Bette Sloane (Mineola High School – Garden City Park, NY) applied to join the Equity Innovation Circle last year because she wanted to figure out how to elevate the minuscule cross section of famous mathematicians representing her students of color. “If students do not see themselves represented in mathematicians,” she asked, “how can they see themselves as mathematicians?” With a $300 Innovation Circle Grant, Bette enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School of Education to learn strategies for building curricular integration of social justice into the high school mathematics. We’re proud to share her story.

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In the summer of 2019, I was awarded a Fund For Teachers grant to explore the mathematics behind China’s immense man-made structures and Japan’s delicate artistic compositions to create authentic, real-world Geometry problem sets that draw connections between engineering, architecture, and the arts. The experience was transformative, not to mention a tremendous amount of fun. However, mere months after my fellowship, the world shut down.  In the midst of a complete re-haul of what schooling looks like in today’s digital, global society, Fund for Teachers reached out to its fellows with an opportunity to explore a problem in the classroom, collaborate with like-minded fellows, and further empower teachers to design their own professional learning.

The Fund for Teachers Innovation Grant found me at the perfect time. In the wake of current civil rights movements, schools have been attempting to tackle the important and relevant topics of racial inequity and social justice. My school is no exception. I teach in a high school and our students range from age 12 to 18. Our students range from beginning to understand what is going on in the world outside their hometown to desperately needing to discuss, debate and process the weight of these current events in their lives and on their futures. My district provided professional development on the importance of critical consciousness of racial and social injustice. As a lifelong learner, I was on a mission to delve deeper and learn how to weave social justice into the fabric of my high school math classes in a way that complements the curriculum.

I found a virtual workshop through Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, facilitated by Professors Scott Seider and Daren Graves, called Schooling For Critical Consciousness of Racism and Racial Injustice. Graves and Seider’s accompanying book examines critical consciousness as it consists of social analysis, political agency and social action. With a focus on social analysis and teaching through a culturally responsive lens, I began reading about ways I could integrate the contributions of a more diverse population of mathematicians to engage all students, but especially students typically do not see themselves represented in the miniscule cross section of famous mathematicians in the High School mathematics curriculum.

In my research, I found The Mathematicians Project, created by a Minneapolis teacher, Annie Perkins. Her project was so simple: introduce students to weekly examples of female and BIPOC mathematicians. As an experiment, during the first week of school, I asked my students to name any mathematicians they knew; they could only name dead, white men (Einstein, Pythagoras). The need for this project was clear. Following Perkins as a guide, I spent approximately 15 minutes per week researching a female, BIPOC, and eventually LGBTQ, mathematician and made a google slide to present to my classes. Throughout the process, I opened my mathematician choices up to suggestions from students, chose mathematicians with the same nationality as my immigrant students, and created an Equity Gallery in my classroom.

As a member of the FFT Innovation Circle focused on Equity, I received thoughtful feedback and valuable suggestions from educators all over the country that cemented my belief that this project was not just necessary, but imperative. Monthly Zoom collaborations with my Equity Circle brought me new perspectives to consider and a sounding board to workshop my own project.

My favorite part about my project is how small and simple it is. Sometimes, if a task seems too big, we might shy away from the work. And to be clear, the work that my fellow Equity Circle educators are doing is important work. So, instead of being nervous to get it wrong or make mistakes, I’m glad that we are taking the first of many steps. Small changes can make a big impact on our students and school community.  My classes are already enjoying the ripple effects of The Mathematicians Project. When I discussed with my class Dorothy Vaughn (featured in the major motion picture Hidden Figures), one  student announced that she had previously researched Katherine Johnson and asked if she could present her to the class the following week. Another week, one of my students took the initiative to make a request and asked me if I could present Ramanajan. After I researched and presented Ramanajan to the class, another student took it upon himself to teach himself one of Ramanajan’s proofs and present it to the class the next day.

This Innovation Circle experience helped me carve out the time to highlight female mathematicians and mathematicians of color in my classes. FFT helped me approach a big problem with a small solution and begin the work. We have to start somewhere. I firmly believe that math students will be more likely to see themselves as mathematicians if they see mathematicians that look like them. Representation matters.

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Bette Sloane has been teaching math at Mineola High School for 14 years. She is passionate about arts integration, especially in math, and received her Ed.M. from Teachers College Columbia University with a research focus on interdisciplinary education. She uses her BFA in Photography to teach students how to photograph mathematical concepts in the world around them, for which she won a 2011 NEA National Award.

 

Building on the success of our inaugural grants specifically for FFT Fellows, we are excited to launch our second year of $1,500 Innovation Circle Grants. Based on Fellow feedback, we refined this year’s Circle topics and decreased the number of Fellows per circle to enhance interactivity and collaboration.

Applications for 2022 Innovation Circle Grants open on Thursday, February 10 and are due by March 17. Fellows chosen to participate will be notified by April 27, with orientation meetings and the initial two group meetings taking place virtually in May.

See how FFT Fellow Joey Cumagen used his Innovation Circle Grant to “Highlight Humanity.”

Innovation Circle Grants are designed to provide Fellows with the funds and structure to design solutions that meet your unique students’ needs. First independently through self-designed summer learning experiences, then collaboratively with peers in the fall, this grant asks you to lead student-centered change in your classroom. This year’s Innovation Circle Grant topics include: Building Student Self-Awareness, Learning Partnerships, Student Agency, and Student Civic Engagement. 

Need some more encouragement to apply?

• “Receiving specific feedback on my innovation from experienced teacher-leaders was a crucial part of my fellowship experience. Each circle member became deeply familiar with the projects and progress of every other participant.” Gary Casity, Jr. – White Plains, NY
• “My meetings with my small group particularly helped me refine my ideas and get from ‘I have no sense of what to do’ to having a real plan.” Cassi Clausen – Mission Viejo, CA
• “It was amazing working with other teachers across the United States. With all the expectations placed upon teachers, we often do not take the time to reflect with other educators or even by ourselves. I was able to hear first-hand how other educators were addressing similar problems and meeting the needs of their students.” Cheryl Heldt – Las Vegas, NV

When asked in this podcast why Fellows should take advantage of an Innovation Circle Grant, Marci Addy (who participated in last year’s Social Emotional Learning Circle said:

“I did this for myself. Sometimes we do a lot of things for our students. But when I do something for myself, my students benefit from that. Shift the focus from “It’s work” to “This is for me. I care about this. I’ve been wanting to do this and here’s this amazing organization that is going to pay for it and give me money for materials. Take care of yourself. Do the thing that inspires you. Set that goal (of joining a Circle) and meet it. It’s the best thing they can do.”

Start your application today here. Or, if you are interested in leading a circle, read more about the position and compensation, here.

