Congratulations to Luis Gonzalez and his art teacher/FFT Fellow Ari Hauben for Luis’ selection as one of three young artists whose work now adorns LIFEWTR bottles. According to the company’s website:
“LIFEWTR Series 4 celebrates the long-lasting impact that art education has on our lives from youth into adulthood. The series features the work of three young artists who have discovered the empowerment that comes with creativity and demonstrated the importance of early art education in instilling the values necessary for a more inspired future.”
LIFEWTR also shared:
“Luis Gonzalez, a Boston native and high school senior, views the abstract art he creates as more than just a mode of self-expression—it’s “a lifesaver.” Growing up in an underserved community, art has kept him in school and has guided him down a safer path than the one he has witnessed many of his peers taking. Gonzalez plans to become a professional artist, following in the footsteps of his art teacher and mentor, Ari Hauben. He also aspires to teach other youth, and show them the possibilities that art can bring.”
Ari, along with colleagues Warren Pemsler and Chris Busch, designed their Fund for Teachers fellowship to experience art museums, theatres, stages and facilities in New York City, England and The Netherlands. They also met with outreach departments to learn best practices for expanding McKinley Preparatory High School‘s local partnerships with the Huntington Theatre and Institute of Contemporary Art Boston. Subsequently, the teaching team set about closing the achievement gap of emotionally-disturbed special education students who are predominantly children of color.
“One aspect of the achievement gap that seemed particularly pronounced among our students was their lack of cultural capital,” explained Warren. “To increase students’ exposure to dramatic and fine arts, we first developed our own cultural capital with our FFT grant and then formed collaborations with The Huntington and ICA to forge new paradigms that engage students in these areas of study.”
In recognition of his accomplishment, LIFEWTR sent Louis and Ari to the Teen Vogue Summit in Los Angeles last month. Soon Louis, Ari and Warren head to New York City for the formal introduction of the artful bottles.
“Fund for Teachers is the proverbial rock thrown in a pond, with its ripples spreading out in exciting and unexpected ways,” said Ari. “One perfect example is my student Luis Gonzalez. Luis has participated the past 3 ½ years in my art (and theater) collaboration with two other FFT recipients, spurred by our fellowship to New York London, and The Netherlands. Luis has participated in approximately thirty field trips to contemporary art museums and plays, many exploring cutting edge artists and playwrights. Through these experiences and others, Luis was inspired to create abstract and pop culture works of art. When the opportunity arose for students to enter a contest to be on LIFEWTR bottles, Luis was the perfect person for the task. Having seen his abstract art piece Daydreamin, LIFEWTR replicated the art on 15 million bottles with the hopethat it will inspire other teens to be creative. Thank you FFT for the support and opportunity to connect our FFT experiences in the ‘real world’ with our students in the classroom, who then take this full circle and bring it back out to the world.”
Hero, Victim or Traitor? Students Decide
The facts represent La Malinche (or Doña Marina) as a slave, advisor, mistress and emissary. Whether those roles positioned her as a hero, victim or traitor is up for debate — which is what the students of Glen Meinschein and Alejandro Avalos did this semester. Following a fellowship investigating one of the most controversial figures in Mexican history, Glen and Alejandro led their middle schoolers through an exploration of colonialism, feminism and indigenous history to reach a broad range of learners at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies. They share the verdict below…
It’s the New Year’s Eve song most of us mumble through, but the English translation of “Auld lang syne” is “times gone by.” Looking back over the year in fellowships, our grant recipients spent their time actively pursuing what they determined will best impact student achievement. Specifically,
546 prek-12 school teachers
completed fellowships on 6 continents
in 88 countries
now leveraging $2.1 million in Fund for Teachers grants
into amplified learning in 321 public private and charter schools across America
with approximately 11,000 students.
Fund for Teachers is proud of the way our Fellows transform learning communities after dreaming big and clicking “Submit” on the FFT application. Enjoy this homage to our dedicated 2017 Fellows and to all we wish a new year of interests and impact!
Teachers of the Year Share End of Year Thoughts
Three exceptional FFT Fellows made time amidst grading tests and hosting classroom parties to share with us their year in review.
Sydney Chaffee spent 2017 on sabbatical from Boston’s Codman Academy Charter Public School to represent the Council of Chief State School Officers as the National Teacher of the Year. In 2011, she used her Fund for Teachers grant to witness post apartheid-era restorative justice efforts in South Africa to inform her school’s Fairness Committee and justice-centered curriculum. Watch her interviews on ABC News and CBS This Morning.
This year, the state of Oklahoma recognized Donna Gradel as its Teacher of the Year. Donna teaches high school environmental science in Broken Arrow, OK, and is a two-time FFT Fellow. Watch her talk about her students’ work that garnered the attention of MIT and took them to Kenya to build an aquaponics system for an orphanage.
Ashli Dreher, a 2016 FFT Fellow, was one of five inductees into the National Teachers Hall of Fame this year. With her grant, Ashli attended the International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs in Linz, Austria, to investigate assistive technology solutions implemented with differently-abled students in school, community and transitional work experiences, to learn strategies for integrating these devices locally.
Goals Accomplished
Sydney: One goal I accomplished this year was being brave enough to take a stand by speaking and writing publicly on issues that matter to me–like the role of social justice in education or the importance of white teachers talking about race–even when I knew some people would strongly disagree with me.
Donna: One of my goals for the year came to fruition in the form of a new class I was able to design and teach at our high school. The name of the class is Innovative Research. Student groups research an area of interest and try to help solve a local, national or international problem. Some of the projects include mentoring and buddy reading programs utilizing high school bilingual students paired with elementary English Language Learners to increase proficiency scores, designing a motor room for autistic students to increase student engagement, sustainable chicken farming and feed for developing countries, bio-decomposition of Styrofoam, and sustainable non-conventional energy sources.
Ashli: What a busy year! I completed the work in a second certificate area of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in the Exceptional Needs Specialist area, and I also successfully defended my dissertation proposal. Inside the Classroom, a television show I produce and host weekly, was selected for national Hometown Media Awards in 2017 for excellence in public broadcasting and has expanded to an audience of 12.5 million on local cable. Episodes focus on individual teachers, their teaching careers, and the creative ways in which they engage their students in the classroom.
A student joins Ashli on the set of her program Inside the Classroom
2018 Goals
Sydney: Next year, I hope to increase my students’ engagement with people beyond our school, both within the local community and globally.
