promoting traditional farming methods that mitigate climate change, improve food security, and conserve biodiversity.
• Kathryn Hendrix will explore and photograph unique geographic characteristics of Iceland and Greenland while simultaneously witnessing how these populations manage climate change and renewable resources to prepare students as critical thinkers who can problem solve the challenges their generation will face, both in terms of global warming and for minimizing natural disasters.
• James Janski will explore Alaska’s Denali, Kenai Fjords and Wrangell-St. Elias National Parks to learn firsthand about glaciers, climate change, and the tilt of the Earth, and enhance students’ understanding of these science concepts.
• Jaclyn Lawlor will conduct research on climate change in Montana to enhance math education through the creation of an interdisciplinary senior seminar course that conflates math, earth science and naturalist writings to examine current issues.
• Barbara Niziolek and Micheal Niziolek will study the impact man made climate change has on Hawaii and investigate how advocacy and new technology are working to counteract its effects to develop a unit that empowers students to create their own environmental focused advocacy projects.
• Christopher Purdy will explore Alaska’s Denali and Kenai National Parks, Chugach National Forest, and the glaciers of Prince Williams Sound to learn how global climate change impacts glacial melting and rising sea levels and how extreme environments influence natural selection as aligned with Next Generation Science Standards.
• Ryan Roberts will research Norway’s environmental policies and how statistics influence these policies to infuse the AP Statistics curriculum with climate change and give students an authentic example of data collection that connects to one of the biggest current events of our lives.
• Charles Solarz will study the effects of climate change in the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica and its impact on biodiversity and ecosystems of the Isla de Cano Biological Reserve and Golfo Dulce and Corcovado National Parks to create a NGSS curriculum that encourages students to be curious about the world around them and develop the skills necessary to be analytical, evidence-based thinkers.
• Katherine Soltys will join an educator expedition throughout Southern Africa, gathering gather data and evidence for student analysis of the effects of climate change, to teach students methods for monitoring and minimizing human impacts on the environment and inspire them to become environmental activists.
• Mary Elizabeth Sugden will join an organized expedition through Tanzania to collaborate with local experts and other educators in designing learning that increases students’ understanding of the impact of global climate change on biodiversity and supports Next Generation Science Standards and the AP Environmental Science course framework.
• Jacqueline Theoharidis will learn from scientists and UNESCO experts about environmental issues affecting the coastal cities of Venice, Italy, and Zakynthos, Greece, to bring real world experiences about the global nature of climate change into the classroom via case studies, modeling of concepts, and inquiry lessons. And,
• Peggy Weinhoeft-Renfro will explore in Canada and Iceland the impact of climate on the electric grid and innovative efforts to avoid a possible infrastructure and energy crisis to provide students with engaging, real-world curriculum that will provide experiences that instill confidence to engage with STEM topics and future STEM careers.

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

You can read about previous FFT Fellows’ eco-experiences at the following links:

Climate Change from A (activism) to Z (Zanzibar) – A Brooklyn teacher explores the methodology and best practices of community-based efforts in the Maldives and Solomon Islands to mobilize youth in island nations and Brooklyn confronting climate change.

Bomb Clone = Climate Change? – Two Boston teachers investigate the impact of climate change on Iceland’s society, educational system and natural environment to develop instructional resources that empower students to address climate change and its impacts on Boston.

Changing a School’s Climate Regarding Climate Change – Two NYC teachers toured Alaskan boreal forest, coastal, tundra, and glacial ecosystems and collect first-hand evidence of climate change for a sixth grade unit called Human Impacts. And,

A Grand Education – A husband and wife teaching team investigated in five national parks the impact of climate change, with a specific focus on drought and indigenous peoples, to guides students’ creation of a local service project based on water conservation.