Joey Cumagun, a veteran special education teacher, seeks the human potential in every student of every ability. Through community-based instruction providing students with real life experiences, Joey helps prepare students aged 18-22 years old for their next steps in life. With a $1,000 Fund for Teachers Innovation Grant, Joey completed an online course on Teaching and Learning for Greater Good and completed a TED Masterclass on Public Speaking to create a venue and a community for space for students and teachers to share their best ideas. We are so pleased to share Joey’s reflection on his Innovation Circle Grant experience, as well as links to his students’ interviews, below.

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As a teacher I’ve always included a component of social emotional lesson in my teaching. However it is not always easy to teach an SEL (Social Emotional Learning) lesson, let alone teach it in my special education classroom. Even as a seasoned teacher, I find myself still lacking in effective ways to teach SEL properly. I see this when I start asking the important questions to elicit the SEL objectives, I hear mostly silence for answers. Silence or acquiescence is not the kind of student participation I want to see. I think that my students have a wealth of experience and ideas that they want to express. I want to draw these out effectively and also provide them a venue to unpack their thoughts and feelings and share their ideas, and even better, move them to action.

With the fellowship, my learning was go back to the basics of SEL and be updated and best practices of SEL teaching strategies. I also wanted to be be able to apply it to my own life as an educator – to be a social-emotionally aware and active teacher. This meant that I needed to unlock my own empathy, compassion and ideas. Lastly, my personal goal was to learn how to be an effective presenter not just in the classroom, but also in the community. Ultimately, I wanted to encourage a community of people who want to share themselves and their ideas.

The courses I took independently provided me with a good foundation of SEL and helped me grow into a more kind and mindful person who happens to be a teacher. Processing that growth with my Innovation Circle group made me reflect on my own values. Especially coming from a very stressful pandemic schoolyear last year, I reflected on my life and thought about the all important question of why I teach. I was also mindful that the students and the aides were also figuring out a new “normal” and with the whole Innovation Circle experience, I felt more prepared to teach this year.

Last fall, I created a blog page on our school’s website featuring interviews of students and staff talking about their life experiences. The interviews are narrative in style, addressing who they are (identify) and what they want to become (purpose). After being asked questions about his life experiences, one student said he felt important and a sense of pride about himself. Another said for the first time he shared his thoughts and profound feelings about his life experiences and that it felt good to share.

Watch Joey’s interview with Aaron here.

I think that my students have a wealth of experience and ideas that they want to express. As a teacher I want to draw these out effectively and also provide them a venue to unpack their thoughts and feelings and share their ideas, and even better, move them to action. What is a meaningful life and how is it connected to education? It has been shown that one of the ways to cultivate happiness and develop a meaningful life is to do prosocial behaviors. And one of the 4 ways through an SEL activity to have meaning in their life is – belonging,
purpose, transcendence, and storytelling – giving a chance for people to tell their story is to say that I value your story, to give a voice to “cultural, historic, and everyday lived experiences” of students.

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Joey currently teaching community-based instruction in high school, he has also taught Special Day Class K-3, SDC 6-8 and also autism intensive classrooms. A teacher for 33 years, his awards include Mary Allan Teacher Fellow 2019, National History Day Fellow 2016-17, Special Olympics Northern California Teacher of the Season 2015. This summer, he will undertake the fellowship he intended to pursue in 2020: Tour two Omron Taiyo manufacturing factories in Japan where the majority of their 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.

 

COVID continues to wreak havoc on schools and challenge teachers, parents and students alike. But an earlier global pandemic also thwarted (kind of) the plans of FFT Fellows Kerensa Elzy, Andy Gomez and Eric Bethel. In 2009, as the teaching team designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship to learn more about the Singapore Math concept, Asia fell into the third global pandemic of the 20th century (after the Spanish Flu of 1918-20 and the Russian Flu of 1977). H1N1, also known as Swine Flu, shut down schools, conferences and countries’ borders — including Singapore’s. When the teaching trio landed first in Southeast Asia that June, everything they planned fell apart.

“They called our office from Thailand asking about options and turning back wasn’t one of them,” recalls Stephanie Ascherl, Fund for Teachers chief of staff. “Andy reached out to a friend who graduated from the University of Hong Kong and soon, armed with multiple contacts, the team pivoted to a new plan.”

“Often, a perfectly planned lesson will take a completely different direction than you intended,” said Andy. “But, more often than not, these detours lead you to discover something new and revealing about your students. Despite our fellowship’s detours, we learned not only about instructional techniques, but about our own strength to persevere and the common desire to see students succeed globally.”

Read more about their fellowship here.

Back at the Unidos Dual Language Charter School outside Atlanta, Andy focused on using newly-learned math strategies with English Language Learners. “If these students don’t understand, it is usually a language issue, not a math issue,” he said. This focus on bilingualism and biculturalism in education eventually led to his role as the Two Way Immersion Coordinator for Montgomery County Public Schools’ just north of Washington, DC.

“Teachers have to be flexible because you never know what will happen,” Andy reflected in his post-fellowship reporting. “You can plan as much as possible, but have to have an open mind and be ready and willing to do whatever necessary.”

This week, Kerensa (who is also Andy’s sister) let us know that Andy passed away earlier this month. “If it was not for him, Eric and I would not have been so intrepid to take on the challenge and advocacy required to embark on the FFT journey,” she said. We celebrate Andy’s dedication to the teaching profession and the students’ lives he surely changed.

 

 

Are you an Amazing Race fan? We’re pulling for these teachers in CBS’ 33rd season, airing on Wednesday nights. Akbar Cook Sr. is the principal of Newark West Side High School, where his wife, Sheri, teaches. Since they started the school’s “Lights On” program to provide a safe place for students from 6 am to 11 pm, no students have been lost to gun violence.

Sheri and Akbar are not the only teachers to undergo a race around continents. Several Fund for Teachers Fellow teams, including Carmen Garcia and Joyce Ballard (Houston) invited their students to design a fellowship based on what they wanted to learn and the teachers opened envelopes with instructions at each stop. We share their reflection on the experience below…

As part of a partnership with Wesleyan University, my high school’s Humanities program exposes students to a wide variety of reading at a very rigorous level. Many of the students in my classes lack the cultural, historical, and literary background to effectively access texts at this high level of rigor. Wesleyan faculty present college level lectures on texts such as the Romantic poets and Tristram Shandy, works with which my students have little context for understanding. These same students get college credit for this course as part of the Early College Experience through the University of Connecticut. I designed my Fund for Teachers fellowship to broaden my understanding of the texts for the course and develop materials and knowledge to share with my students next year and in the years to come.

After delaying my fellowship for two years due to COVID, this summer I will use the cosmopolitan city of Liverpool as a home base for exploring and researching the Romantic poets, Lawrence Sterne, and Jane Austen to deepen personal competency and develop students’ understanding of the literature and themes associated with this Humanities course

Throughout my time in northern England, I will visit and research sites and attractions related to the core readings of the Humanities course:

• the British Music Experience
• the International Slavery Museum
• the Wordsworth House
• Dove Cottage
• Rydal Mount
• Shandy Hall, and
• the National Coal Mining Museum.