Sydney (right) was the keynote speaker at the University of Central Oklahoma’s annual Honoring a Noble Profession event, where Donna Gradel caught up with her for a photo.
Donna: A personal goal I have accomplished was to give more of my time to volunteer to help those with special needs. In the classroom, I hope my students will be engaged in successful learning and the research projects they have undertaken. We have also begun a collaboration between the city of Broken Arrow and our school district to help test, monitor and improve water quality in all the Broken Arrow streams and ponds throughout our city and parks. I hope to see my students working with city engineers, architects and storm water specialists to help improve our local environment.
Ashli: Next year I want to continue to develop innovative, student-centered thematic units that expand the world view of our students. As a FFT fellow, I had the opportunity to visit the Manor School in London, and I am working on preparing grants to implement the flexible seating arrangements we experienced while visiting their classrooms. After observing students with autism using flexible seating at the Manor School, I think my students with special needs would benefit from having flexible seating arrangements.
Donna: For enjoyment, Dust Bowl Girls about the history of women’s basketball in Oklahoma was my favorite. In Order to Live, the journey of North Korean Yeonmi Park is on my list for next month.
Fund for Teachers wishes all of our grant recipients and those whom they impact a happy holiday and year full of learning adventures.
FFT Fellow’s Best Seller Makes Bill Gates’ Top 5 Reads
This gorgeous graphic novel is a deeply personal memoir that explores what it means to be a parent and a refugee. The author’s family fled Vietnam in 1978. After giving birth to her own child, she decides to learn more about her parents’ experiences growing up in a country torn apart by foreign occupiers.
Thi’s learning took place on her Fund for Teachers fellowship.
To create an oral history project for immigrant students and complete a graphic novel about her family’s emigration, Thi sketched her way across time and her homeland, learning from and listening to her mother recount stories about their heritage. Thi’s experiences and drawings gave newly immigrated students at Oakland International High School the courage to document their own journeys to America through a graphic novel format. We Are Oakland International shared illustrated stories by 170 students – where words and often language could not – and sold copies to raise money for quality public education for them and their peers.
“My students’ memories of their home were fresh when they arrived in my class, and so were the contrasts with their new environment,” said Thi. “By modeling how I went through the same process, through a project that was deeply personal while academically rigorous, we – together – opened doors to what would otherwise have remained silent, forgotten histories.”
The Best We Could Do is a national best seller and required reading for every entering freshman at UCLA.
Click here to watch and listen to Thi read an excerpt from The Best We Could Do at an Asian American Writers’ Workshop.
Introducing Struggling Students to Service Learning
Measuring the impact of Fund for Teachers fellowships is tricky. How do you graph the increase in student excitement after their teacher returns full of new ideas and experiences? How do you assess the engagement of students once they realize through their teacher’s experiences the global impact of what they’re learning in class? Most often, the impact is intrinsic and anecdotal, but none the less transformative. Like in the case of Maria Morris.
During the summer of 2016, Maria used her Fund for Teachers grant to investigate the culture, educational system, employment and standards of living in Zimbabwe to improve a service-learning project she initiated with her students with barriers to education at Morse High School in Bath, ME. She split her time exploring community-based volunteer projects through African Impact at Antelope Park, observing four local schools and visiting an orphanage with which her students formed a long-distance relationship.
One year later, Maria checked in to share the impact of her learning in Zimbabwe.
“Just one year ago, I was settling in after a jam packed, whirlwind fellowship to Zimbabwe as a Fund for Teachers Fellow. The purpose of my fellowship was to study the culture, life style economics, employability skills needed and the educational system there. My fellowship actually began two years prior, when I sought out opportunities for my students to learn about a different country. At that time, I established a pen pal project with children living at the Midlands Children Hope Centre, an orphanage for street children, in the city of Gweru. In addition to developing friendships thousands of miles apart, we began charity work to help our friends who were in dire need.
Throughout that first year, it was evident that my students had more questions than answers and those questions inspired my fellowship journey. While in Zim I blogged regularly about my travels, whom I met and what I was learning, but I haven’t sat down to write for a year now. What did my FFT fellowship inspire me to do differently?
It often seems that in our country we look at charity as an agent for social change. Certainly money helps and is necessary, but it isn’t a long term solution. The fruits of my experience on the ground in Zim led me to learn more about social entrepreneurship, micro-finance and small enterprise over the last year. I devoured books like, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz, and took classes through Acumen. I sought out current event articles to share with my students. All of this helped me guide my students to inspire change through the funding of small
enterprise. The JMG students at Morse High School developed the Giving Hope! Grant to fund a revenue generating enterprise for our friends at Midlands Children Hope Centre.
In less than 24 hours a completed grant application was returned to the students requesting $400 to purchase equipment, fertilizers, and seedlings for their garden, which supplies the home with nutritious fresh produce, but also generates revenue. Later on, my students funded an additional grant request for the orphanage to design and purchase t-shirts, caps, and bracelets to sell to the volunteers that visit the orphanage. Staff and youth are mutually invested in both revenue generating projects to defray the operating costs of the home.This venture in providing grants (inspired after the concept of micro-lending) would not have been possible without my Fund for Teachers fellowship. Not only did my trip and experience change and inspire me, it impacted youth on both sides of the
globe.”
As a teacher, Maria guides her students through academic, financial and social barriers to prepare them for college and career success. As a mentor, she exposes them to a world beyond their own struggles and empowers them to help others facing equally as challenging circumstances. Hard to quantify that kind of impact, but we’re very proud of how she’s using her grant to change lives on two continents.
In her second career as a high school career preparatory teacher, Maria has found her life’s passion in inspiring students to challenge themselves to become their best selves. She blends classroom lessons with authentic learning experiences to empower her students to become healthy and successful global citizens. Maria was inducted into the Maine Educators’ Hall of Fame-Starting Six in 2012 and named the 2016 Dr. Patricia Ames Distinguished Teacher Award at Morse High School in recognition of her ability to teach students to be open to new experiences, to care for others, and to act from conviction.
Living La Vida del Profesor
by, Emily Parkinson | Edison Elementary – Morton Grove, IL
For as long as I’ve wanted to be a teacher, I’ve also wanted to teach abroad, immersed in a culture different from my own. During a particularly stressful experience this past year, it occurred to me that spending my summers abroad could be a perfect way to satisfy that international craving. I want to tell you a little bit about my fellowship living, learning and teaching in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and the biggest takeaways that I will bring to my practice here in the US.
