Today we continue our “Fellow Friday” summer series — despite knowing that many of you are completing your first few days of school. Let these peers be inspiration for you to begin thinking about what YOU could learn and where next summer with a Fund for Teachers grant! These FFT Fellows who designed learning around various aspects of literature…

Click here for a complete list of grant recipients.

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Drew Bicknell-Gates
Mohegan Elementary School | Uncasville, CT
Experience Key West’s influence on Ernest Hemingway’s writing and explore my own creativity at Walt Disney World, culminating in a writing retreat aboard a train, to motivate my students to grow in their writing and creative-thinking skills through inspiration in their everyday lives. (Pictured at Hemingway’s studio)

“As a special education teacher, I often struggle with how to balance teaching incredibly structured programs to meet the needs of my students receiving special education services with creative teaching that I know will be more engaging for my students. Creative people are able to think critically about problems and come up with unique solutions, skills which are gained through practice and experience. I want to help my students build these crucial skills to help them set a foundation on which they can continue to learn for the rest of their lives.”

Stephanie Brown | Floyd I. Marchus High School – Concord, CA
Research in England key sites from Jane Austen’s life and the novel “Northanger Abbey” to design a curriculum that incorporates the use of social thinking curriculum to make novels and their focus on interior thoughts accessible to neuro-diverse students.

“The ability to imagine how another person thinks and feels is a long-recognized weakness among students on the Autism spectrum. However, reading literature improves one’s capacity for empathy and strengthens one’s theory of mind. How, then, do we accommodate students with these challenges so that they may access contemporary literature? The modern novel depends heavily on understanding the thoughts and feelings of others. The very insight the modern novel is meant to provide, then, is potentially inaccessible to students with communicative disorders like autism. My fellowship seeks to make novels and their focus on the “interior” thoughts individual accessible to such students.”

Kim Buckley | East Lyme High School – East Lyme, CT
Get firsthand knowledge of Shakespeare and Bronte by visiting English sites in which they lived and worked and also access the knowledge of experts there to improve anti-racist teaching by adding counternarratives that address the problematic nature of White-centered texts, specifically canonical texts by these authors.

“One genuine problem of my practice is making Shakespeare and Brontë relevant to my students and supporting their engagement with these writers who they see as outdated. Furthermore, I want to address the passivity of students in my classroom to get them actively engaged in their learning through performance. Finally, I want to continue to improve my anti-racist teaching by adding counternarratives and addressing the problematic nature of White-centered texts, specifically canonical texts by Shakespeare and Brontë, an approach that will benefit students not only in my AP classes but also in my other classes as well.”

Kaycee Hallett | Mohawk School District – Sycamore, OH
Interview therapeutic horticulturists and horticulture therapists in Denver, Knoxville and Nashville to create for highly capable students addressing eating disorders the opportunity to utilize plant care/gardening for personal stress management and demonstrate the ability to practice health enhancing behaviors through skills learned.

“Having a diverse collection of books is essential in any school library, but I think it’s especially important in a school with such little diversity. The graphic novel books are some of the most popular reading materials in the library: The combination of the written word and pictures make them accessible to all students, even those whose reading comprehension is below grade-level. I believe understanding the culture will help when students have questions about Japanese culture and beliefs that frequently come up while they are reading manga, and help in the decision-making process to bring appropriate, engaging materials to the students who desire it.”

Brook Hopkins | Soddy Daisy High School – Soddy Daisy, TN
Explore cities in Northern and Central Europe that are the settings for two popular graphic novels pertaining to individual experiences of the Holocaust to build a greater understanding of the systematic way the Nazis exterminated more than six million Jews and help students feel connected to the victims, perpetrators, and bystanders of the Holocaust and its terrible place in our history.

“Great age-appropriate literature, especially graphic novels, create a literary space where students of all reading levels can grow intellectually, emotionally and with empathy in their views of others who differ from themselves within our world. These two graphic novels: Maus: A Survivor’s Tale and Anne Frank’s Diary and The Graphic Adaptation (adapted by Ari Folman) are the focus for an enhanced literary unit and the structure and itinerary of my fellowship. My experiences will deepen my content growth, empathy, and ability to help my students feel connected to the victims, perpetrators, and bystanders of the Holocaust and its terrible place in our history.”