My research will focus on the key concepts and themes uniting these works to each other and also to the experiences and knowledge of my students. The major themes to explore include: the relationship of popular music and literature to movements for social justice; the relationship between the slave trade and industrialization to the development of British literature; and the cultural connections between the development of the British identity and the simultaneous development of a unified American identity.

All of these locations will provide me with rich and detailed background information on the writers and texts covered in the Humanities course, and, in addition, will provide my students with access to these resources through the photos, blog, and materials I will bring back home to share with them. By deepening and broadening my understanding of the connections among these works and our own times, I will be better equipped to deepen and broaden my students’ understanding of how these writers and works continue to be relevant today.

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Christopher Darby has taught English and English Language Learning at Middletown High School for over twenty years and currently teaches Advanced Placement Language and Honors Humanities, the latter in conjunction with the Wesleyan University High School Humanities program. Darby has also served as a Vice President for Political Action with the Middletown Federation of Teachers and a member of the Portland, Connecticut Board of Education.

On the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, we appreciate these words and plans of FFT Fellow Patrick McCarney (Stonington High School – Stonington, CT). Patrick is a 25-year teaching veteran who teaches a variety of social studies courses to 100 students, including two sophomore classes called Great Movements of the Sixties, two junior sections of AP US History and a 9/11 class comprised of upperclassmen. Next year he will teach a new, semester-long class called Global Wars, which focuses on World War I and II.

Recently, there has been a decline in interest for social studies courses offered at our school. As a result, there has been a reduction in course offerings and a decrease in the number of sections of particular courses. As a member of the social studies department, I feel a responsibility to find new ways to stimulate student interest and increase enrollment in our department’s offerings, and I am inspired to create story driven lessons that allow my students to explore and better understand people living in other times and places.

According to award winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, “storytelling is the most powerful tool for human connection. Weaving stories into [classroom] instruction…helps students connect to and retain information.” Embracing Ken Burns’ philosophy, on my fellowship I will visit World War II landmarks, museums, and monuments in New Orleans, Hawaii, and California to gather the stories of those on the battlefront and the home front—young soldiers, women, and minorities—to make the diversity of the American war experience more visible for students.

NEW ORLEANS

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, “students need to imagine the lives of people who have lived in the past….” The National WWII Museum in New Orleans will provide me the framework in which to explore, collect, and integrate into my curriculum the WW II experiences of individuals and groups. I will spend three days at the museum.

• Day one will include a “Campaigns of Courage” small-group tour of the “immersive, interactive European and Pacific Theaters.”
• On the second day, I will participate in a “Behind the Lines” workshop during which I will handle WW II artifacts. I am particularly interested in this program because artifact exploration is something I want to incorporate into my curriculum. Allowing students to see and touch history stimulates student inquiry and investigation.
• On my last day at the museum, I will attend a “Lunchbox Lecture” by World War II scholars and storytellers. Lecturing is a teaching approach I occasionally use in my classroom. This lecture series intersperses content with learning activities, and I am excited to learn from uniquely qualified individuals.

HAWAII

In addition to the National WW II Museum, I want to visit the places where the war shaped our nation. By walking the ground where history happened and learning from ranger-guided tours, I will become that storyteller for my students. I will spend four days in Hawaii—ground zero for US entry into the war. During my stay, I will:

• Tour the USS Missouri, and stand on the spot where the Japanese officially surrendered in 1945.
• Travel by boat to the USS Arizona Memorial, a sunken battleship that is the final resting place for over 900 sailors.
• Visit the USS Oklahoma Memorial that honors the 429 servicemen killed when Japanese torpedoes destroyed the ship.
• Experience the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum and see Japanese and US fighter planes that attacked and defended Pearl Harbor on that infamous day.
• Go to the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and board one of the few remaining submarines used during the war, and
• Culminate with a visit to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific where I will pay my respects to the 13,000 interred soldiers of the Pacific Theater.

CALIFORNIA

From Hawaii, I will travel to San Francisco to view the SF City Museum’s collection of newspaper articles and photos of Japanese relocation from the city. I have scheduled an appointment to meet with the curator and make copies of articles detailing the city’s removal efforts. The Presidio—the US Army’s Western Command—is also in San Francisco. The Presidio’s museum has a special exhibit I will attend called “Exclusion.” The exhibit chronicles the Presidio’s pivotal role in Japanese American incarceration and “invites visitors to investigate the choices…that led to this dark chapter in American history.”

A short distance from San Francisco is the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park. I will take a day trip to Richmond to learn about the challenges and hardships women confronted during the war years, such as workplace discrimination and dangerous working conditions at the Richmond shipyard. The highlight of my visit will be the Education Center’s “Rosie Fridays,” a guest speaker program with a real WW II home front worker. Coupled with the interactive exhibits and a docent-led tour, I will learn how WW II-era women worked, lived, and persevered. Including the breadth and depth of women’s contributions is very important, especially for my female students who need to see and hear “themselves” as active participants in the nation’s past. “Herstory” does not rewrite history, but it does provide different perspectives and judgements about what is important.

My last stop in California will be a day trip to the town of Martinez and the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial. The memorial honors the 320 sailors and civilians who died in a munitions explosion in 1944. The majority of the deaths were black sailors working for the racially segregated military. This tragedy was a catalyst for the desegregation of the US Navy. Visiting this memorial allows me to explore the valiant—and often overlooked—contributions to the defense of our nation of African Americans.

STUDENT IMPACT

One of my high school’s 21st century learning expectations is titled “Connect,” and requires students to “become participative members in the social and civic community.” My fellowship’s focus on the stories and contributions of those who served in WW II will manifest itself in a Memorial Day “armed forces” luncheon for current and retired service members. The luncheon will be held at the local VFW and co-hosted by the local Lions Club and my students. The Lions Club will prepare the food and my students will advertise and organize the event, which will include a color guard, opening and closing statements, a keynote speaker, and entertainment. Gratitude unexpressed is easy to overlook, and the luncheon will allow my students to “salute” our community’s current and former servicemen and women.

SCHOOL COMMUNITY IMPACT

I plan on engaging the community in a number of ways. One of our town’s elderly residents served in World War II and was part of the D-Day invasion. He has agreed to share with my students his first-hand perspective of the most pivotal battle of WW II, one that was fought and won by citizen soldiers, like himself. I have also arranged a field trip to the Home – WWII Foundation, a local museum devoted to sharing the stories of those of fought in the war. Tim Gray, a WW II filmmaker and the museum founder, has agreed to lead a discussion about a WW II documentary he produced, allow students to handle WW II artifacts he has collected, and invite WW II veterans to share their oral histories with my students. Additionally, I am planning a town-wide event/exhibition on World War II in partnership with the local historical society.

HISTORY

Texts are often devoted to coverage rather than depth, and important events or people are reduced to a few sentences or a paragraph at best. This does not stimulate most students. Stories, however, not only transport students back into history, but the colorful characters, complex challenges, and believable settings inspire enthusiasm. Everyone has a story worth being told. I want to use stories to pique students’ curiosity to the point that they become invested in their own learning.