Earth Day 2019 FFT Round Up

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 dangers of racism and prejudice.” FFT Fellows consistently design fellowships to further this work and we are honored to share the work of one of them today. Aisha Haynes (Academy of Urban Planning & Engineering – Brooklyn) used her grant to research colonization in Ghana on the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved African arrived in Virginia to share learning with the school Equity Team and advance campus inclusivity goals. We’re grateful for Aisha’s work and her story…

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

“Akwaaba” is a traditional greeting in Ghana that welcomes visitors. This greeting resonates with me often as a teacher in the neighborhood in which I teach in Brooklyn, New York. Many of my students are recently arrived immigrants, students who are living in temporary housing, or simply new to our school community. This warm welcome invites my students into our classroom space to move from becoming visitors in our community to making themselves at home. I designed this fellowship to celebrate their diversity, encourage their inclusion, and build leadership amongst my adolescent students.

For ten days, I experienced the history and culture of Ghana while staying with a host family to broaden personal understanding of the African country, particularly the role it played in the slave trade, and more effectively teach this period of history. Visiting the Cape Coast was the most transformative of experiences. To stand in the same spaces where enslaved people were once tortured, punished, and forever taken away from the life that they once knew was jarring. Despite this painful past, so many of the Ghanians that I met were willing to acknowledge the dark past while acknowledgouting the hope and promise for the future. I was inspired by this attitude and I hope to share these experiences and attitudes with my student.

The “Year of Return” [2019 commemorated 400 years since the first enslaved Africans touched down in Jamestown, Virginia in the United States] was a carefully curated event by the nation’s government and tourism department. Watching them weave music, dance, art, and history together to tell a comprehensive story of Ghana’s past and present. This has supported a more interdisciplinary approach to my teaching and I am encouraged that my students are learning more because they are engaged. I also hope that my students will feel emboldened to share their identity with newfound ways to tell their stories.

I did not expect to be so personally impacted by the visit. To walk into spaces and hear “Welcome home, my sister,” gave me a sense of joy and belonging that I have never felt in any place that I’ve visited. As a Black woman in America, I scarcely have the experience to be in spaces where everyone looks like me and I was unprepared for how significant that would be to me. Additionally, the visit to the slave castle left me committed to retelling the story of marginalized people in their voices.

Students now have access to the resources I collected during my time in Ghana to begin drafting their own origin stories. After developing these stories, they will be invited to address issues around their own identities and present their findings to the school community. This will culminate in a full day of activities entitled “Day of Dialogue” in which students act as facilitators.

This work is expanding school wide events to deconstruct stereotypes and build our school community. Staff, faculty, and the community take part in this daylong activity, which has become a tradition for our school. Our students lead the activities throughout the day in classrooms and after the day is complete, they often feel emboldened to share their skills at conferences and other schools on the campus.

After Ghana, I have renewed energy and more directed focus toward creating a meaningful experience for students. I teach mostly black and brown students and sharing these travel stories and memories with them is a personal experience that brings us closer. My teaching is transformed because my worldview feels larger as I feel more convicted to make their teaching relevant, interdisciplinary and authentic.

Too often, students feel like their learning is in silos- their personal lives are separated from the classroom. Having had such a rich cultural experience, I am dedicated to giving my students the same experience. Travel also reminded me that teaching should be interdisciplinary, relevant, and mixes the past with their contemporary lives. When teachers are personally enriched, they pass along the experiences and try to replicate those experiences in a meaningful way.

(top to bottom: Aisha in front of the Ghanian flag. The red in the flag represents the blood of those who died for independence from Great Britain, gold-the mineral wealth of the country, green-the country’s rich forests and nature, and black star-African emancipation. | The Door of No Return at Elmina Castle, through which tens of thousands of Africans destined for slavery passed to board slave ships. | Visiting Kwame Nkrumah Square, which recognizes the country’s first Prime Minister and President of Ghana. | Black Star Square, site of the annual Independence Parade. Read excerpts from today’s speech by the UN Secretary-General about this year’s theme “Confronting Slavery’s Legacy of Racism Together” here.)

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Aisha is a high school teacher in Brooklyn, New York where she has taught English for the last eleven years. She is also a doctoral candidate in New York University Educational Leadership and Policy program. Her research interests include the changing educational landscape, education equity and school leadership.