René Peña-Govea | June Jordan School For Equity – San Francisco, CA
Attend the Tin House Summer Workshop at Reed College in Portland, OR, to hone writing, workshopping, and editing skills that inform student writing workshops and provide them additional spaces for self-expression.

“As a teacher-librarian, I am well-versed in encouraging and teaching literacy, but not so much in teaching or holding space for creative writing. I would like to add to my experience as a student of creative writing so I can put myself in my students’ shoes as well as observe skillful teachers to hone my own skills as a writing teacher. My goals are to engage with creative writing as a student in a writers’ workshop and then put my teaching hat on to dissect what the writing faculty is doing. I will then bring those skills back to my school to open creative writing workshops, clubs, or other spaces up for students.”

Victoria Rosenburg | St. Matthew’s Parish School – Pacific Palisades, CA
Explore Great Britain’s geography, cultural landmarks, and historic sites to revitalize a middle school English curriculum with a unit on heritage and literature that expands a nature writing component and brings Shakespeare’s works to life.

“While I am very lucky that my family has been able to trace our ancestry, many of my students do not have access to information about their ancestry. I have taught students who are American Born Descendent of Slaves, who are refugees, and who come from chosen families. I am cognizant of these different backgrounds and aware of how that can impact a student’s experience when participating in a unit on ancestry or heritage. My learning plan, and in turn, the revitalization of my 6th-Grade unit, will be focused on cultural heritage – the traditions, artifacts, history, and stories that are passed down from generation to generation. By refocusing my unit, I broaden the opportunities for students to make connections, experience engagement, and feel included.”

Lorrie Storozuk | Tolland Intermediate School – Tolland, CT
Journey through two National Parks and part of the Nez Perce Historic Trail in Montana and Wyoming to experience the historical setting of the book Thunder Rolling in the Mountains and enrich learning about Native American history for an integrated English Language Arts/Social Studies curriculum unit

“By sharing personal visuals, photographs, and current stories of travel from the region, I can show students the evidence that people eventually understood how the Native Americans’ lifestyle and culture is connected to their homeland and the natural resources because, not only did the U.S. government protect the land of the region by creating several National Parks, but also preserved the Nez Perce National Historic Trail from 1877, and we are still able to visit it today.”.

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“Now more than ever, it is imperative that we invest in the most important component of any classroom — the teacher,” said Karen Eckhoff, Executive Director of FFT. “Educators are facing countless challenges every day, and Fund for Teachers is dedicated to further diversifying the ways that we can support them. Our grants represent trust in teachers’ professionalism, creativity, and vision, offering flexibility to meet the unique needs of each classroom, with the students remaining the ultimate beneficiaries as they continue to grow and learn in today’s ever-changing world.”

We look forward to introducing you to more 2022 FFT Fellows next Friday!

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act defines special education as: “Specially designed instruction, at no cost to parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability.” Those needs run a wide gamut, with the essential similarity being students who are not best served in a “general education” setting. Teachers called to this sector of school communities often work in non-traditional environments and employ out-of-the-box skill sets to most effectively impact their students and their families. So it should be no surprise that the Fund for Teachers fellowships these teachers design are equally as unconventional. Meet a few of our 2022 FFT Fellows pursuing experiential learning to benefit their special education communities.

Click here for a complete list of grant recipients.

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Melissa Florio & Carissa Miller
Emerson-Williams Elementary School |Wethersfield, CT
Complete a yoga/mindfulness retreat in Portugal’s Sintra National Park to learn techniques for supporting children exposed to trauma and replicate these strategies within the school setting so students can develop emotional regulation skills that empower them to thrive socially, emotionally, and academically.

“Trauma impacts the brain and the body. Students who are dysregulated are unable to access the executive functions they need to pay attention, emotionally regulate, and problem-solve. By attending this retreat, we will gain techniques that will help students calm their amygdala so that they can be successful learners in the classroom.”

Sam Gurung | Hanes Elementary School – Irving, TX
Complete a Spanish immersion program while staying with a host family in Cusco, Peru, to learn culturally-relevant information that enhances communication with Spanish speaking special education students and their families.

“I am excited for the prospect of innovating in collaboration with my students and the school community as a whole to bridge the gap (specifically the communication gap) between the special education students and general education students, and monolingual students and bilingual students. The fellowship will enable me to design learning experiences for my students where we will make personal connections, work in collaboration and communicate effectively with one another, while also reflecting on our progress, ways I can improve and celebrate our actions, talents and abilities.”

Ryan McGoff | East Boston High School – Boston, MA
Complete intensive language lessons in Medellin and Cartegena, Colombia, to enhance fluency and develop culturally-responsive curriculum for English Language Learners with disabilities.

“By approaching this learning experience through the framework of Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Practices (CLSP), my goal is to gain a deeper grasp of the cultural, political, social, and economic influences that shape these realities. Additionally, I hope to be responsive to the conditions of a student’s lived experiences and the histories that created them..”

Laure O’Keefe | The Anna Westin House – Saint Paul, MN
Interview therapeutic horticulturists and horticulture therapists in Denver, Knoxville and Nashville to create for highly capable students addressing eating disorders the opportunity to utilize plant care/gardening for personal stress management and demonstrate the ability to practice health enhancing behaviors through skills learned.

“This grant is to provide students the opportunity to utilize plant care or gardening as a personal stress management plan and demonstrate the ability to practice health enhancing behaviors through skills learned. Discussion of personal container gardens and life-long benefits of plant care or gardening will precede selection of a particular garden type (fragrant, colorful, textural, herbal) and the beginning of the plant selection process to create a that personal garden. That little patch of nature will sit on the student’s table and our class will be full of lush plants to feed our hearts and calm our minds and hand “

Michelle She | DC Public Schools – Washington, DC
Learn to repair broken braillewriters through Perkins’ Braillewriter Repair Workshops; study non-visual and adaptive techniques for personal care through CN Vision Image Consulting; and improve fluency while learning healthy cooking skills in Oaxaca, Mexico, to enrich the personal and educational experience of students with visual impairments.

“My passion as an educator is to give my students the tools they need to become meaningful contributors to society. As someone with a visual and physical disability myself, I can say that we are often the ones in need of others’ help, and nothing is more powerful than realizing that we, too, can make a positive difference in others’ lives..”

Jeff Timberlake | Guild Elementary School – East Boston, MA
Investigate in Medellin, Colombia, the Metrocable and railway system, learning how it became a symbol of transformation for low-income communities, to inspire English Language Learners and students with special and/or high needs to harness their unique strengths and interests so they have the best opportunity to be productive and thrive in a rapidly changing world.

“All students need to harness their own unique strengths and interests and reflect the myriad of opportunities that exist so they have the best opportunity to be productive and thrive in a rapidly changing world. This is especially vital to the students in my school which is made up of 71 English language learners (ELLs), 25% students with “disabilities,” and 92% “high needs” because they have a difficult time integrating into their communities and the wider society.”

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“Now more than ever, it is imperative that we invest in the most important component of any classroom — the teacher,” said Karen Eckhoff, Executive Director of FFT. “Educators are facing countless challenges every day, and Fund for Teachers is dedicated to further diversifying the ways that we can support them. Our grants represent trust in teachers’ professionalism, creativity, and vision, offering flexibility to meet the unique needs of each classroom, with the students remaining the ultimate beneficiaries as they continue to grow and learn in today’s ever-changing world.”

We look forward to introducing you to more 2022 FFT Fellows next Friday!

To introduce you to our newest grant recipients, we’ve started Fellow Friday. Last week, we highlighted seven teachers who designed and are pursuing fellowships around Indigenous Studies. Today, we meet a group of Fellows who chose different avenues of pursuing a range of subjects supporting music education.

Click here for a complete list of grant recipients.

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Mark Billota | Roger Ludlowe Middle School – Fairfield, CT

Enroll in a series of virtual master classes in music composition and arranging from world renowned composers and musicians to develop skills that facilitate music composition that engage students in musical performances.

“There are times when a need arises for me to actually compose a part/song or arrange something for my students in a different format or style, but I’m lacking the skill set to do so, as this was something only briefly touched upon in my undergraduate studies and really not at all in my graduate studies. My students will really benefit from my ability to arrange “fun” pop songs they recognize on my own in a way that matches their current skill set.”

Jason Malli | Vinal Technical High School – Middletown, CT

Attend the Summer World Music Pedagogy Workshop at West Virginia University, SPLICE Institute for Arts and Technology Innovations at Western Michigan University, and Restorative Practices Online at the University of Maine to create opportunities for student self-expression-fostering performance as an experiential, self-paced, recreational, therapeutic, inter-leveled, individualized workshop.

“I’ve struggled to find effective and expedited manners to foster individual and group relationships that honor individuality and learning styles and also induce the curiosity, inquiry, and hunger to learn for sake of growth. Connecting to students in ways of mutual respect during such traumatic times to inspire them to want to
really learn enough to get them to become metacognitive learners is crucial and if that can happen in their
arts elective, those skills can transfer into their entire life long learning makeup.”

Michael Peters, Kim Shaker & Holly Sisk  | Tahlequah Middle School – Tahlequah, OK
Participate in the Broadway Teachers Workshop in New York City to receive intensive, innovative and immersive instruction from professional artists to give students a chance to express themselves through musical and technical theatre and address their need to experience love and belonging.

“While most of my assignments have a heavy component of choice (how to interpret the prompt assigned, what subject they want to photograph), students often struggle to tell their story. I want to study storytellers and artifacts from the past to see how first peoples documented their lives and connect that storytelling to the work my students do with photography. . I want them to experience the beauty of natural surroundings and I want to help them see the beauty in their everyday surroundings. I want them to experience how their everyday surroundings impact the story of their lives.”

Kathryn Morse &  Karin Mitchell| Groton Middle School – Groton, CT
Research in Trinidad and Tobago music rooted in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to create strong historical connections and deeper cultural understanding for students, teachers and parents alike, as they discover the many commonalities within the school’s diverse cultural mix through music.

“We designed this grant to broaden our knowledge of world drumming, specifically African drumming, Steel Pan, and the development of the many other styles of drumming which emerged from the African and East Indian religious, cultural celebrations. We hope to use this new knowledge to create strong historical connections and deeper cultural understanding for individuals within our community, students, teachers and parents alike, as we discover the many commonalities within our diverse cultural mix through music.”

“Now more than ever, it is imperative that we invest in the most important component of any classroom — the teacher,” said Karen Eckhoff, Executive Director of FFT. “Educators are facing countless challenges every day, and Fund for Teachers is dedicated to further diversifying the ways that we can support them. Our grants represent trust in teachers’ professionalism, creativity, and vision, offering flexibility to meet the unique needs of each classroom, with the students remaining the ultimate beneficiaries as they continue to grow and learn in today’s ever-changing world.”

We look forward to introducing you to more 2022 FFT Fellows next Friday!

To introduce you to our newest grant recipients, we’ve started Fellow Friday. Last week, we highlighted two teachers from Manilus, NY, who designed their fellowship to impact English Language Learners. Today, we meet Fellows pursuing justice, injustices, history, art, sciences and lifestyles of Indigenous Peoples.

Click here for a complete list of grant recipients.

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Anthony Bergstrom | East Hartford High School – East Hartford, CT

While exploring the historic geography of the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park, research the history of the Native American people’s to engage students in the study of indigenous cultures, Westward Expansion and the Progressive Era.

“The impact that westward expansion has had on the Native American tribes of the west is profound. While exploring these national parks, my focus will be on the history of the tribes that inhabited these lands (and continue to), their culture and the impact that westward expansion had on them.”

Rachel Clement  | Two Rivers Public Charter School – Washington, DC

Interview tribal leaders and members of the Patawomeck, Rappahannock, Piscataway, and other indigenous nations of Maryland and Virginia to build community-school relationships and create resources that draw connections between indigenous perspectives and restorative justice practices.

“As an associate member of the VA-state-recognized Patawomeck Indian Tribe, I would like to draw on my connections to indigenous community within the Virginia, Maryland, DC region to learn more about East Coast indigenous concepts of justice, local to our area. My hope is that in deepening my (and my network of educators’) relationships with local indigenous community and ancestral restorative justice systems, I can benefit both the areas of cultivating a truly restorative culture at school, as well as deepening relationships
and knowledge of our local communities.”

John Goodwin | BASIS Phoenix – Phoenix, AZ

Conduct research at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC to build two project-based learning experiences that raise awareness of Indigenous experiences at American Indian boarding schools and enhance the physical and digital presence of one such site in our city.

“I will create an extensive database of materials concerning the history of American Indian boarding schools, as well as the presentation of Native American history to the public. In the classroom, my students’ capstone project will require groups to design a two-pronged proposal for teaching materials, on the one hand creating digital history lesson plans to share with educators interested in implementing primary sources on the topic, and on the other hand proposing enhancements to the public history visibility and utility of an under-utilized site in our city.”

Jen Kennedy | College Park High School – Pleasant Hill, CA
Photograph the Southwest landscape (day & night) and also ancient cliff dwellings to document the relationship of First Peoples to the land and demonstrate for career & technical education students how migration & relationship to the land is a common theme in humanity.

“While most of my assignments have a heavy component of choice (how to interpret the prompt assigned, what subject they want to photograph), students often struggle to tell their story. I want to study storytellers and artifacts from the past to see how first peoples documented their lives and connect that storytelling to the work my students do with photography. . I want them to experience the beauty of natural surroundings and I want to help them see the beauty in their everyday surroundings. I want them to experience how their everyday surroundings impact the story of their lives.”

Emily Schmidt | Bronx High School of Science – Bronx, NY
Participate in the Earthwatch expedition “Amazon Riverboat Exploration” in Iquitos, Peru, surveying biodiversity and contributing to community-based conservation projects with the indigenous Cocama people, to broaden students’ perspectives of science to include field biology and indigenous science.

“Participating in this expedition will allow me to take part in many different methods of studying animal populations in the field and see how the data are being used to support not only the local biodiversity but also the livelihoods of the indigenous Cocama people. In fact, the project is located in the Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo community reserve, which was the first community reserve established in Peru. Community reserves are protected areas that explicitly benefit local communities as well as wildlife and are managed by indigenous groups.”

Lorrie Storozuk | Tolland Intermediate School – Tolland, CT
Journey through two National Parks and part of the Nez Perce Historic Trail in Montana and Wyoming to experience the historical setting of the book Thunder Rolling in the Mountains and enrich learning about Native American history for an integrated English Language Arts/Social Studies curriculum unit.

“By sharing personal visuals, photographs, and current stories of travel from the region, I can show students the evidence that people eventually understood how the Native Americans’ lifestyle and culture is connected to their homeland and the natural resources because, not only did the U.S. government protect the land of the region by creating several National Parks, but also preserved the Nez Perce National Historic Trail from 1877, and we are still able to visit it today.”

Catherine Teulings | North End Middle School – Waterbury, CT
Explore in Australia how Aboriginal art expresses the soul to introduce students to this art form as a tool for promoting self-reflection and deep learning while also building stronger bridges of understanding across cultures.

“This fellowship will offer an opportunity for me to incorporate a different art form into my curriculum, one that offers another way for students to express themselves. Aboriginal art will create ways to be involved emotionally and personally in their art, seeing themselves as part of the art, as well as being part of a solution. This will also give them the sense that they are part of the greater world, and can solve real problems through being creative, and collaborative with their classmates.”

Sunny Zheng-Herb | William Smith High School – Aurora, CO
Explore Native Alaskan arts and culture in Alaska to incorporate elements of this art tradition in the classroom through the teaching of 3D art forms and elevate awareness of non-Western arts practices.

“While my school has offered a few classes centering on local Ute, Apache and Navajo cultures, no class has ever touched on Alaska Native peoples. I believe that the introduction of Alaska Native art traditions in my school will engender new ways of viewing and creating art, more space for mindful practice in the classroom, and opportunities for community and self empowerment through the celebration of diverse and oft-effaced cultures.”

“Now more than ever, it is imperative that we invest in the most important component of any classroom — the teacher,” said Karen Eckhoff, Executive Director of FFT. “Educators are facing countless challenges every day, and Fund for Teachers is dedicated to further diversifying the ways that we can support them. Our grants represent trust in teachers’ professionalism, creativity, and vision, offering flexibility to meet the unique needs of each classroom, with the students remaining the ultimate beneficiaries as they continue to grow and learn in today’s ever-changing world.”

We look forward to introducing you to more 2022 FFT Fellows next Friday!

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.