In September 2019, I launched a pilot program with three sections of my United States History II course. More than seventy juniors and seniors in high school wrote letters to potential pen pals around the United States. They cold-mailed senior centers, retirement homes, and veterans’ affairs offices with an introductory letter and a request: to pair them up with a senior citizen. This senior would exchange letters with the student for the entirety of the school year and share stories from history, stories from their lives.

Since then, letters have been regularly delivered to the school from 20 individuals across 16 different states. They have contained a range of information and stories. Students have read memories of an aunt starving in Idaho during the Great Depression, and recollections of bubbling water in the Chicago River from decomposing cattle carcasses. Each time a student gets a letter, their face lights up. A tear of paper. Students nearby lean in. They crane their heads to catch a glimpse of the letter, of the handwriting, of the stories within.

My upcoming Fund for Teachers fellowship will build on this program. This summer over a 29-day period, I will travel by train around America to meet with directors of retirement homes, veterans offices and local high schools to establish an intergenerational, history pen pal program that strengthens connections between seniors and teens across the country.

I chose seven stops: Chicago, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, El Paso, New Orleans, Birmingham, and Asheville. The locations were chosen as they cross the economic, political, and demographic makeup of the nation. This will also result in a wide variety of perspectives shared through the letters. At each stop, I will be doing two things.

• Firstly, I will meet with senior citizens and high school teachers to expand this intergenerational pen pal program.
• Secondly, I will visit historic attractions and prominent sites to better understand America. It is a nation whose history I teach, and yet I rarely travel beyond the East Coast.

Over 1,000 students and senior citizens across eight states will be connected through this trip, and I hope to expand further in coming years if it is as successful as I expect.

The faculty and administrators at my school have long been struggling with the most effective structure and mission of high school. There is a growing urgency for graduates with practical skills, that do not require a college degree. In particular, students need the skill sets to work with the elderly. The school’s local community is one of the oldest per capita in the nation. Recent research shows that individuals who are in regular contact with senior citizens are more likely to pursue careers in elder care. This project will further the goals of my school to prepare students for a life in the community they have grown up in.

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Jeremy Shea is a history and photography teacher at Barnstable High School, in Hyannis, MA. He began teaching in 2010, when he moved to work at a school in Punta Gorda, Belize for two years through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Jeremy also manages the property of a 79 acre summer camp on Cape Cod, is an accomplished nature photographer, and is the host of The Mr Shea Show Episode 1 – YouTube, an educational variety show that can be found on YouTube and local access stations across New England.

 

Day of the Dead is actually a two-day holiday in Mexico when families celebrate life and death simultaneously. From October 31 – November 2, people create ofrendas (or offerings) adorned with items such as foods, photos and items once enjoyed by family members who have died. This year, in the wake of COVID and also their Fund for Teachers fellowship, Rebecca Gauna and Sasha Villagrana decided to host a community-wide Day of the Dead Celebration at Chicago’s Robert Lindblom Math and Science Academy High School.

With their $10,000 FFT grant last summer, Becci and Sasha researched in Nayarit, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, Mexico, indigenous history, traditions, and folklore to inform learning for a Latino culture course, facilitate collaborations with English Language Learners in the special education program, and engage Spanish speaking parents. (Learn more about their experiences at Becci and Sasha‘s post-fellowship reporting.)

This fall, they began implementing their own learning with their students by creating a religious syncretism curriculum for their Latino Culture Colloquium. They also created an advisory lesson that was used school wide to talk about cultural identity. The community-wide Day of the Dead Family Night last week featured an ofrenda (above), performances by the Latino Dance Crew, and five craft stations in which students and their families created sugar skulls, made marigold flowers, and had their faces painted. Students led each activity and explained the significance and symbolism at each station.

“Many Mexican Americans who were born in the United States (including our students) often have a deep sense of feeling connected to Mexico yet have only visited a handful of times,” said Sasha. “The variety of the culture and languages we experienced within each state of Mexico really is so diverse that it is often hard for many Mexican Americans to comprehend or even understand how different it can be. This experience opened my eyes to how diverse the culture and language of Mexico really is and how little many of our students may even know about their family origins.”

“Indigenous groups in Mexico have been oppressed for centuries and this is clear when looking at poverty, access to healthcare, levels of education etc. in highly indigenous areas in Oaxaca and Chiapas,” Becci added. “Their stories too often go unheard when examining the history and culture of Mexico. We want to highlight the importance of indigenous subcultures within the dominant culture of Mexico and bring back inspiration for how marginalized communities maintain their culture and identity.”

Going forward, Sasha and Becci plan to create an interdisciplinary project between the school’s Latino Culture Colloquium, students in the school’s special education program, the art department and the library through a bilingual story time.  The teachers also established contacts with a nonprofit in Chiapas called Sueninos and a nonprofit in the Puerto Vallarta region called Entre Amigos through which will participate in language exchanges and cultural “intercambios,” as well as topics around dual identities and immigrant rights. We will also pursue our relationship with the Mexican Museum of Art in order to conduct an art and identity workshop.

“Our fellowship provided us with pictures, anecdotes, and most importantly, local perspectives and insights into our course units which will help students feel pride and connection with their heritage and engage with the material,” said Becci.

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Becci Gauna has taught Global Civics, Honors Psychology, Honors Sociology, US History, and World History. She has also helped design and develop her school’s Latino Culture program and sponsors the school’s Latino Dance team. Sasha Villagrana has been a New York City public alternative high school teacher for six years — two of which were in prison to a range of incarcerated youth populations facing the most severe challenges. She has also served Lindbom’s bilingual coordinator, foreign language department chair, and has taught the Latino Culture Colloquium, as well as Chinese.

The initial learning goals for my fellowship focused on my relative lack of knowledge about geological science. When I lead my students through explorations of the geological timescale, fossils, and distribution of resources, I stick close to published curricula to ensure that I provide them with factual information. With my Fund for Teachers grant, I sought to contextualize this science in our geographic space of the Western US and to learn enough to provide connections to which my students can relate. I planned a two-week RV road trip itinerary circling from Portland, Oregon, down the coast to Los Angeles, over to Arizona, and up through Utah and Idaho. 

As I researched sites of interest along this route, I noticed the prevalence of Indigenous cultural sites, museums, and partnerships between the National Parks and Indigenous Nations. After a day of planning and writing, I shared my excitement with my 9- and 11-year-old children, who would be my travel partners. My daughter’s reaction added another primary learning target: “There are still Native Americans?” I was aghast that her formal learning in elementary school and our casual learning as a family had left her with this thought.

My itinerary shifted to ensure that we learned together both about modern Indigenous culture and the events that lead us to the intentional erasure of history.