…not a drop to drink. That’s what Richard Lebowitz discovered on his Fund for Teachers fellowship last summer in Indonesia. For two weeks, he collaborated with Balinese municipalities, scholars, citizens and tourists to research the country’s inability to overcome its water shortage crisis. Richard’s inspiration came from observing water waste at The SEEALL Academy in Brooklyn, NY, where his students are now implementing sustainability practices as a result of his research.

“An environmental sustainability practice that my school fails to address is our overconsumption of freshwater,” said Richard. “Our sinks and water fountains often break, and excess water pours out of these faucets while they are not in use. They are eventually fixed, but only after wasting potable water. The school’s sinks and toilets are outdated and overconsume freshwater because they lack modern water saving technology, like reduced water volume sinks and toilets.  I am committed to transforming our school culture, first by transforming the way my students view their roles as environmental stewards within our school and community.”

The most effective way to do that, he decided, was to show students what happens when a community fails to advocate for its environment.

Throughout his fellowship, Richard witnessed and documented the implications of a freshwater shortage crisis:

• More than 60% of the country’s waterways have dried up;
• Densely populated areas along the coastline have lowered the water table level, causing saltwater to leach into aquifers;
• Agricultural runoff pollutes bodies of water; and,
• Tourism creates an increased demand for freshwater.

Back at school, Richard introduced students to the topic of Bali’s water crisis through his fellowship pictures, videos and interviews. Then the students got to work, proposing solutions to four primary challenges listed above. The process included creating visual representations of their solutions through a classroom model, as well as science fair tri-folds.

This project sparked further student activism around the school, including elimination of single-use plastics and a new recycling program.

“Before the fellowship, my professional obligation as a science teacher was to inspire students to develop a love for learning while aiding their growth and development,” said Richard. “Now, my job continues to be what it was plus to inspire students to become positive contributors to society, the community, and the world within areas of science such as environment conservation. I have an obligation to share my experiences with others. I am grateful that I was able to have this opportunity to learn.”

We’re proud to share Richard’s story in celebration of World Water Day. Learn more about his fellowship by clicking here.

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

Richard is a middle school science teacher, sustainability coordinator, and science department chairperson in Brooklyn, New York. Currently, Richard is leading an effort that would bring recycling into his middle school. He spearheaded the construction of a greenhouse with a roof rainwater collection system. Next year, he plans to bring a reusable water bottle filtered refill station into his school. He is a Math for America Master Teacher and Greentree Foundation member.

Abraham Lincoln High School, located on the west side of San Francisco, is far from the traditional ethnic neighborhoods of Chinatown and the Mission District; centers of the city’s Asian and Latinx communities. Eighty percent of Lincoln’s students identify with these ethnic groups so AP Human Geography teacher Leon Sultan decided to utilize his own city to design a research project in these well-known locations in order to help his students dig deeper into their own communities and see them in a new light.

“Concepts of identity, culture, language, ethnicity, nation and the concept of the ‘nation-state’ are all central to our course – as well as to the lives of my students,” said Sultan. “I sent students on field trips into their own communities to research these concepts through new lenses.”

And by lenses, Leon means figurative and literal. Mirroring  research he conducted on the Catalan independence movement in Barcelona last summer, Leon’s students took photographs, shot videos and recorded audio to document Sense of Place.  They then worked in mixed ability groups to produce Vlogs (video blogs) using a clear narrative structure, voice-over narration, text graphics, and montages of still photo/videos and interview footage. The result were research projects that effectively demonstrate course concepts, utilize academic vocabulary and connect learning to their lives.

Project 1: “What is the impact of gentrification in the Mission” and “Is Chinatown Authentic?”

Project 2: “Chinatown district through the lens of Human Geography”

“Students benefit from seeing their teachers as role models and life-long learners,” said Sultan. “This summer, they watched me conduct field research through Vlogs I produced on my fellowship. When I arrived back to school this fall, students I had never met before were already well acquainted with me, and with key course concepts. Then, they engaged in the same type of learning that I did. Ultimately I want this project to serve as a template for other teachers to follow as our school moves towards more technology integration and interactive project-based learning.”

[minti_divider style=”3″ icon=”” margin=”20px 0px 20px 0px”]

In celebration of Lunar New Year, we are also proud to highlight the learning of a few additional
2019 FFT Fellows: