We received this note from Lana Greenawald last week after she returned from her fellowship. Inspired by her work and her words, we’re pleased to share it with you.

To the Fund for Teachers team:

 

I am writing to express my deepest gratitude for the opportunity to study the Spanish language and Mexican culture at the Spanish Language Institute for Teachers in Cuernavaca, Mexico, through a Fund for Teachers grant.

 

During my five-week immersive fellowship, I lived with a host family, attended Spanish classes 30 hours per week, toured local schools and important cultural sites, met local teachers and constantly interacted with people in Spanish.

 

English learners with disabilities are an underserved population in public schools. I am especially honored to have received a Fund for Teachers grant so I may work to change this. My improved Spanish language skills and understanding of Mexican culture will enhance my culturally- and linguistically-responsive assessment and treatment of this unique population.

 

I am also confident that my fellowship experiences will help me to be a more inclusive educator as I have improved my ability to communicate with Spanish-speaking families of students with disabilities. Additionally, the grant allowed me to purchase three speech-language pathology professional textbooks about issues specific to assessing English learners with disabilities and an additional 21 private Spanish lessons to continue my studies following my international fellowship.

 

Thank you again for an unparalleled learning experience that will impact my work with English learners with disabilities throughout my career.

 

Yours sincerely,
Lana Greenawald
Speech-Language Pathologist
Margaret Ross Elementary & Hopewell Elementary – Aliquippa, PA

Lana is a speech-language pathologist for the Hopewell Area School District in Pittsburgh. She has served students with disabilities in the public school for five years and was previously awarded the Vira I. Heinz Scholarship for Women in Global Leadership, which funded a learning opportunity in France.  Before school begins, Lana will speak to the district’s special education department about her experience living in a non-English speaking town in Mexico for five weeks, the power of home language use in instruction, and her experience visiting an inspiring local special education school for people with Down’s syndrome. She plans to serve as a resource for the department and students with communication disorders for years to come.

 

To be (relevant) or not to be (relevant), that is the question high school students ask when it comes to reading Shakespeare. In response, Fund for Teachers Fellows annually set out for Stratford Upon Avon and related sites to prove how a 400-year-old bard has still got game.

Gretchen Philbrick, teacher at Norwich Free Academy in Norwich, CT, crammed as much Shakespeare into three weeks as possible, seeking him out in three countries. She participate in the European Shakespeare Research Association convention in London; attended the Gdansk Shakespeare Festival in Poland; and explored Romeo and Juliet’s Verona.

“Shakespeare lessons ‘test my mettle’ as a teacher,” she said. “I must come up with relevant, properly scaffolded, high interest lessons in which students can discover just how capable they are and walk away as confident Shakespearean scholars.” She uses the Instagram feed named for a Shakespeare quote (@experiencebeajewel) to share videos, incorporates puppetry into readings and analyzes with her students global adaptations of Romeo and Juliet from locations as varied as Bollywood and Iran.

“Shakespeare marks a significant stage in a student’s development. Once students “get” a Shakespeare text, they beam & their sense of accomplishment is evident!” said Gretchen.

Danielle Peck (Grosse Point South High School – Grosse Pointe Farms, MI) participated in the “Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance” program in London to learn new methods of teaching that inspired creativity through performance. Classes at the Globe Theatre informed her own, as she shares strategies for mastering texts through analytical reading and writing.

“Shakespeare now resides on our campus in multiple ways” said Danielle. “My students started a Shakespeare Club and I serve as advisor. This year, we held an in-school monologue contest and also traveled to Cincinnati to participate in the National Shakespeare Monologue Competition.”

Additional student activities include:

• a “Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits” staged reading by students and teachers of the most iconic scenes;
• a new semester-long course on the bard; and,
• an annual performance of Romeo & Juliet on campus in collaboration with a professional theatre company.

“My summer at the Globe was truly life-changing,” said Danielle. “It transformed me as an educator and as a human being and inspired me to keep learning and growing.  Thank you for trusting teachers to develop their own extraordinarily meaningful professional development programs.  In a time when it seems like teachers are given less trust and fewer resources than ever, your philosophy is a hopeful breath of fresh air.”

Engaging middle school students in classic literature and theatrical performance was the motivation behind Lyndsey Jones-McAdams‘ fellowship. In addition to participating in a Greek performance workshop in an authentic amphitheater, she conducted research at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon. This week, her fourth and fifth graders at P.S. 264 in Brooklyn completed a “Classical Remix Theatre Collection” which she created. In collaboration with a professional theatre, students read original texts in an abridged manner and adapt them for the school community (comprised primarily of Middle Eastern immigrants).

“My students adapted A Midsummer Night’s Dream into an immersive theatre piece, where we transformed our school into Ancient Athens and students and families traveled our building to visit and become a part of the world of the fairies, mechanicals, and young lovers!” said Lyndsey. “At the end, they all (audience included) participated in a traditional Greek wedding dance to celebrate the weddings of the young lovers and the Duke and Duchess.

This summer, the following FFT Fellows will seek out Shakespeare on both sides of the pond:

Joan Williams (Knoxville, TN) will investigate political and folkloric history of Macbeth in England and Scotland, particularly differing performance strategies and historical interpretations, to establish thematic context for existing interdisciplinary courses (AP World History/Literature) and incorporate site-based research into a new Shakespearean Performance curriculum.

 

David Williams (Colchester, CT) will attend the Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance course at the Globe Theatre in London to learn practical approaches for engaging students from a variety of backgrounds and academic levels.

 

Julie Davidson and Ann Hasenohrl (Westlake, TX) will participate in Kristin Linklater’s Advanced Course on Shakespeare’s Monologues and Scenes in the Orkney Islands of Scotland to apply innovative and differentiated strategies that bring Shakespeare to life for diverse high school students.

 

Jacqueline Catcher (Exeter, NY) will tour literary sites associated with famous British authors, including William Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, and Horace Walpole; examine the impact of Gothic architecture in the development of characterization and theme in Jane Eyre; and study canonical literature at the Oxbridge Teacher Seminar at the University of Cambridge to create differentiated and engaging learning for academic and AP English students.

 

Ryan Campbell (East Hartford, CT) will walk in the footsteps of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” in England and Scotland to strengthen personal knowledge of British history and topography that, in turn, enhances literary competency and global awareness of International Baccalaureate students.

 

Diana D’Emeraude (Austin, TX) participate in a Shakespeare training program for middle and high school language arts/theatre teachers at the Globe Theatre in London to to create curricular units with authentic lessons for my students to help students develop critical thinking skills to be applied in the classroom and beyond.

 

Alicia Sirios & Cynthia Russell-Williams (East Hartford, CT) will explore social justice as presented through the Scottish Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and the Globe Theatre and Hip Hop Shakespeare Company in London to help students identify parallels between literature and their own lives and develop courage to face challenges presented by societal expectations. And,

 

John Matthiessen (Branford, CT) will participate in Globe Theatre’s “Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance” course in London to learn practical and play-filled approaches to teaching Shakespeare in the classroom and increase student engagement in the reading and performing Shakespeare.

 

“I dreamed of sharpening my teaching skills so all of my students can come to see Shakespeare,” said John, “not only as  a manageable reading experience, but as a doorway into a world where some of our lives’ most fundamental dilemmas take physical form and stride believably toward their inevitable resolution, whether comedic or tragic.” Although Hamlet says, “A dream itself is but a shadow,” John’s dream will be realized this summer on his fellowship. Follow him and all of our Fellows here on our blog.

“For the past two years, my eighth grade English class has used Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning graphic-novel, MAUS, as our primary text to study the Holocaust. My students enjoy the fascinating imagery, the break from traditional textbooks, and Vladek Spiegelman’s captivating experience in Nazi concentration camps. While they enjoy the unit, it can be challenging for students to connect the story with the grave reality of the Holocaust.  This fellowship would allow me to ground the story in reality through the authority of my own experience and by creating short video journals which document the places described in the book.”

So began Nick Dykert’s FFT grant proposal — a desire to combine the Holocaust, YouTube and what The Washington Post deems “the greatest graphic novel ever written” into meaningful, relevant learning for students in his English class at James Monroe Elementary in Chicago. He spent two weeks retracing the steps of Holocaust survivor Vladek Spiegelman (aka MAUS) through Sweden, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany as described in the graphic novel.

“It was amazing to stand in the places that I talk about during my WWII unit. I can speak with greater authority and use the many videos I shot to engage my students,” said Nick. “In our current political atmosphere, it is so important to be able to empathize, slow down, and consider one another’s perspectives. Relating my firsthand experience and showing my videos brings my students one step closer to doing that.”

According to Nick, students are simultaneously loving the “vlog” and poking fun at him. “They think it’s funny to subscribe to their teacher on YouTube.”

WE think Nick’s videos, discussion questions and resources are remarkable. See if you agree.

Watch the first six videos by clicking here.

“Once upon a time there were two teachers in search of a way to make fairy tales come alive for their urban students.” This is how preK and kindergarten teachers Carmen Kaemingk and Kirsten Carlson began their FFT grant application, proposing a journey along the Fairy Tale Trail in Germany, Italy and France. By researching the origins of stories by Perrault (Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella), Collodi (Pinocchio) and the Brothers Grimm, they believed they could encourage students’ imagination as an alternative to technology-driven entertainment.

Turns out, they were right — sort of.