I approached this learning with humility, respect, and an understanding that the lands I was planning to visit were taken from people who lived in and cared for these places since time immemorial. Three sites in particular stand out for providing opportunities to learn from Indigenous people: The Heard Museum in Phoenix, the visitors center in Bryce Canyon National Park, and the Utah Museum of Natural History in Salt Lake City.

The Heard Museum (picture courtesy of kid101.com) is an art museum with a beautiful collection of traditional and modern American Indian art. It houses a powerful collection that showcases the diversity and commonalities of Indigenous art and craft. The portion of the museum that left us in quiet contemplation, however, was not the stunning artwork. Upstairs, there is an exhibit that documents the experience of American Indian boarding schools. Through a collection of historic documents, photographs, and recorded interviews, the exhibit conveys the horror of the intentional cultural genocide, as well as the resilience of the students, who found ways to preserve their identity. Our visit coincided with news reports of the mass graves in Canada.

With this experience center of mind, we continued north through the Grand Canyon National Park, the Navajo Nation, and into Bryce Canyon National Park (top picture). In the Bryce Canyon Visitors Center, there is an exhibit called Native American Perspectives. Through interviews, representatives from several nations communicated a clear theme: You are always on Indigenous land. These parks which are your vacation that you will enjoy for a week are sacred. We have lived here for tens of thousands of years and we are still here.

Traveling onward, we visited the Utah Museum of Natural History. The Native Voices exhibit again showed the rich cultural history and the dispossession of land and resources. This exhibit had an additional focus: “We are among you. We are not limited to reservations. We are thriving, preserving our heritage, and teaching our children to continue our legacy ever stronger into the future.

At the Heard Museum, there is a placard referring to Navajo weaving that stuck with me. It reads:

“All at once, hundreds of years of songs, prayers, and traditions come together in every contemporary Navajo textile. All at once, an artist’s idea crystalizes. All at once, the artist’s years of training and practice combine to make the idea a reality.”

Together, these three exhibits provided me with a perspective of the “all at once” message that I internalized on this fellowship: I personally benefit from a brutal history of genocide and dispossession. I am always on Indigenous land. I have an opportunity and responsibility to incorporate this history and contemporary reality into my students’ learning.

View more of Melody’s photographs on her Instagram page.

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Melody Childers (pictured on her fellowship at the Grand Canyon) teaches middle school science at Beaverton Academy of Science and Engineering in Beaverton, Oregon. She enjoys writing curriculum that present students with an opportunity to learn about current scientific challenges in a solutions-focused context. Melody has worked with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation on solar, hydrogen, and renewable natural gas technology project-based units. She sees outdoor recreation as a pathway to develop a stewardship mindset in students.

UPDATE: In recognition of the challenges facing teachers at this time, Fund for Teachers will be extending our 2022 grant application deadline to February 24, 2022.

Today Fund for Teachers opens our 2022 grant season with the belief that:

Curiosity Launches Learning.

Since 2001, 9,000+ teachers let curiosity to lead them to new insights, experiences, resources and networks through a Fund for Teachers fellowship. Multiply these teachers by their number of students — over multiple years — and it’s clear how one grant can transform classrooms and careers.

“I like to learn. That’s why I applied to Fund for Teachers in the first place,” said Rashaun James (Columbus, OH). ”I knew I could learn completely differently — try something new — because Fund for Teachers encourages teachers to go out of our comfort zones. So I pursued learning something new that I felt like my kids needed. I went with my students in mind, what I could teach them. But I feel like it changed MY life, as well.”  Listen to Rashaun talk about her fellowship and it’s impact here.

Here are some resources for future FFT Fellows to learn more about our grants, as well as resources that can facilitate the grant writing process:

Background Information

• • • Program Information
    • Online Learning Center

Infosession Opportunities

• • • October 20 – 6p CST (register here)
    • November 17 – 6p CST (register here)

Inspiration

• • • Fellow experiences on our blog
    • Fellow impact stories on our podcast

The deadline for applications is Thursday, January 20th, at 5 pm CST. Selection committees comprised of Fellows and donors, as well as leaders from the civic, educational and philanthropic arenas, will then review applications using this criteria. We announce our 2022 FFT Fellows on March 29, 2022.

“Through my own personal growth as an educator, I will now be armed with the resources from authentic experience to support my students. We can only teach what we have truly learned ourselves.” Deanna Roncaioli (Southington, CT)

 

 

Forty years ago, the United Nations declared September 21 the International Day of Peace to, according to the event website, “provide a globally shared date for all humanity to commit to Peace above all differences and to contribute to building a Culture of Peace.” FFT Fellow Amanda Hope (Dallas) committed her Fund for Teachers grant to this same cause last summer by examining in Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma, AL, various methods of civic engagement utilized in the Civil Rights Movement. She chose to conduct this research to then teach students at Moseley Elementary not only learn what it means to be a citizen, but also what it means to be an active and engaged citizen who strives to make a positive impact on their communities and nation. We asked her a few questions about her learning  and plans for student learning this year:

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Why did you design this particular fellowship?

 

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Given the current political climate of our country, teaching civic education in schools is imperative. Students need to not only learn what it means to be a citizen, but also what it means to be an active and engaged citizen who strives to make a positive impact on their
communities and nation.

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Can you describe a specific moment from your fellowship that is particularly memorable?

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One experience I had during my fellowship was learning about my own family members who were some of the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Words cannot express the pride I felt when I saw my two uncles, Ulysses Blackmon, Jr. and James Gildersleeve, featured in an exhibit at the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, AL. Seeing my uncles being honored reminded me that anyone, no matter their social standing, can play a role in the greater collective good.

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What are some specific plans you have to implement your fellowship in the classroom?

 

[minti_dropcap style=”circle”]A[/minti_dropcap] My specific plans are to reintroduce my students to the “Good Citizens” unit that is a part of our curriculum. The goal of this project is for students to identify what a citizen is and develop an understanding of their roles as citizens in the classroom, school, community, state, and nation. The product of this unit will be a multi-media presentation that will be exhibited on our classroom website. I want this unit to be an opportunity for them to learn not only about the roles of citizens in a society, but I also want them to learn that citizenship is a right that has been denied to many. I will do this by specifically focusing on the civil rights denied to African Americans in the American South and their struggle to be recognized as full citizens. Our study of the Civil Rights Movement with a focus on the state of Alabama will allow my students to gain a deeper understanding of how civic engagement can be used as a tool to shape
legislation and pressure lawmakers to protect the rights of all U.S. citizens regardless of their race, class, religion, sexuality, gender, etc. I want my students to see how everyday citizens can unite and organize around a problem and/or injustice in our communities and our society-at-large. My plan is to introduce my students to how citizens can utilize civic engagement strategies to push policy makers to create and implement change for the greater good.

[minti_dropcap style=”circle”]Q[/minti_dropcap] What is one way you can leverage your fellowship to create an authentic learning experience for students?