Around November of last year when I considered applying for a Fund for Teachers grant, I started searching for summer opportunities abroad, specifically in Latin America because a large percentage of my students are Latino and Spanish-speaking. My main goal was to become fluent in Spanish so I could comfortably speak with a parent or translate an individualized education plan (IEP). A Google search led me to a company called Common Ground International, a husband-wife team based in Colorado who lead Spanish immersion trips for teachers, medical professionals and high school students. The ‘Spanish for Educators’ program was perfect for me: living for four weeks in Nicaragua and Costa Rica – working with local education-related organizations and schools, taking intensive Spanish classes with a focus on education, and living with host families in both countries. I knew this program would push me out of my comfort zone and help me not only become more proficient in Spanish, but also become a more culturally-competent educator.
Nicaragua
My fellowship began in the city of Granada, Nicaragua, a colonial city situated on the coast of Lake Nicaragua. Granada charmed me in every way imaginable, with its pastel colored buildings, bustling Parque Central, and breathtaking horizon filled with volcanoes and church steeples. What I loved most about Granada, however, was the people, including my hospitable host family comprised of three generations.
As for the work I did in Nicaragua, our days were split in half between educational outreach in the mornings and Spanish language classes in the afternoons. During the first week, we worked with an organization called House of Hope, a refuge and safe place for women who have escaped or are still experiencing forced prostitution. House of Hope works with some of the strongest women I will ever encounter in my life, who value their children more than anything but aren’t always comfortable parenting their children due to poor role models. Personally, the idea of being a white American going into another culture and trying to be a savior is something I have a lot of issues with. Who am I to tell these women how to parent, when I don’t even have children of my own? While that is a complicated issue, our program made a point to ask women what kind of support they needed so we could plan workshops that would actually benefit them. We ended up delivering workshops to the mothers about how to involve their children with age-appropriate chores. The women (pictured in a workshop below) were engaged, patient with our sub-par language skills and genuinely grateful for the useful information and resources.
During our second week, we worked with a local school on the outskirts of Granada that serves marginalized neighborhoods or ‘shantytowns.’ For families in these neighborhoods, money is scarce and education is often seen as a way out for their children. The students at the school are excited to learn and see a bright future for themselves. Since students were on break when we were there, we again put on workshops for parents. This time, the theme was more general: how to support your child’s education at home. My partner (Fund for Teachers Fellow Amy Holt from
Franklin H. Mayberry Elementary School in East Hartford, CT) and I focused on math development, and simple ways that parents can reinforce math concepts at home as part of their daily routines like cooking or walking to school. Again, the parents were eager to hear what we had to offer and willing to share their own input on how they talk to their children about math at home.
When not volunteering in the community, I took Spanish classes for four hours each day, focusing on education-specific usage of the language such as how to talk to parents about their child’s progress or how to address student behavior in the classroom. I even learned technical, IEP-related terminology and, by the end of the program, was able to translate an IEP! Goal accomplished!
Overall, Nicaragua left a huge impression on me. Observing people so dedicated to improving the lives of others through education was incredibly inspiring. Parents’ commitment to their children’s education, despite difficult circumstances, was unwavering. The two weeks I spent in Nicaragua went by way too fast, and before I knew it I was hopping on a bus for a nine hour journey to Costa Rica.
Costa Rica
Costa Rica was drastically different from Nicaragua. I think the most emotionally challenging day for me was the day of transition between the two countries. The beautiful landscape I saw out the window was just as enchanting as Nicaragua, but as we entered the cities of San Jose and Heredia, I was struck by the economic differences. From the abundance of American fast food chains to the (relative) lack of stray dogs, to the style of dress, Costa Rica was in a very different situation economically. Overall, the drastic differences in the standard of living between two nations was shocking and tough to process.
The work I did in the community in Costa Rica was different, as well. Instead of working with parents, we spent most of our time working with students, which I was so deeply missing! Getting to interact with kids again, although challenging in my second language, brought me so much joy and energy. I was living in a small city in Heredia called Santo Domingo, a town where people say “hello” on the sidewalk and everyone seems to know each other. We spent our first week putting on an educational day camp for kids in Santo Domingo who were still on break from school. My colleagues and I set up separate learning stations and I decided to teach the kids some of my favorite math games from my own classroom. Their eyes lit up when they found out that they could actually practice math through games (pictured below). I asked if they ever played games in school and they laughed and shook their heads no. One student even got excited about a multiplication chart, something she had never seen before, exclaiming, “Ay, que chiva!!” (“Oh, how cool!”) We played dice and card games, practiced our multiplication facts, listened to the Moana soundtrack in Spanish, and laughed as the kids taught me some new vocabulary. Parting with these kids on the last day proved difficult. (One first grade boy even told us, “These were the best days of my life!”) Luckily, we would be seeing some of them the following week at their school.
Students in Santo Domingo were back in school the following week (my last week in Costa Rica) and we got the opportunity to work in a local public school. I got to assist the ‘Apoyo de Aprendizaje’ teacher (learning support) in her classroom where she worked with students with learning disabilities in small groups. This teacher was absolutely amazing. Everything was made into a game (unlike what students had told me the week before!) and students were so engaged and excited to learn. Overall, this school’s approach to Special Education seemed very effective. I observed a lot of collaboration between the special education teachers and general education teachers, and the school created an inclusive atmosphere, even though students who needed individual attention were serviced in a separate room when necessary.
Biggest Takeaways: Why Will This Matter in My Classroom?
The most important thing for me in this whole experience was developing skills to better equip me to serve my students. Here are a few major takeaways that I believe will make me a better, more culturally-responsive educator:
Knowing how it feels to be an outsider: As a white person in America, my privilege protects me from the emotionally-taxing weight of being an outsider. My students, however, coming largely from minority backgrounds, feel this way every. single. day. It was important for me to have the opportunity to be a cultural outsider, feeling totally insecure in my use of the language and clueless about certain cultural norms. Learning a second language is incredibly difficult, and so many of our students in the US have to do it while we expect them to do so many other things. We expect our immigrant students to adjust seamlessly to the norms of our culture AND keep up with the same expectations as their peers. While I don’t believe in lowering expectations, it is important to be mindful of the emotional toll associated with adjusting to a new language and culture. I now know some of that myself and I will definitely be more sensitive to my students’ needs this year.