Students now use props their teachers brought back to act out fairy tales in class, expanding their language skills and building vocabularies. This exercise has proven especially fun (and effective) for English Language Learners. Students also write and illustrate their own fairy tales and their parents attended a Fairy Tales 101 night to learn how sharing stories from their own cultures can develop literacy and language skills in their children.

The “sort of” disclaimer is because the innovative teachers are using technology to enhance the fairy tale units. By strapping on Virtual Reality headsets loaded with images taken on the fellowship, students marvel at landscapes in which the familiar stories took place. They also dictate into recording devices their own narratives, learning digital storytelling techniques.

“Our goal was to take fairy tales off the movie screen and activate our students’ imaginations through the magic of reading fairy tales,” said Carmen. “While we’re accomplishing that goal, we’re also teaching them how to tell a story in correct sequence, a necessary reading skill that builds and strengthens students’ comprehension.”

And they are all learning happily ever after.

The end.

Preschool teachers have to be flexible, but Dianna Langdon (Park Early Childhood Center – Ossining, NY) is taking that necessity to a whole new level. She used her FFT grant to obtain certification as a registered children’s yoga teacher and now incorporates the practice daily to unite four-year-olds’ minds, bodies, thoughts and actions while also fulfilling state standards requiring preschoolers’ physical, social and emotional development.

Two weeks of instruction at the Bhodi Tree Yoga Resort in Nosara, Costa Rica, equipped Dianna to weave yoga and mindfulness into classroom instruction in English and Spanish to include the large percentage of students from Latin American countries. She also leads staff development sessions that empower all of the preK teachers and assistants to incorporate breathing and movement exercises that reduce student stress and increase healthy practices.

“My prekindergarten students now enjoy much needed opportunities throughout their learning day for movement, which helps increase their attention and stimulate their cognitive ability,” said Dianna. “Students are also developing mindful habits through the use of new meditative strategies I’ve learned such as mindful minute, guided visualizations, and affirmations.”

Despite their high energy level, the young yogis look forward to the chance to  relax together, according to Dianna. She leads some exercises, then students use their creativity to dream up and share their own poses (pictured). They also share thoughts about feelings, hopes and worries. “We even use yoga breathing strategies to support ourselves at other times during the school day and to modulate our energy during learning,” Dianna said.

Ultimately, she envisions daily yoga sessions developing in her students the principle of ahimsa, or non-harming.

“By teaching my students this principle and encouraging them to think about it in other areas of their lives, we will all go into the world outside our classroom with a focus on kindness toward the other.”

Namaste.

For more stories about teachers pursuing mindfulness strategies with their grants, read about the work of these Houston teachers, as well as the impact of these Fellows who learned under experts at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Massachusetts and a Buddhist monastery in France.

Wisconsin is home to the third largest population of Hmong immigrants in the country, but students at Pittsville Elementary knew little about their peers from Southeast Asia. Kate Van Haren turned to textbooks, but most social studies information focused on European ancestry. Online research surfaced only immigration statistics and an occasional Hmong recipe.

“I realized a key component of the American immigration story was missing from my curriculum,” said Kate. “My students interacted with the Hmong community due to the large number of families relocated here, so I knew it was a group of people I could create interest around. I designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship to create a narrative around push/pull immigration that affirmed the fact that, despite our differences, most immigrants to the United States and their descendants share similarities with us, as well.”

Kate spent one month traversing Southeast Asia, researching Hmong culture and their modern societies in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Along the way, she learned about the custom of story cloths — series of embroidered pictures that document daily lives and legends. She purchased one from a Hmong tribal woman and created curriculum for fourth grade Wisconsin History and fifth grade US History students. After learning about the Hmong culture and welcoming guest speakers from a local Lao community organization, students drew personal story cloths sharing their personal ancestries.

“The stories of Hmong families who settled in the area are both tragic and heroic, yet my students were unaware of the diversity in our small farming community. It has been amazing to watch how this project opened their eyes to the different groups of people living around them,” said Kate. “In the age of data analysis and standards based testing, developing a globally conscious curriculum becomes more difficult. This fellowship inspired me to continue meeting my goal of shaping students with global and cultural awareness.”

This February, Fund for Teachers is celebrating Black History Month by highlighting some of our Fellows’ journeys to bring a better understanding of the African American experience to all students. In this four-part blog series, we’ll be diving into everything from the Transatlantic Slave Trade to student advocacy. Our Fellows explored how black history is impacting student identity in our last blog. This week, we are taking a deeper look at how Fellows Pearl Jonas, Ashley Porter and Kaitlyn Kraushaar are considering the past in light of current events. Read on to learn more about their experiences in the classroom and how they are honoring Black History Month in their schools.

Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” Our Fellows personify Jobs’ belief as they purposefully leverage history to change the future.