 

[minti_dropcap style=”circle”]A[/minti_dropcap] I would definitely like to use this fellowship as a means of getting my students more involved with our community. My plan is to get students to start thinking about a problem or injustice within our school community and begin to brainstorm ways to get involved and put their ideas into action. I think allowing my students to determine a problem and figure out ways to address it will allow for them to feel a sense of connection and autonomy regarding how we decide to civically engage.

[minti_dropcap style=”circle”]Q[/minti_dropcap] What did your fellowship teach you about teaching peace?

 

[minti_dropcap style=”circle”]A[/minti_dropcap] My fellowship taught me that achieving peace is always active and never passive and that everyone plays a role. I hope to instill within my students the value of seeing themselves as vital and active stakeholders in the pursuit of peace and justice in our communities, nation, and world.

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Amanda Hope is a K-5th grade Gifted/Talented Program teacher at Nancy Moseley Elementary in Dallas, Texas. Amanda has served as a classroom teacher for nearly 10 years. She most recently received the 2020-2021 Campus Teacher of the Year award at her school. In addition to teaching, Amanda is a senior policy fellow with Teach Plus, an organization that empowers teachers to advocate for policy changes at local, state, and federal levels to increase equitable opportunities for students. You can follow Amanda on @crayonsandsacapuntas.

Closing out Water Quality Month, we share the words of #FFTFellow Tammy Laakeri, who used a Fund for Teachers grant to conduct independent research of water pollution and conservation efforts in Chesapeake Bay and the Everglades, then attend a teacher workshop at Marine Lab in Key Largo, FL to compare local ecosystems and develop local community conservation projects.

This summer, I embarked on a Fund for Teachers fellowship to investigate the ecology and water quality efforts in one of the watersheds of Chesapeake Bay, of the Everglades, and in the Florida Keys. I focused on gaining knowledge and experiences to share with my students based on cherishing and preserving the quality of our water — both fresh and marine.  

I started at a popular resort in Virginia where two major rivers converge, making up Smith Mountain Lake with about 500 miles of shoreline!  Water sports and fishing are very popular on the lake.  Right by the shore area, I spotted several divots in the dirt with a scattering of little shells in each divot (about 5 feet underwater).  I am told these are the nests that are built by the small-mouthed bass. As I talked to local residents who balk at times about the strict regulations from various agencies, I wondered: How do we balance personal and business needs with protecting and preserving our natural resources?  

Next, I targeted Chesapeake Bay, which has been one of the most polluted waterways in the U.S., but has made great improvements over the last 40 years. I planned to visit the Brock Environmental Center run by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, but unfortunately it was closed due to COVID. I decided to at least go walk their informational trail. (I hope to have my students create a walking trail with markers on our school grounds with a small seasonal creek and wetland.)  I spotted a circular pattern on the sand by the shore where a turtle had visited. 

At the end of my walk, I was so pleased to meet up with their youth leadership program doing their Oyster Restoration Project.  Bags and bags of young baby oysters were being loaded up onto a boat. This program is helping to repopulate the native oyster population by using “recycled” shells, implanting and raising oysters in the shells, then to be transported to a local oyster reef. The reefs provide habitats to fish, crab (including the coveted blue crab), and other organisms. Did you know that oysters filter pollutants out of the water?   What a great way to involve businesses and youth to maintain a natural resource! 

Next stop, Florida!

The Everglades is one of largest wetlands in the world, but was once was twice as big as it is now. Wetlands are natural filtration systems. It was very interesting to learn how the waterways were diverted to create farmlands, but the land was practically unusable!  The canals that are now used for the tourist airboats were man-made for access.  To experience the EXPANSE of this land is awe-inspiring. It is home to lots of herons, Anhingas, Gallinules, snakes, and alligators!  

Our guide gave us an up close and personal visit with a momma alligator guarding her nest! The scary thing is: one minute you are just floating through this “River of Grass” on the airboat, and that is pretty much all you see… grass and mangrove and pond apple trees… next thing you know, you are 4 feet away from a hissing alligator! You can’t see them until you are right there! 

My next destination was  the Florida Keys.  First stop, the Turtle Hospital in Islamadora, where they save injured and disease-ridden turtles and either release them (if possible) or provide them with a forever home. One of the most common ailments are tumors that are linked to water pollution.  The clean water is healing them!  

At Marine Lab, Key Largo, I attended a wonderful week -long Marine Science workshop. I love how they started us off by focusing on the little things…. literally. You need to appreciate the plankton, and other plants and organisms that make up the food chain in the coral reefs, in the mangroves, and in the sea grass.  Did you know that plant plankton does not get as much sunlight if the water is polluted? Did you know that mangroves and sea grass help cleanse the water? Without the seagrass and the mangroves, more pollutants from human activities on the land would reach and hurt the coral reefs.   When I was snorkeling, I was overwhelmed by how small I felt in comparison to the ocean and the life within it. (A giant eagle ray swam right under me!) And yet, I am one of the human race, that has such a huge impact on those very waters that embraced me.   

In the words of the great explorer, Jacques Cousteau: “People protect what they love.”  Let us not forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one!  

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Tammy Laakeri is a high school science teacher at Phoenix Charter School in Roseburg, OR. Prior to becoming a teacher, Tammy served in the Navy as a medical lab tech, day-care provider, quality control manager and a veterinary technician. She has taught math and science in Washington and Oregon for more than 15 years.

 

Sixty-six years ago today, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was lynched and shot for allegedly flirting with a young white woman at her family’s store in Money, MS. His body was recovered from the bottom of the Tallahatchie River three days later. Brandon Barr‘s students in Chicago are the same age as Till was when he died. Brandon felt that similarity would resonate with his English students in a powerful way. This FFT Fellow plans to add anecdotes and artifacts gathered from his exploration of sites associated with Till’s murder, as well as Civil Rights sites in Memphis, to develop a unit focused on his life and the legacy of his death. Brandon shared his motivation and plans for students below…

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As a veteran middle school teacher, a lot has changed over the course of my career, including learning standards, forms of standardized testing and the novel uses of emerging technology. For the most part, I have been able to navigate these changes well. One change that I have not been as quick to adapt to is creating curricular opportunities for students to think about why advocating for equity is important in history and in the present day.

The Civil Rights Movement is rife with historical moments that are sad and unfortunate. I have seen a number of my colleagues, and I include myself in this, who have taught in a way that victimize African Americans. While it is true that many African Americans were victims of living in segregated and oppressive societies, the Civil Rights Movement is also rife with examples of individuals asserting their collective power and resistance in fighting oppression. I am looking to reframe how I have taught history from the this time period to focus more on empowerment while also improving the accessibility of learning materials and increasing engagement for all learners. My students need to see examples of what it means to fight for justice in order to be ready to engage in “good trouble” when they encounter injustices and inequity in the future.