Learning that you can’t judge based on one snapshot: This truth something consistently challenged me, both Nicaragua and Costa Rica. I can’t count the number of times that something I had heard about education or culture in one of these countries was debunked. For example, I was told by numerous people (Nicaraguan and North American) that the standard of education is so low in Nicaragua, it’s unlikely to see high quality learning taking place. However, my Spanish teacher in Nicaragua was one of the most highly-skilled educators I‘ve met. Costa Rican adults and children told me how most of their learning is dry, repetitive and focused on rote memorization; yet, I worked alongside a Special Education teacher who made learning a game. I could go on and on about the misconceptions that I encountered, but all in all, I was reminded how important it is to take individual experiences as what they are: individual experiences, rather than a general notion about an entire culture.
The importance of building community: What struck, especially at the local school in Costa Rica, was the family-like support of the community. For example, at recess students ran into the hallways and onto the field for free play without recess monitors! I didn’t see any student excluded, any fights or major issues. Why is it that in my Chicago school with hired recess monitors, we had to cancel recess because of too many unsafe issues? It really got me thinking about cultural differences and our approach to community building and social emotional learning. I sensed the familial love and respect in a classroom the second I walked in, and this is something I will work hard to build in my own classroom this year
Overall, I could not have imagined a more effective and energizing experience abroad, doing what I love most – teaching! My language skills improved drastically in only a few weeks. Most importantly, I met people with whom I will always remain connected, even though we may be many countries away. I am so grateful to Fund for Teachers for allowing me to have this opportunity and I cannot wait to start this school year off better than ever before!
Emily is a Special Education teacher in the Chicago area, educating students in a school with a high concentration of Spanish-speaking students. She is passionate about social-emotional learning and
mindfulness in the classroom. Emily is pictured at the top of this post (on the left) with Amy Holt; you can read Amy’s perspective on this same fellowship here.
Quantifying Air Quality
In support of the recent International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, we share the learning of Jodie Harnden (Sunridge Middle School – Pendleton, OR) who joined an atmospheric aerosol research project with scientists at NASA Langley to develop a similar student project modeling how authentic science is conducted to collect and analyze data useful to the community.
In emergency medical practices the airway, or being able to breathe, is the first priority, making air pollution a major threat to those who breathe…which is everyone! In my seventh grade science classes we study the structure of the atmosphere and air pollution problems and students learn about different pollutants and how they affect our location. While students do develop an understanding of air quality conditions, they do not have the opportunity to collect their own data and analyze that data in order to answer questions, as scientists would do.
And neither did I – until my Fund for Teachers grant.
One of the challenges of being a science teacher is that I had never been an actual scientist. While I have spent my career learning to be the best teacher I can be, I lacked in experience that relates to the actual processes of scientific research and data analysis. For me to lead students to think and work as scientists, I needed the experience myself. The two-week fellowship collecting air quality data with NASA Langley provided an intensive and exciting opportunity to interact and work alongside actual scientists, followed by developing related classroom applications for students.
I had the opportunity to participate in the data campaign as a volunteer intern under the direction of NASA scientist Dr. Margaret Pippin. My air quality data research took me to sites around Hampton, VA, monitoring aerosols, or tiny solids that are considered pollutants. I became proficient in using the Calitoo, a device that measures aerosol optical thickness, and indicator of particulate matter. I learned what the impact of clouds can be on the accuracy of measurements and established my GLOBE account for submitting my own data.
Previously I had only demonstrated the Calitoo with borrowed units. Now I will be having students collect and submit data on a regular basis to the GLOBE Project. Collecting data for a long-term project is a change from just occasional measurements. Students will now be the scientists,
collecting and submitting the data for use, and have access to the data for future use, as well.
The greatest accomplishment of my fellowship was developing a true understanding of the different stages of scientific research. Data campaigns have a planning and funding period, then, if approved, all participants coordinate for the campaign period (in this case, two weeks), then hope for good weather. Collection days can be very long! After rest and recovery, analysis of the data begins and will be the focus for the next year, prompting future research.
School has started and smoke from regional wildfires has created a difficult situation for many. Outdoor activities have been cancelled as we come to grips with the loss of beautiful forests. We can’t even make aerosol measurements because the smoke blocks the sun. Students are getting an early introduction to the air quality unit. We have begun to enter data into GLOBE, but the smoke prevents the collection of quality data (a good lesson for students!). Normally our rough time is January and February when cold, high pressure settles in to create an inversion, trapping the smoke from wood stoves; however, this year may mark different conclusions. I have taken note of an unusual ozone
concentration near one city west of the Cascade Mountains, a problem we don’t have, but can study from afar.
While there are numerous environmental issues that are worth studying, air quality continues to be a challenge in our area. While the causes may sometimes be out of our control (such as weather and wild fires) awareness and understanding is not. Mitigation of contributing factors that are human-caused are something we will continue to study, learn, and take appropriate action when possible. This August we have experienced a severe air quality issue, something to study further in the fall.
Along with my personal experiences at NASA Langley, I was able to witness the inclusion of student interns in the research process. I came away more convinced that ever that science is a process and something to be understood, not just a set of facts to be learned. The future of science depends on doing science, and I must give my students opportunities to contribute to the field of science. School, in many ways, is an artificial microcosm of life and I will be able to expose students to so much more now that I was exposed to more myself.
A National Board Certified teacher, Jodie is in her 33rd year of teaching science at the middle
level, most of it in Pendleton, Oregon. She thrives on the opportunity to learn, bringing experiences back to the classroom and sharing with others professionally. While it won’t be a problem until retirement, rock collecting is a favorite activity.
If These Walls Could Speak
On the final day of their fellowship, Alice Laramore and Kat Atkins-Pattenson shared with us their reflection on a four-week, 9,000 mile road trip along the United States/Mexico border exploring language arts, visual arts, immigration and identity. Thank you, Team Paredes Que Hablan (or Walls That Speak) for sharing your experiences and hope for future 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.
Reader, I Studied Her
Charlotte Brontë, who sent her Jane Eyre manuscript to a London publisher on this date in 1847, wrote, “Your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.” This summer, Amanda Kingston (Odyssey Leadership Academy – Oklahoma City) used her time (and a Fund for Teachers grant) to research the Brontë sisters, especially Charlotte – regarded as “the first historian of the private consciousness.”