Establishing that African Americans HAVE a history is the beginning of Pearl Jonas’ teaching with students at Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy. She begins with the Transatlantic Slave Trade, then dives deeper into oral traditions as sources for understanding cultures and the past. Senegal and the surrounding countries provide the richest historical narratives, so that’s where Pearl conducted research on her Fund for Teachers fellowship. She now leads more engaging discussions that challenge how we think in the present based on how history was taught in the past.

“There are several myths, misconceptions and incomplete histories told about African societies,” said Pearl. “This has roots in some 19^th and early 20^th century European historians’ ideology that Africa has no history to tell.”

Conflict resolution inspired the fellowship of Ashley Porter and Kaitlyn Kraushaar. As teachers at Hixson Middle School, just twenty minutes from the 2014 shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, MO, Ashley and Kaitlyn struggled to give their predominantly white students perspective through this tumultuous time. To find new ways to shape conversations on diversity across their district, the teachers designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship to research how teachers around the world address social justice.

“The current climate in our city remains very racially charged and divided, and healing is needed on both sides of the issue,” said Ashley. “Bringing to light race relations and the struggles of other minorities in a safe and responsive environment is key in helping all of our students make sense of who they are and who they’d like to be.”

Students at Hixson now regularly participate in restorative circles, such as this one led by Principal Grace Lee, to reevaluate how they handle tense or even hurtful situations. Kaitlyn and Ashley also applied FFT funds to purchase a Safety Pin Box, conversation prompts and tasks designed to help students become allies for the black community.

“The Safety Pin Box is a great resource that is helping our school as we strive to eliminate the equity that still oppresses our students of color,” said Principal Lee.  “As a city, we are confronting racial inequities that support unjust systems. Hixson is at that table around those conversations and our kids are passionate about leading the work for change.”

America’s teachers no longer have the luxury of merely teaching one subject; instead, they are on the front lines of students’ academic and moral instruction, as well as their emotional and physical safety. Fund for Teachers is privileged to represent and advocate for our nation’s educators who look beyond current circumstances and resources to shape more informed and empathetic citizens.

We thank Pearl, Ashley and Kaitlyn for sharing their experiences and their students’ learning. Make sure to check our Black History Month feed on our blog here. Next week, our final post in this series will explore how FFT Fellows are addressing the achievement gap with students of color. Stay connected and find out when it’s live by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This February, Fund for Teachers is celebrating Black History Month by highlighting some of our Fellows’ journeys to bring a better understanding of the African American experience to all students. In this four-part blog series, we’ll be diving into everything from the Transatlantic Trade to student advocacy. This week, we are taking a deeper look at how history is taught with our Fellows Pearl Jonas, Kristen Peterson and Melissa and James Petropoulos. Read on to learn more about their experiences in the classroom and how they are honoring Black History Month in their schools.

History shouldn’t be subjective. Facts are facts. Who records and repeats the facts, however, often determines the truth that’s shared. Pearl Jonas, teacher at Science Leadership Academy in Philadlephia, PA, strives to reduce the risk of fragmented history by teaching with artifacts and primary sources. To teach African American history to freshman in an urban setting, she used her Fund for Teachers grant to go to where the African Americans’ history began — the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Africa.

Classwork at The Dakar Institute of African Studies, combined with excursions to historical sites such as Goree Island, once the largest slave-trading center on the African coast, now informs one of five different African history units. The first two units of her African American history class now include primary sources, concepts, and debates that she collected and engaged with while in Senegal. Topics such as the   Negritude literary movement and Islam in Africa, as well as discussion about how oral tradition influences history, also help students reconsider previous misconceptions.

“This kind of framework is not available in textbooks,” said Pearl. “We now spend time breaking down the Transatlantic Slave Trade and learning about why it happened so we can gain a deeper understanding of what drives people and a society to commit crimes against humanity.”

While Pearl chose to design a fellowship focusing on the pre-history of slavery to construct an accurate and mindful curriculum, Melissa and James Petropoulos realized that the curriculum they taught was simply wrong. Textbooks used at Rowayton Elementary School in Norwalk, CT, stated that slaves in Connecticut were “treated as family,” giving students false perceptions of enslaved Africans in New England. James and Melissa designed a tour of sites associated with slavery during America’s Colonial period to give students the real story.

“In that erroneous history book, slavery was trivialized and in many other books there was little focus on the dignity of the enslaved,” said Melissa. “We wanted to make a clear point through this fellowship: humanity trumps slavery.”

The husband/wife team drove from Connecticut to Louisiana, stopping at museums and sites that honor the culture, beliefs, relationships, and memory of enslaved Africans. They now integrate a new story into history lessons, accompanied by artifacts and interviews collected from their fellowship.