To that end, every year I try to teach about Emmett Till because his death has a significant legacy; it is often evoked when injustices happen in the present. I want to make the case study that I do with students more robust and highlight the actions of both Till’s mother and uncle. Both acted in ways that demonstrate agency and upstander behaviors, and my goal is to highlight their actions rather than leave my students focusing solely on the brutality of Till’s death. I think I can teach this history in a deeper way that shows the impact that direct confrontation of inequity and injustice can have when deployed in a strategic fashion. That’s why I designed this particular fellowship and joined Fund for Teachers’ Equity cohort with an Innovation Circle Grant. Next week, I will visit the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, MS, to strengthen my instructional approach to this period of his history using an equitable lens for how the information is shared and presented to my students.

In thinking specifically about equity, there is the principle of direct confrontation that dictates that there is no path to equity that does not involve a direct confrontation with inequity. When we think about the historical legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, we see the power of individuals actively confronting inequity. The actions of individuals created real change because of their engagement and advocacy. I want my students to understand that African Americans lived (and in many instances still live) in environments that sought to diminish their collective power and privilege. I want students to see the creativity that many individuals demonstrated in finding solutions that fought inequity and dramatically improved the quality of life that African Americans can have in the United States because of their direct action. By extension, I want students to think about problems in the world today that stem from inequity and reflect on how they may use their collective voices and actions to induce change.

In 2010, Brandon received a Fund For Teachers grant to explore Holocaust and WWII sites, meet with survivors, and build a relationship with a partner school in Berlin, Germany. From that experience, he became a regional consultant for IWitness and was present for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Read more about that experience on his blog published by Facing History & Ourselves. (Photo of Brandon courtesy of the USC Shoah Foundation.Top photo of Emmett Till courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center.)

 

In her book Teacher Leadership That Strengthens Professional Practice, Charlotte Danielson defines teacher leadership as “that set of skills demonstrated by teachers who continue to teach students but also have an influence that extends beyond their own classroom to others within their own school and elsewhere.” Today, we are pleased to announce that the following individuals chose Fund for Teachers as their “elsewhere,” becoming our newest Educator Advisory Council members. After a thorough application and interview process by the Council’s seven founding members, these Fellows commit to a two-year term and help inform our organization’s work supporting and elevating the learning of teachers and their students. We are grateful to the following teachers for their commitment to their peers and our programming.

Hyam Elsaharty

Prior to joining Seattle Public Schools as its District Social Emotional Learning Consulting Teacher, Hyam taught math and special education at Stephen T. Mather High School in Chicago, IL. In 2017, she and a colleague used a Fund for Teachers grant to investigate programs within refugee and public schools in Malaysia (pictured). Afterwards, the duo expanded existing advisory curriculum to meet the specific social and emotional needs of Malaysian and refugee students. In addition to her FFT fellowship, Hyam is also the recipient of the P. Buckly Moss grant and was named Chicago Public School’s SEL Teacher of the Year in 2019.

“Becoming an FFT Fellow was the impetus which began my life shift personally and professionally,” said Hyam. “As a woman of color who works in SEL where I get to help folks develop a sense and pride in their identity, self-advocate, and practice empathy, I am deeply committed and connected to the EAC’s objectives. In fact, without FFT I do not believe I would be secure in my own identity.”

Read more about Hyam’s fellowship here and her thoughts on social emotional learning in this Chalkbeat Chicago article.

Marco Cenabre

Marco teaches high school literature at New Haven, CT, in the district where he was born, raised and from which he graduated. In 2019, he used his FFT grant to attend the Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking in Annandale, NY, and afterwards award-winning author Debra Moffit’s “Gaining Creative Self Confidence Writing” retreat in Lake Annency, France, to implement intentional strategies in reflection and storytelling.

“I believe in teacher-to-teacher collaboration, and leadership,” said Marco on why he chose to join the EAC. “One of the largest issues in teacher development is the fact that administrators, representatives of organizations, and others far removed from the classroom are the ones constructing the ‘solutions’ and offering them to teachers. It is through teacher innovation, reflection and a wide range of perspective that will spark what’s necessary in order for change to be truly enacted. Being a part of the EAC, and collaborating with others, will be an opportunity to offer solutions leading to widespread change.”

In addition to leading Fund for Teachers’ Social Justice Innovation Circle, Marco teaches a graduate course on reflective practice to first year teachers throughout the state, is a member of the Anti-Racist Teaching & Learning Collective and is a Teach for America alumni. Read more about Marco’s fellowship here.

Marin Leroy

Marin teaches at Evergreen Community Charter School in Asheville, NC, where she coordinates for environmental education programs. In 2015, she used her grant to attend the week-long Edible Schoolyard Academy in Berkeley, CA, with subsequent mentoring at a K-8 Life Lab garden in Santa Cruz, CA. She returned to curate a team of educators from her broader community to support local edible education and school yard garden projects.

“My opinion is that most teacher certification programs give teachers a foundation, a starting place, but that FFT provides ways for educators to cultivate our own passions, which makes our teaching and facilitation of subject more highly engaging for students,” said Marin. “The more inspired we are as educators, the more we can spark our kids’ imagination and love for learning. As part of the EAC I will immerse myself in a community of professionals working to shift toward this academic paradigm through teacher engagement and inspiration.”

Read more about Marin’s community impact here.

Rao Olayeye

Rao recently returned from a teaching assignment in Bahrain, where she was the information technology specialist. Prior to that, she taught at the Atlanta International School, where she founded its middle school robotics program and developed the high school program into a competitive team. Her expertise in robotics began in 2012, when she used an FFT grant to attend a Robotics Education Global Conference in Oahu, HI, and enroll in Carnegie Mellon’s National Robotic Engineering Center in Pittsburgh, PA (pictured).

“There are not many women in educational leadership and I want to see a shift in that area,” said Rao on why she applied for an EAC position. “My masters and doctorate degrees, combined with years of experience teaching locally and internationally, are empowering me to be the change I want to see in the world and look forward to bringing that passion and commitment to the EAC to benefit a wider community.”

Victoria Thomson

Victoria teaches Integrated Science and astronomy in East Lyme, CT, after a career as a scientist/entomologist. In 2019, she used her FFT grant to participate in a summer teacher training course sponsored by the Galileo Teacher Training Program in the Canary Islands, home to some of the most technologically-advanced telescopes in the Northern Hemisphere (pictured).

When asked why she wanted to join the EAC, Victoria responded, “I am the first generation to go to college in my family and ended up thriving at an Ivy League School. I wanted to give back to students and inspire them, which is why I became a teacher. As an adult, I see teachers get stuck by the barriers placed on them in the classroom. I see and hear teachers feel like victims of a system. I want to be a part of a group that inspires teachers to find other teachers to be rise up together and be brave, to do what is best for our children, our future leaders.”

Read more about Victoria’s fellowship here.