On my Fund for Teachers fellowship, I navigated through five European countries in the hopes of learning more about Carol Gilligan’s work on the ethic of care in connection to the lives and histories of women. Among the women I journeyed to “meet” were Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, authors and sisters.
Haworth, England, is a small town that has capitalized on the mythology of the Brontë family. It’s hard to know if the Brontës modeled their stories after the environment of Haworth, or if Haworth has wrapped itself up in the Brontës. Whether it’s chicken or egg, at the heart, they’re inseparable. And, if you can’t get enough of the gothic atmosphere, you can hike out to the Brontë Waterfall across the moors and even farther to Top Withens, a possible location for the Wuthering Heights of Emily’s imagination. In the mist and among the heather you can almost hear Cathy still calling for Heathcliff.
The Brontë Parsonage Museum itself is in the midst of celebrating the 200th anniversaries of the Brontë children: for 2017, this is Branwell. The small parsonage is preserved beautifully, with portraits of the family hung in each room; the table where the women bent over needlework, writing, and dinners; and the study of the family patriarch, Patrick Brontë, complete with his spectacles and magnifying glass. The staff were enthusiastic and kind, offering up knowledge about the family not with an air of pretension, but rather as though talking warmly about old friends. The Brontës are very much real people to this crowd. Prior to this fellowship, I did not know much about the Brontës. I did a quick reread of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre earlier this year, and watched the BBC television special To Walk Invisible. The production worked closely with the Brontë Society and the museum also includes stills and costumes from the series.
For more on Jane Eyre’s iconic line “Reader, I married him,” click here.
In researching before the trip, I learned that in the original publications, the sisters chose not to use their given names. Instead, they used pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Charlotte explained after the deaths of Emily and Anne in 1848 and 1849 respectively, they wanted their work taken seriously, not frowned upon as womenly nonsense nor praised patronizingly as female folly. The Brontës were real writers with real things to say about the real world around them. And really, in 1847 when Jane Eyre was published, only male authors were taken seriously. The museum even includes a letter from a poet Charlotte admired advising her that writing was not for women.
I realized, a few days before in Chawton, that there is a reason we don’t say that Jane Austen’s books are about the human experience, though they certainly include suffering, trials, family, love, and loss. (The Jane Austen Society, coincidentally, is celebrating her life with the bicentennial of her death this year, as well.) The Brontës recognized this also, and when Charlotte sent Jane Eyre to be published she wanted the story of a young governess, a deeply misguided Mr. Rochester, and a “madwoman” in the attic to be a story received with the utmost sincerity and gravity, a story of human experience- not just male or female. And it was: Jane Eyre became the talk of London and new editions came out almost immediately. It’s a story of human experience and human emotions that belong to all of us, and I believe people recognized this, despite knowing the true identity of the author.
I’ll be honest, I was not a Brontë fan before visiting the parsonage. I enjoyed their books, yes, and they were interesting figures to me. But I wasn’t a “fan.” However, there is something about walking in the home of a person, seeing their correspondence and their village, walking across the moors of their lives for even just a day that spins stories to a different light. It makes you not just a fan, but a friend. I learned more about their heart and the courage they had to put their stories out to the world, and to put themselves in their stories.
I don’t think that it’s any accident that the original title of Charlotte’s first novel was Jane Eyre: An Autobiography.
Amanda serves as both a mentor and humanities teacher at Odyssey Leadership Academy in Oklahoma City and previously worked as a teacher in Louisiana’s public education sector. She is passionate about creating courses that focus on justice and empowering students to enrich and transform the community around them.
The Politics of Music
As tensions heated up this summer between Russia and the United States, Kathy Morse served as a self-appointed ambassador of education, researching the arts in St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Moscow. She returned to ACESWintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School in Hamden, CT, with insight into how the arts plays such a vital role in Russia’s past and present culture and shares a few of her experiences below…
Before leaving on my fellowship, I asked my fifth graders to journal their impressions of Russia. Their input framed my research, which I will now use as the foundation for their sixth grade social studies class. Together, we will now look at our diverse world through the common lens of art, specifically, the music, dance and architecture I experienced with my Fund for Teachers grant.
For three weeks, I observed how culture is a driving force in Russia. In St. Petersburg, also known as “Venice of the North,” I explored the arts, history and geography of the city (the famed music conservatory, the Vaganova Ballet Academy and the State Hermitage Museum) while attending the Stars of the White Nights Festival. Specifically, I dove into the compositional techniques of Dimitri Shostakovich and his inspiration for his Seventh Symphony during the winter of 1941.
Next, I traveled to a city fixed in time, Novgorod, which lies between St. Petersburg and Moscow. At its peak during the 14th century, Novgorod was one of Europe’s largest cities and was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1992. Novgorod has maintained itself as a historical center and it is possible to get a glimpse of what Russia looked like hundreds of years ago going back as far as the Middle Ages. This gave me a deeper historical context of Russia.
Continuing on to Moscow, I spent three days exploring the Kremlin, Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, museums and attending performances at the Bolshoi Theatre. These sites are the most iconic, so I wanted students to know what they mean for the Russian people, as well as the importance Moscow plays in our world today.
Understanding WWII through the eyes of the Russian People by exploring Victory Park and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) in Moscow was an extensive history lesson. This country lost more than 25 million citizens to battle, starvation, disease and Stalin’s Terror. The museum also emphasizes the important role the United States and other Allies played in securing victory over Nazi Germany.
Using the Lincoln Center Education model of inquiry (practicing skills like noticing deeply, posing questions, making connections, and empathizing), my students and I will now be able to explore the Russian culture through the study of the arts of St. Petersburg, the history of Novgorod and the political importance of Moscow while making real world connections to other curriculum areas including literature, history and geography. If we Westerners hope to understand this enormous country, we might intelligently begin by trying to understand the culture which drives this mysterious country. That’s where we’ll begin in my class.
Kathy Morse (pictured in a Moscow subway station) graduated from Duquesne University with a degree in Music Education/Music Therapy while pursuing her passion of performance on the
French Horn. Her first job was with the State Orchestra of Mexico. Upon returning to the United States, she earned her Masters Degree from Yale University and toured world wide with various ensembles. She has carried her passion for music into the classroom for the past 26 years and has led teacher workshops for Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic.