“Rather than teaching about slavery from the point of view of slaves being victims, I now demonstrate how they were heroic, resistors and contributors to our shared American history,” said James.

As a white teacher in an urban district, Kristin Peterson, teacher at John A. Johnson Achievement Plus Elementary in Saint Paul, MN, realized that her own lack of knowledge about her students’ heritage hampered their learning and self-esteem. She identified the new National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, DC, as the most reliable resource for learning about the accomplishments and hardships African Americans endured during the past 300 years. On her fellowship, she spent four days roaming six floors of galleries in the Smithsonian Institution’s newest museum, photographing exhibits and filming presentations and interviews with museum staff. She also purchased items for students to experience the museum in multi-sensory ways, such as basket weaving kits, quilts, music, maps and even a cook book.

“While I understand that I can never fully empathize with the experience of African Americans, I feel like I now have a very rich understanding and insight for what people went through and what their lives were like,” said Kristin.

Kristin has since incorporated technology into lessons in order to share her experiential learning.  A “Virtual Field Trip Kit” houses catalogued items that can be checked out to teachers and students, as well. She also placed her research on a district-wide drive for access by every Saint Paul Public Schools teacher. Kristin is a perfect example of the ripple effect one fellowship can have in a learning community. Not only are her immediate classroom students benefitting (as future students will for years to come), but also students throughout the school, her colleagues and even teachers whom she doesn’t know.

These FFT Fellows pursued knowledge in response to learning gaps. In Kristin’s case, her own understanding was enhanced in an effort to encourage students with their history. For the Petropouloses, the state’s incorrect information is what needed to be addressed so their students could learn true history. And Pearl used her grant to seek information that wasn’t available anywhere else. Fund for Teachers is honored to serve as a bridge that takes exemplary educators from where they are to where they want their students to be.

We thank Kristen, Pearl, Melissa and James for sharing their experiences and their students’ learning. Make sure to check our Black History Month feed on our blog here. Next week, we’ll be exploring the topic of identity with more FFT Fellows. Stay connected and find out when it’s live by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

FFT Fellow Chris Smith and 15 of his students recently hosted the first Chicago Immigrant Refugee Resource Fair at Mather High School. The story behind the event, shared below by Chris, demonstrates the true ripple effect of a Fund for Teachers grant. This high school music teacher designed a fellowship to attend the Blas International Summer School of Irish Traditional Music and Dance at the University of Limerick to enrich orchestra curriculum by integrating elements of Irish folk music, ensemble skills, and improvisation. He shares the progression of learning from there below. We are proud of you and your students, Chris!

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“I have continued my study of Irish traditional music since 2013 when I was awarded the FFT fellowship, which was transformative to my teaching in many ways. Not only have I incorporated lessons that I learned in my teaching strategy, but my support from FFT has led to many more opportunities for me and my students

Last summer, I attended the Swannanoa Gathering outside Asheville, NC, to again study under Martin Hayes, a teacher from Blas. I also received a small grant from the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, which I used to host a lecture/performance and workshop by members of the Irish Music School of Chicago.

Additionally, I was inspired at write a grant proposal (which was funded) which allowed for a residency at Mather High School by renowned traditional Irish performer Kathleen Keane. Over the course of two months, Kathleen visited Mather to perform and work with a small group of motivated orchestra students. She taught them a set of traditional jigs which they performed in concert.

Because of my FFT experience, I was also awarded the Teaching for Global Classrooms fellowship by the US State Department. In summer 2016, I traveled to India and, in part, taught music at a school in Vadodara, Gujarat.

Visit this website Chris created to document FFT fellowship in Limerick, as well as another site, including access to his resulting unit and lesson plans, following his TGC fellowship.

Based on my TGC fellowship, I was able to apply to then attend a conference for alumni of government sponsored international travel. As a participant, I was invited to apply for money to create a project on the subject of inclusion. I was awarded a grant from the State Department to organize and implement the Inaugural ChiUnderOneRoof: Chicago Immigrant and Refugee Resource Fair.  My students and I hosted hosted 25 local community organizations who work to support our immigrant and refugee population.

Parenthetically, since my fellowship, my wife has been awarded a fellowship along with one of her coworkers and three teachers at my school. These are just a few of the things that have resulted from the opportunities afforded me by Fund for Teachers.”

Click here to read Chris’ description of how planning the resource fair impacted him and his students.

https://youtu.be/YBqWNcvOd08?t=1s

Margret Atkinson’s language arts students in Zachary, LA, lead a double life. When not studying literature on historic and contemporary Upstanders, they operate an Educational Corporation aimed at engaging communities on the importance of choices that honor others. Initial investments by Donors Choose and Think It Up seeded the creation of their The Upstander Brand, a six-department, student-run business that produces bookmarks, stickers and wristbands advocating for empathy in action. To date, students have raised $1,000, splitting revenue between capital costs and donations to St. Jude’s Children Research Medical Hospital and the American Cancer Society.