 

The New York Times today reported that “remains of as many as 751 people, mainly Indigenous children, were discovered at the site of a former school in the province of Saskatchewan, a Canadian Indigenous group…jolting a nation grappling with generations of widespread and systematic abuse of Indigenous people.” FFT Fellow Lavie Raven (North Lawndale College Preparatory High School – Chicago) pursued this topic with his Fund for Teachers grant, researching the First Nations tribe ‘Namgis, which inhabited Northern Vancouver Island in British Columbia as early as 500 B.C. After learning about Canada’s colonization of Indigenous People, Lavie used his grant to document ‘Namgis restorative justice practices and historic folk artwork and collaborate with teens there to create hip-hop based murals, audio projects and performances that document cultural survival. His Chicago students, as well as students around the country with whom he collaborates on public art projects, continue to benefit from these experiences. Our thanks to Lavie for sharing more about his fellowship and its impact…

I teach World Studies, United States History, and Performative Policy Debate at my school. Our history department works intensely to develop interdisciplinary projects that involve another major discipline and the arts. This is reflected in much of the work I do at my school, as I also am an active hip-hop muralist and run the after-school hip-hop arts club. Through these programs I seek to provide students with opportunities to braid participatory research, social justice concerns, and the arts in creating ‘calls to action’ about issues they identify as relevant for social change.

Our social studies department makes an active effort to expose students to various cultural narratives in regards to European colonization. We prioritize indigenous North American and African narratives, as these have been historically marginalized in traditional history textbooks. We often have to collate a collection of readings from various sources to illustrate the class of cultures, and solidarity between cultures in resisting the violence of colonization. Many of these sources are incomplete or only offer a surface survey of the struggles and accomplishments of indigenous communities. And hardly any have a contemporary component, comparing communities’ histories and their methods of cultural survival.

I was fortunate to meet members of the ‘Namgis community several years ago, and found out about their intensive work on restorative justice in regards to demanding truth and reconciliation from the Canadian government and, in particular, in helping elders and adults heal from the wounds suffered in residential schools. I am actively involved in three organizations at my school: the Peace Warriors, the Performative Debate team, and the University of Hip-Hop (the last two of which I sponsor/coach). Students in our classes, and particularly in these organizations have often paralleled the struggles of African-American communities with those of indigenous peoples, and our students self-identify with those struggles, from the past into the present-day.

I designed my Fund for Teachers fellowship to visit the indigenous ‘Namgis community of Alert Bay, a small island north to Vancouver Island, to work with community activists, traditional artists, museum curators, and ‘Namgis youth to create art work and music that represents cultural survival. Every day, I observed successful resistance to colonialism and neo-colonialism, and discovered ways the local community addressed historical violence experienced in residential schools and discrimination in Canadian society (a primary reason many whom I meet refuse to celebrate Canada Day). The interviews I conducted and my critical inquiry into injustice through hip-hop arts seeded a student pen-pal program and widened my own skills in presenting examples and models of testimonial evidence for argumentation to our debate team. In addition, I:

• Met elders and artists in the community who arranged the hip-hop artwork and music schedule for me to have to engage ‘Namgis youth
• Painted mini-murals with ‘Namgis youth
• Observed the work of Culture Shock, the local cultural community space and store, and the Umista Cultural Society
• Studied the work accomplished by the Wi’la’mola Accord to create programs and activities that nurture cultural preservation.

I accumulated massive awesomeness…SEVEN murals painted with teens and elementary school kids, beautiful interviews and pictures with women making potlatch blankets for their families, an great interview with Barb Cranmer who just finished editing her film about the residential school here, a personal escort and tour through the Umista Cultural Center, a lunch session tomorrow with Connie Watts who designed the thunderbird at Vancouver airport, rapping cypher with youth in front of one of the murals we painted, intersections with two arts collectives doing hip-hop work, and a bunch more fun.

Personally, this fellowship bridged a huge gap in my own and my students’ knowledge of a powerfully resonant cultural society. I have tied the work of the ‘Namgis community center, museum and school to the work our students do with local centers and cultural institutions. I look forward to the new ideas our debate team, school artists and restorative justice clubs can enact while bearing witness to the survival and reconciliation practices of another community.

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The summer after his fellowship, Lavie continued his research with a Fulbright US Distinguished Award in Teaching to study the integration of Māori folkloric arts in New Zealand. As a mural artist he has worked with youth to create culturally conscious murals that have been displayed at museums, cultural centers, and community organizations. Raven believes in providing youth with a multi-disciplinary approach toward life that holistically engages their academic skills, celebrates their talents and artistic abilities, and empowers youth desires to bring positive change to society. Lavie also represented Fund for Teachers as a keynote speaker at the 2017 Extra Yard for Teachers Summit event hosted by the College Football Playoff Association.

This picturesque library near the Mark Twain National Forest will be the site of student activism this summer. During weekly “read-ins,” students from Rolla Junior High and Bourbon High School in Cuba, MO, will read at story time the book they illustrated — a book written and inspired by their teachers and FFT Fellows Kevin Koppelman and Rhonda Koppelman.

In 2018, Rhonda and Kevin were awarded a Fund for Teachers grant to 0bserve at the Big Five Wild Game Reserve in Kruger, South Africa, how ecosystems function alongside human populations to demonstrate how actions across the globe affect the environment and encourage students to become involved in global sustainability of the environment.

“My students seemed to have little concept of their impact upon the world,” said Rhonda, a previous recipient of the Missouri Council for the Social Studies Teacher of the Year. “They struggled understanding how the extinction of one animal might affect the world as a whole, and they couldn’t grasp the concept that they had an ethical obligation to encourage others into working together to develop health ecosystems around the globe. This fellowship was designed to help me instill a sense of global stewardship in my students and to inspire them into making a difference around the world.”

For two weeks that summer, Rhonda and Kevin:

• Monitored the behavior, feeding patterns and movement of elephants
• Collated and recorded data on lions
• Monitored the rhino population to support data recorded by the anti-poaching team
• Captured data to be used by the reserve management team for their endangered species work, and,
• Worked to regenerate the environment for the animals, including prevention of soil erosion and removal of
harmful structures.

“Thanks to FFT, I can now clearly explain how the impact of extinction of one animal plays upon the entire world,” Rhonda continued. “In fact, I understand it so well, that my teammate and I have written a children’s book explaining why the Rhino is so important to a healthy globe. This experience has impressed upon me my role in educating others on global stewardship. In short, l learned that…. Humans depend on nature for survival. If you destroy nature, you destroy mankind. Your actions, It Matters.”

We were so pleased to receive a copy of Your Actions…It Matters! The White Rhino this week in the mail along with this letter…

Huge thanks to Fund for Teachers for the once-in-a lifetime opportunity to learn about Human Environment Interactions in Africa! Our students are excited to present this book at the public library read-ins this summer. The program will consist of our students reading to young readers and then working with them to create a craft while they discuss the importance of EVERYONE doing their part to keep the earth healthy.

 

This was a great way to teach our students that EVERONE can make a difference and it has also empowered our students to want to do more.

 

This would not have been possible without the support of Fund for Teachers. Thanks for holding our hands through this endeavor and answering our questions as we made our way through this experience. 

 

We are so excited to be making a difference in the lives of our students and young readers. We hope to make the theme “It Matters” a series of books…wish us luck!