International Day of the World’s Indigenous People
August 9th marks the first meeting of the United Nations’ Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982 and the occasion designated by the UN General Assembly for honoring 370 million Indigenous People living across 90 countries who remain subject to political, economic and social oppression.
Indigenous People are defined as ethnic groups originally in a territory prior to being
incorporated into a national state, and who are politically and culturally separate from the majority ethnic identity of the state that they are a part of.
This summer, fourteen Fund for Teachers Fellows chose to research Indigenous People on three continents to increase student awareness and appreciation of the history, culture and challenges faced by those also known as first peoples, aboriginal peoples and native peoples. Read on to see how these teachers pursued knowledge of and experience among these inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment.*
Charles FitzGibbon and Christine Faye Dunbar (Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School– Forest Hills, NY) used photo journalism and oral interviews to examine the immediate effects of climate change on coastal Alaskan natives. They plan use their research to convey to students the interaction between individuals, communities, government policy and the climate.
Charles inspecting ice caves beneath Mendenhall Glacier on a hot day in Juneau, AK.
Their excellent blog documenting the fellowship begins:
“We are two teachers from a public 6-12 school in Queens, New York, who are traveling this summer to Alaska on a research grant from Fund for Teachers. We’re passionate about the work we engage our students in, and strive to make learning as relevant and real-world as possible. Our mission this summer is to research the impacts of climate change on coastal
communities, particularly those in the arctic region who are facing the more drastic effects of warming temperatures, melting permafrost, and land erosion. Namely we seek to answer three key research questions:
What challenges do coastal Alaskan communities face in the age of climate change?
How do borders ensure, enshrine, and entrap the communities of coastal Alaska?
What can be done to preserve and affirm the cultures of indigenous peoples as climate change threatens the future of their communities?”
For 21 days, Christine and Charles explored Juneau, Nome, Shishmaref, Fairbanks, and Prudhoe Bay, providing a broad scope of how climate change is impacting the state, its economy and social fabric. Click hereto see what they discovered.
Glen Meinschein, Greg Gentile and Alejandro Avalos (Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies) investigated of one of the most controversial figures in Mexican history, “La Malinche,”
by exploring across Mexico themes of colonialism, feminism and indigenous history to engage students of different backgrounds and support their academic achievement.
This blog documents their experiences, characterized by the sentence, “It was unsettling how much of our investigation of her has resulted in silence, shrugs or lack of any answers or any significant information.”
Exploring Xochimilco, a part of Mexico City where Aztecs built floating islands, or chinampas.
Learning about the Huran Wendat tribe on the Wendake Reservation.
Renee Lukaniec (Fox Run Elementary – Norwalk, CT) was handed a curriculum, outdated textbooks and asked to teach a unit on Native Americans three years ago. The search for authentic information and artifacts inspired her Fund for Teachers fellowship living and learning on the Huron-Wendat Nation reservation in Quebec. Read more of her experiences here.
Michelle Broxterman and Rachel Southard (Westside Elementary – Pittsburg, KS) chose to investigate with their Fund for Teachers grant the Mashallese people, culture and environment because their classes increasingly welcome immigrants from the cluster of small islands in the Pacific Ocean. Despite the contingency of immigrants living in their small town, the teachers found that many people have no idea where the Marshall Islands are. Their goal is to reach, teach and assimilate Marshallese students and families – and to educate the community about their new neighbors. In their grant proposal, Michelle and Rachel wrote:
“The Marshall Islands face numerous obstacles resulting from global warming and continued effects of nuclear testing. According to scientists, the Marshall Islands could be underwater within our lifetime. These looming threats have resulted in a mass immigration of over 20,000 Marshallese people living in the US. Although there has been a large influx of Marshallese people, their language and culture are relatively unknown and seem to be gradually disappearing along with their islands. We feel an urgency to gain as much information as we can now because later may not be an option.”
Rachel and Michelle checked in after their fellowship:
Our fellowship took us to Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, for an amazing experience. We were able to ride on a traditional Marshallese canoe, sample local foods and gain a deeper understanding of the nation’s history. In addition, we studied the Marshallese educational system and toured an elementary school.
The most meaningful part of our fellowship was spending time with the people. We were welcomed with open arms by relatives of our Marshallese students. They ensured that we were able to learn a large amount of
information in a short period of time. It was obvious that generosity, caring, resilience and hospitality were and continue to be key attributes in the Marshallese culture. It is our hope that from our fellowship, we will help our Marshallese students to be proud of their heritage and continue on their traditions.
Additional 2017 Fellows focusing on First Peoples include:
Kelly Shea and Sherry McCullough – Meeting with Maori guides and professors from the University of Auckland in New Zealand,to learn how the Maori use storytelling to represent cultural values and unify community for a new “Power of Language” unit (pictured above with guide Robert McDonald on top of Te Mata Peak).
Rebekah and Robert Polemeni – Investigating 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.
Amy Manware – Volunteering with conservation groups and native communities in Hawaii to
learn about ecological restoration, explore the impact of water on ecosystems and create blended learning activities that integrate Next Generation Science Standards and enrich STEM and instructional technology curricula.
David Hunt – Investigating the effect of 1800’s Westward Expansion on the American
Tribes of Arizona, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Montana to better teach topics including The Trail of Tears, Battle of Apache Pass and surrender of Geronimo, Battle of Wounded Knee and the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Judie Cavanaugh – Exploring the art and culture of Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific
Northwest to integrate art lessons with social studies curriculum.
Rebecca Cutkomp – Exploring Washington’s Spokane Indian Reservation and Alaska’s Denali National Park to enrich student learning in thematic units on identity and aid in students’ deeper insight into rhetorical analysis.
Timothy Kiser and Vincent McCollum – Exploring Dominica’s history and geography through an intersectionality lens of race and colonization to better understand two central questions: How did the Kalinago survive while others did not? and why do the Kalinago continue to thrive? And,
Samantha Verboven – Observing Alaska’s Native American population and the culture of
storytelling to create a after school writing club based on reader’s theater designed to improve oral storytelling techniques and the narrative writing process.
Click on the following links for further research accomplished by previous Fund for Teachers Fellows on:
Supriya Kotagal reclaimed her time in an airport to send us these beautiful images and update from her fellowship. Supriya used a Fund for Teachers grant to explore 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.