“Students are learning skills essential for success in the 2020 workplace, as articulated by the World Economic Forum,” said Margret, who researched World War II Upstanders across Europe on two Fund for Teachers fellowships. “They’re learning cognitive flexibility, critical thinking and emotional intelligence while cultivating their own autonomy and moral paradigms.”

See students interviewed about their Upstander Brand by the CBS affiliate in Baton Rouge, LA.

Seventh and eighth graders founded the nonprofit in 2016 after deeply resonating with Margret’s fellowship research rooted in the Holocaust.  Students now self-select one of six departments at the beginning of the school year to create products, forge collaborative community relationships, and produce podcasts, newsletters and blog posts about their mission to create global good.

Meet The Upstander Brand’s leadership team on the video above, produced by the PR/Marketing team and visit Margret’s website to learn more about her fellowships and their role in catalyzing student impact.

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…

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One could say that Harriet Tubman founded the Black Lives Matter movement. After escaping from a Maryland plantation in 1849, she helped establish the Underground Railroad and became its most renowned “conductor.” Almost 170 years later, Houston students take their own Tubman-inspired trek during school-wide “Freedom Nights.”

Students from Quail Valley Elementary and Burton Elementary spend several months each year researching abolitionists and Civil Rights activists in preparation for a community evening during Black History Month. Civic leaders, educators and parents then recreate an Underground Railroad through a network of “stations” with activities and presentations: The music teacher leads freedom songs and spirituals; an Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority member discusses freedom quilts; and a local storyteller shares slaves’ oral histories. Students’ journey ends at a “Freedom Wall” on which they write what freedom means to them.

“Even students who weren’t African America became interested in their ancestry, which led to a larger study of birth places, culture and a realization that their heritage, Black or not, matters,” said Tawanna Cherri, an FFT Fellow. “A desire to share in someone’s story is not innate, but has to be sparked from within. Our Freedom Nights are the spark we need to explore and embrace each other’s cultures.”

To date, more than 1,000 students have participated in Freedom Nights, the vision of four Fund for Teachers Fellows who used their grant to research the Underground Railroad’s final station, known as “Midnight” (Detroit) to “Dawn” (Canada). Tawanna, Brooke Wilson, Destiny Parker and Kelly Caldwell designed this fellowship after realizing their students’ disconnect from their connection to this history.

To learn more about this team’s fellowship, click here.

We all remember a teacher who touched our lives. No matter how old you were or what they taught, I guarantee that our favorite teachers shared common traits…

• They believed in us.

• They believed we could be better and do more.

• They challenged us.

• They brought passion, purpose and joy to learning.

• They connected us to a bigger world beyond the classroom and put us on a new path for learning.

Every single one of our Fund for Teachers Fellows is like your favorite teacher. Every day they are changing the lives of their students. These teachers don’t sit back; they make change happen. They dream up ways to make learning more connected, more real, and more fun. They dissolve the walls of their classrooms and bring student learning into the community. In an FFT classroom, learning is necessary and urgent. It has purpose.

We see over and over that the learning sparked by an FFT fellowship ripples far beyond one classroom. Through FFT, you are helping to change the learning path of hundreds if not thousands of tomorrow’s problem-solvers and global citizens – the stewards of our future.  As I write, thousands of 2018 grant applicants are committing to paper the dreams they have for their students. In April, a new class of preK-12 teachers will join the 7,500+ FFT Fellows who dare to do more for their students.

We are the only organization in the country that invites teachers in any school, no matter the content or grade level, to think big, be creative and bring joy, challenge and passion to learning. Their aspirations and accomplishments seems a fitting symbol of the hope, light and humanity that fills this season of the year.

Your investment makes all of this possible. Thank you for playing your part. The Fund for Teachers board and staff join me in wishing you a Happy New Year.

Ever forward,

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!

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.

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.

 

Bonus Question – What are you reading?

Sidney: I read a lot of good books this year, but one that stuck with me was Michael Eric Dyson’s Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America. Next on my list is Ayiti, by Roxane Gay.

 

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.

Thank you, Amie Robinson, art and special education teacher at PS77 in Brooklyn, NY, for sharing your fellowship story with us. Last summer, Amie researched the impact of sketchbooks as communication tools among displaced youth and non-native language learners at a refugee camp in Greece. She’s now incorporating this experience into an alternate assessment social studies curriculum focused on developing global empathy and citizenship by having special education students connect with the students she left behind in Samos. Here’s how…

Upon returning home from Greece many people have asked me, ”How was your fellowship?” It is a simple question, but one that has been extremely difficult for me to answer.

During previous travels to Greece, I witnessed vast numbers of refugees newly arrived on the islands, and was profoundly moved by the sight of children covered in Mylar blankets and clinging to their families, confronted by unfamiliar surroundings and languages. I started following stories in the news about the refugee crisis more closely. As a teacher I was particularly struck by the lack of education for thousands of children stranded in Greece long-term. I knew I had to get involved, so this summer I went to the island of Samos and volunteered at a refugee camp, with the incredible support of Fund For Teachers.

My project introduced sketchbooks as a communication tool among displaced and non-native language children in Greece, and now incorporates that experience into an alternate assessment social studies curriculum focused on developing global empathy and citizenship for my students in New York City. Cliché as it may sound, I believe that art really can help change the world in its power to illuminate and inform.

Communication can be difficult for my students with autism, and for those identified as English Language Learners (ELL), it presents an even greater challenge. Obstacles in communication can lead to frustration, anxiety, and behavioral problems that disrupt learning. Art builds self-confidence by giving students a voice. Over the past two years, I have seen the power that creative expression has while inspiring and transforming my students’ learning. The portable nature of the sketchbook allows them to express themselves outside of school. I wondered if sketchbooks would provide displaced children in Greece a similar non-linguistic space to tell stories, make connections, and build expressive language skills.

I arrived on the island of Samos on July 15, and spent the first day exploring the town of Vathy, walking through the steep and narrow streets and watching the sunset over the port. The next morning, I had an introductory meeting to begin working with Samos Volunteers, a grassroots organization responding to the needs of the growing refugee population on the island. After being registered with Greek police and I was walked into the camp with the other new volunteers from New York, Sweden, Germany, and Poland. The tour of the camp was heartbreaking. The conditions that the refugees live in are entirely inhumane. New arrivals can be soaking wet from their journey and are often made to sleep outside on concrete before they are processed by the police. We were shown the overcrowded levels of the camp, many without running water or toilets. During our tour, a woman fainted from the heat, while another pleaded hopelessly with the police until she collapsed in anguish. The physical and psychological conditions can take their toll on individuals living in the camp, and while there are international aid organizations on the island, they are not equipped or appropriately staffed to handle the increasing numbers of refugees.

That night I sat down and cried. I reflected on everything I had seen that day and questioned whether or not I was strong enough to contribute. I reminded myself that one of the reasons I applied to Fund For Teachers was to step outside of my comfort zone and usual routine, and on my first day volunteering with Samos Volunteers I was encouraged by the incredible strength of the people with whom I worked. Their warmth and determination in the face of unspeakable suffering was inspiring. Furthermore, being part of a devoted volunteer team deepened my understanding of true collaboration. Every role—teaching English and art, coordinating creative activities for women outside of the camp’s stifling conditions, swimming, jumping rope, cleaning, serving tea, sorting clothes, or playing backgammon—was equally important to creating a safe and engaging community. As the weeks flew by, I learned from others skills that I thought I had, such as humility and patience, as well as some new ones, like learning the Arabic words for colors.

While on Samos, I spent most of my long days working at a shelter for vulnerable families. In the morning, I volunteered teaching English to adults from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Following the these sessions, I would work with their children (ages 3-16) to connect an art activity to their days’ lessons. I was so excited to present them with their sketchbooks and even more excited when they returned to school the next morning and shared pages filled with beautiful drawings. One of my favorite moments from my fellowship was the peek-a-boo like game the kids created to show me what they had drawn in their sketchbooks each night. They would open and close the cover quickly, revealing only a small part of each drawing at a time, until eventually they displayed the entire page, erupting into laughter. As I look back at these photos of their sketches, I am reminded of something a young woman from Syria told me, “just remember, although they are refugees, they are still first children.” The drawings—of ice cream, birthday parties, cats, fashion designs, rainbows, hearts and flowers—tell stories of childhood, familiar to us all.

In the evenings, during recreational activities, we extended our art projects to include collage, crafts, and painting. The children were all so curious and talented, and I was constantly fascinated by watching them explore new materials and make creative decisions. I was really excited when the education director from Samos Volunteers asked me to have them collaborate to create a large canvas painting that would be auctioned to raise money to provide supplies and programs to the refugee camp. We started by looking through their sketchbooks to find images. For one beautiful and moving painting they chose eyes, mermaids, and fairies dancing together in an ocean of tears.  In the second, we used drawings that they had made of robots and how they imagined the future. They then worked together to plan compositions, transfer their designs, and paint the canvases. It was thrilling to watch their drawings come to life, and to see each of their personalities expressed in the painting. We had so much fun each evening working together, especially my youngest artist, who decided to paint her hair blue!