“My hope,” she wrote in her proposal, “hope is that my fellowship experience will enable me to leverage both of these foci as my students engage in their design thinking work. Ultimately, I hope that ideas generated in my classroom around climate change can begin to be applied to the pressing issues that impact the neighborhood our school serves. I hope to mobilize my own students to be natural drivers of change in their community by creating a student advisory board or governing organization with my colleagues where youth weigh in on key problems and solutions that can better their neighborhood and school experience.”
Read more about her learning that will precede student advocacy.
As I type this, I am at the airport in Abu Dhabi waiting for my connecting flight to take be back to New York City. I think this is probably the perfect time to reflect on the experience and provide you with some closing thoughts and some of my favorite videos from my time abroad:
Through my Fund for Teachers fellowship, I set out to document the impact climate change is having on small island developing states in the Indian Ocean – specifically the Maldives
and Zanzibar. Providing tangible examples of how climate change is impacting ecosystems and people is incredibly important to me as a science educator. We are living in a time when the impacts of climate change are deemed “debatable” by some and my goal was to make this environmental crisis as tangible as possible for my students. I did this by collecting qualitative data in the form of interviews, photographs, and film clips in order to create “Country Kits” that will enable my seventh graders to explore climate change more deeply. As part of my “Country Kits” I am also producing several mini-documentaries that help explain different environmental issues and innovative solutions I encountered along the way.
Another aspect of my fellowship was to explore sustainable, community-based efforts that empower youth to tackle the very real challenges of climate change and to use this information to engage my students in thinking more globally about the environment. In the Maldives, I partnered with a sea turtle rehabilitation center called Naifaru Juvenile which seeks to spread awareness about the endangered sea turtle population and create sustainable solutions to protecting beaches and improving waste management–both environmental issues that stem from climate change and directly impact the sea turtle population. I met some amazing young activists who helped organize and participate in a festival bringing awareness to their local community. I was able to interview young people who are developing ways to improve environmental outcomes in their community. One young woman I met started a fashion line where she develops bags and purses from the trash she finds on the beach!
In Zanzibar, I explored how the country’s seaweed industry is being impacted by rising ocean temperatures. I met with a seaweed scientist and attended a community festival aimed at promoting the local development of seaweed products as a way of providing supplemental income to seaweed farmers, the majority of whom are women and who have seen recent declines in profit because of climate change. I also met with a collective of female seaweed farmers who are trying to create innovative products from the seaweed they cultivate in order to support their families. Additionally, I formed a valuable partnership with a youth organization called Zanzibar Learning 4 Lifethat seeks to encourage young people to become environmentally engaged and develop sustainable solutions to the problems that affect their community. I learned of some amazing work and ideas young people are formulating including using discarded plastic water bottles as bricks for water tanks. I hope to develop a deeper partnership with this organization in my classroom and am working on creating a pen-pal partnership between my students and theirs.
I wanted to share with you two mini-documentaries I made. The first [above] explains the seaweed industry in Zanzibar and the changes female farmers are making there in the face of climate change to maintain a profit. The second shares the perspective of youth on the island of Naifaru, the Maldives on the environmental issues impacting sea turtles and what needs to be done.
Thanks again for such an amazing opportunity. I can’t tell you how valuable this experience has been in re-energizing my passion for this work.
Best,
Supriya
(photo below of a group of young girls getting ready to dance at the youth-led “Turtle Festival” in Naifaru, the Maldives)
Supriya, middle school teacher at The School at Columbia University, is a curriculum designer, consultant and educator who has been involved in the field of education for ten+ years. She was a 2007 Teach for America Corps Member, a New York Hall of Science Design Fellow & Master Teacher, a New York Public Library Cullman Fellow in Creative Writing and currently teaches a STEAM* science course in New York City. Through her experiences, she understands education to be a powerful and transformative tool in uplifting individuals and communities.
Frank Mangan and Brandon Hubbard-Heitz (The Howard School – Chattanooga, TN) are assessing the past and present effects of people’s interaction with the Alaskan wilderness to empower students to embark upon future conservation work in their contexts.
You can follow their learning on Twitter and read more about their adventure below…
“Late in life, noted naturalist John Muir traveled to Alaska. As he sailed along Alexander Archipelago, he wrote,“To the lover of pure wildness Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world. No excursion that I know of may be made into any other American wilderness where so marvelous an abundance of noble,newborn scenery is so charmingly brought to view…”
Today especially, Alaska stands out for its 54 million acres that have been set aside as national parks, a vast expanse of wilderness that can only be appreciated by the naked eye. Even so, Alaska’s history is also a decidedly human tale of exploitation as much as conservation, abuse as much as preservation. From the migration of humans across the Bering Strait to the gold rush to the ExxonValdez, Alaska is a microcosm of the human-nature relationship within American history. Thus, it offers itself as an excellent starting point for an exploration of this dialectic that has defined the American people’s relationship with their land.
Unfortunately, this relationship often goes unexplored by students at the urban high school in which we teach. The school primarily serves children of color, many of whom lack the resources to explore the local,state, and national parks near their neighborhoods. According to the Outdoor Foundation, only 8% of black adolescents and 12% of Hispanic adolescents participated in outdoor activities in 2015, miniscule numbers compared to 71% of their white peers.As America grows increasingly diverse, this gap portends significant consequences not only for communities of color, but for the earth itself. The damaging effects of human-caused climate change are increasingly manifest and necessitate an “all hands on deck” response – one that is only possible if all people, including our students, become advocates for conservation.
Our self-guided fellowship into Alaska’s wilderness will enable us to report back to our students not only its beauty, but also the imperative to preserve that beauty. As a U.S. history teacher and an English teacher who teach juniors, we will equip our students to step into the wilderness – Alaskan and local, past and present – in order to experience the wonder of the earth and the need to preserve it for future generations. Like Muir, we are documenting our adventure, in writing and digitally, in order to create a meaningful experiential unit that transports students to the Alaskan wilds with the aim of inspiring students to seek out such experiences for themselves while also advocating for the preservation and protection of the natural world.”