I am so excited to share the many drawings, paintings, and photographs created by my students in Samos and introduce them to my students in Brooklyn through the stories they tell. My colleague and I are collaborating to develop an Art and Social Studies program at our school that focuses on global citizenship.  We are working on lessons that translate the experiences of young refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Burundi, and Congo to place a human scale on a global crisis. We want our students to develop critical thinking skills to connect to their world in a broader sense, and in our first session we introduced the crisis to students using the questioning technique to develop their research question, “What is a refugee?” We were surprised to discover that most of our students had no prior knowledge of the topic, but impressed by how quickly they engaged with the serious issues at hand.

Over the course of the unit, we hope that our students will recognize that they can make positive change.  In fact, with only one co-teaching session into our project in Brooklyn, they are already asking, “How can we help?” As a culminating learning activity students will will learn techniques in bookmaking and create sketchbooks for children at the Samos refugee camp. They will also organize a fundraiser to raise money for organizations helping refugees, including International Rescue Committee, Samos Volunteers, and MSF (Doctors Without Borders).

Being a Fund for Teachers fellow has expanded my classroom beyond borders, and I can’t wait to deliver handmade sketchbooks to my “habibis” and “habibtis” when I return to Samos as a volunteer again this July.

I teach Japanese as a foreign language to elementary and middle school students, many of whom come from immigrant families. Some families are from Central and South America, some from the Caribbean Islands, and others from Southeast Asia. I share this heritage. I grew up in Japan. My mother is sansei (third-generation Japanese American) from Hawaii; her father, a nisei (second-generation Japanese American), was one of many Japanese Americans on the island who enlisted after Pearl Harbor. He wanted to prove his loyalty to the country that had become very suspicious of his people, so he fought with other nisei from Hawaii in the 100th Infantry Battalion, which became one of the most decorated in military history.

Growing up, I heard my grandfather tell stories of fighting in Europe in World War II. Not until much did I learn of another battle fought by Japanese Americans on the mainland. It was not a battle of bombs and bullets, but a battle of patience and perseverance. Like my grandfather, who demostrated his patriotism by enlisting, many Japanese Americans proved their loyalty by enduring relocation to internment camps.

To fully understand and better teach this period of American history, I designed my Fund for Teachers fellowship to explore the Japanese American experience during World War II and – more specifically – the US government’s handling of these citizens.

I drove 3,500 miles through 8 Western States over 11 days to research 10 monuments and former internment sites. I also stopped at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles (where I took a selfie with  George Takai). An unplanned experience was attending the Annual Pilgrimage at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, where we honored those who who advocated, resisted and fought for Japanese Americans. It was this stop where I met former Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta and Senator Alan Simpson.

Throughout my fellowship, I focused on two topics:
• What Japanese Americans endured throughout relocation, and,
• How relocation of the Japanese Americans is remembered today.

During the fellowship, I filmed interviews with former internees about their experiences, which I’m using as resources with students and colleagues. I am also designing two curricular units that teach about the Japanese American internment experience: one for Japanese language teachers that incorporates phrases and dialogues used in camps; and one for English Arts and Social Studies teachers who want to teach about the topic. Upon completion, I will offer workshops throughout Boston Public Schools and through local non-profit teacher training organizations.

In my classes, I’m using the knowledge and connections I gained through my fellowship to teach about the forced internment of Japanese Americans during the war. Previously, I’ve taught Japanese customs, traditions, history and culture, but I’d never considered teaching the Japanese American immigrant story. I now incorporate into my language lessons words and phrases, such as gaman (perserverance) and shikata ga nai (can’t be helped), that were often used by the Japanese Americans to describe their confinement. I’ve come to understand that by teaching my culture’s extraordinary circumstances, I can deepen connections with students whose lives reflect similar themes, old and new.

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This year is the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camp in Auschwitz, Poland. It has also been 70 years since Japanese Americans in the mainland were allowed to leave the internment camps and return to the West Coast. On January 2nd, 1945, restrictions preventing resettlement in the 100 mile Exclusion Zone along the West Coast was removed. I believe a strong democracy lies in not forgetting the past, especially not the mistakes. My fellowship researching the plight of tens of thousands Japanese Americans was humbling and allowed me to gain a more complete perspective of the American immigrant experience. I am using this perspective to better understand (and teach) my students from immigrant families themselves.

Timothy Nagaoka teaches Japanese in six schools around the greater Boston area and has dedicated his career to creating opportunities for students and colleagues to connect with Japan. In recognition of his work, Timothy has received the John E. Thayer Award from the Japan Society of Boston, and the Henry L. Shattuck Public Service Award from the Boston Municipal
Research Bureau.

Bill Gates just released his suggestions for holiday reading, and FFT Fellow Thi Bui made the list!

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.