Armed with a 360 degree camera, Frank and Brandon are capturing experiences for their students, including:
Observing the impact of the ExxonValdez oil slick and climate change on Kenai Fjords National Park;
Witnessing the human-nature relationship on Reeve’s Field, the airstrip used to support the Pacific Theater during World War II;
Exploring in Denali National Park and Preserve the Kantishna Mining District;
Flying above the Arctic Circle to tour Simon Paneak Memorial Museum,
which documents the natural, geological and cultural history of the Nunamiut people;
Backpacking in lands preserved by the
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
In addition to incorporating images and experiences into U.S. History and English III classes, the teaching team plans to collaborate with colleagues to create an experiential interdisciplinary unit that promotes outdoor engagement and conservation. They also believe their experiences will help grow the school’s Outdoor Leadership Club, which Brandon founded last year. Lastly, students will visit a local tract of land managed by the National Park Service, interviewing rangers about local issues that interact with what their teachers learned in Alaska. Students’ research will culminate in a joint English – U.S. History research and advocacy project they’ll present to peers, teachers, parents, community members and park rangers.
Brandon is dedicated to preparing his students for active citizenship in the world by infusing his classes with authentic reading and writing. In 2016, he co-founded the school’s Outdoor Leadership Club in an effort to diversify the outdoors and expose students to the beauty of nature. In addition to being a Fund for Teachers Fellow, Frank has received a Teaching American History grant and studied the Civil Rights Movement at Cambridge University through the Gilder-Lehrman Institute.
MLK Jr, Mandela & Me
2018 Update: Since submitting this story, Diego shared this story:
“FFT was transformative, probably the best PD I have done as an educator. My fellowship in South Africa included a visit with Christo Brand, one of Mandela’s former prison wardens who eventually became Mandela’s friend, confidant and served with him when he became president. It worked out beautifully, as Mr. Brand visited my school in Fall of 2015 and FFT allowed me to travel for my fellowship in December of that year, so we stayed in touch and I had the chance to learn first hand about what it was like to be next to Mandela. This picture of Christo and me is right after visiting Robben Island on a beautiful crisp morning in Cape Town.
I’ve continued to use what I learned in my fellowship with my classes. All of my students read a chapter from Mandela’s Robben Island: The Dark Years, his memoir of his imprisonment, in a class called LeadServe, where we think about citizenship and civics.
Teaching this class led me to be selected as one of 20 national fellows working with Citizen University, based out of Seattle, to think of new ways of bringing citizens together and engaging the through public “Civic Seminaries.” I trace this work directly to my learning as an FFT Fellow.”
by, Diego Duran-Medina – Estes Park, CO
For most of my social studies students at Eagle Rock High School, social justice is perceived as very US centric, mostly revolving around American historical figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. I designed my Fund for Teachers fellowship to expand students’ knowledge base to an international context by researching social justice in South Africa. For two weeks, I explored the history, impact and legacy of apartheid and Nelson Mandela to gather lessons for students as they begin defining their own path within our progressive, restorative-justice based alternative school. In doing so, I’m facilitating students’ understanding of issues around social justice movements by comparing and contrasting the Civil Rights Movement with apartheid and reconciliation.
Standing outside Mandela’s cell on Robben Island.
My passion for this fellowship comes from having spent over a decade developing my own curricula around issues involving access, social justice, civil rights, definitions of citizenship and exploring what it means to belong and exclude in different contexts. I have never been a traditional teacher relying on textbooks; instead, I prefer to create learning experiences around current events, historical narratives and issues that my students are interested in. This has to do with my own development as a student who always enjoyed history, but found it to be a subject that can often be reduced to static dates, rote memorization and mythology of “great (white) men.” My passion is driven by the fact I want students to know I continue to expand my knowledge and to actively seek new answers with new questions by traveling to a country and culture that I have never visited, but has always fascinated me – South Africa.
I chose to spend my fellowship observing and researching the Mandela Museum in Mthatha, the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, Mandela Square and the Mandela House in Soweto, because I believe that these places offer a perspective that can only be experienced by visiting and have become part of Nelson Mandela’s myth and legacy. By visiting sites over multiple days, I gathered detailed and thorough information to supplement my teaching and curriculum. I also interacted with educators and museum personnel to connect with those who were able to provide personal insight into Mandela’s life and legacy. As a result, I added an important layer of an international focus with an in-depth study of a historical figure beyond the usual pantheon of Civil Rights figures from the US context. My curricula will deepen with a specific example of social justice and a comparative model with apartheid for looking at slavery, oppression and freedom.
On January 6, I started a class calledLeadServe, taking a hard look at what it means to work for democracy in different contexts: the two primary examples we will use are Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Students will learn though readings, historical context, connected facts and artifacts collected from my fellowship. They will develop a notion of history that moves beyond facts and moves from the impersonal to the personal (i.e.“What does this history mean for my own life?”) They will also develop skills in comparing and contrasting cultures, movements, societies and historical figures, specifically the U.S. and South Africa.
Being awarded this fellowship solidified for me that I can be a teacher who focuses on social justice and that my work has real meaning and substance. These stories need to be told to students in a way that goes beyond the classroom or the textbook, and the example I am setting by
traveling to South Africa is much more powerful than just a lecture on apartheid.
There’s a certain inspiration and renewal of the spirit that happens when I pursue these personal passion projects and it helps inject my career with new energy and
focus. Also, as I advance in my career, I am committed to making sure that younger teachers understand the power of experiential learning for their practice and are able to implement similar experiences in their classrooms and curricula.
Learning through travel is the most powerful combination for connecting the classroom and community, the learning with the doing, and the present with the past. Therefore, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity and treasure the days I spent in South Africa, both learning and reflecting on my practice. I consider it an honor to have been selected as a Fund for Teachers Fellow and entrusted with representing myself, my school and my country.
Eagle Rock School is a full-scholarship high school for 72 adolescents who are not thriving in their current situations, for whom few positive options exist and who are interested in taking control of their lives and learning. Eagle Rock is also a Professional Development Center where educators from across the country learn how to re-engage, retain and graduate students. Diego plans to use his fellowship learning in both settings.
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.
Before leaving on my fellowship, I asked my fifth graders to journal their impressions of Russia. Their input framed my research, which I will now use as the foundation for their sixth grade social studies class. Together, we will now look at our diverse world through the common lens of art, specifically, the music, dance and architecture I experienced with my Fund for Teachers grant.
Understanding WWII through the eyes of the Russian People by exploring Victory Park and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) in Moscow was an extensive history lesson. This country lost more than 25 million citizens to battle, starvation, disease and Stalin’s Terror. The museum also emphasizes the important role the United States and other Allies played in securing victory over Nazi Germany.
