Fund for Teachers invites PreK-12 educators to design learning adventures wherever their imaginations can take them, which is the same thing author Mary Pope Osborne does for young readers through her Magic Tree House series. These award-winning books transport main characters Jack and Annie on quests that pursue people and topics they previously only read about.

This summer, librarian Riley Grant (Pelzer, SC) is writing her own learning adventure and is bringing Jack and Annie along.  We caught up with her (and Jack and Annie) as she’s investigating European settings found in the book series to produce springboard book trailers and book talks for project-based learning that helps students identify ways to explore and improve their community…

 

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So, I am half way through with the travel part of my Fund for Teachers Fellowship…it has been nothing short of incredible!!

It truly is all about relationships —

I have spent my adult life building relationships in my personal and professional life and I claim to know some of the best people in the world…honestly!! But, most of my relationships are contained in my small southern state. And, while that is very wonderful, I’m so glad to have this opportunity to build relationships around the world! It is through these relationships that I learn history, geography, cultural similarities and differences and most of all, how to be a good and kind friend.

I am a librarian in a rather rural elementary school but it is close to an up and coming large city. My dream is that by using literature, Project-Based/International Baccalaureate Learning projects, and videos from this fellowship, I can inspire my young students to build meaningful relationships in their small community, our large city, our beautiful state and the world!

To be honest, I’ve also learned a lot about myself. Last fall my principal asked to think of a word for our school year and I chose “execute”… as in “to make things happen.” I had heard about the Fund for Teachers program and decided I wanted to make that fellowship happen. I was nervous and after I pushed the submit button, I did nothing put doubt myself. And, the day the grants were announced, it was late in the afternoon before I received my acceptance email. But getting the fellowship was only the beginning! I overcame my anxiety about going to a country where I did not speak the language, getting lost in a foreign country, meeting total strangers, riding trains between countries and generally “executing” this project. I am truly humbled and proud to be a part of the Fund for Teachers Fellowship program.

Meanwhile I am living my dream of exploring Europe and meeting amazing people from Paris, London, and look forward to building relationships in Edinburgh, Belfast and Dublin.

Thank you, FFT!!

“I love teaching,” said Mary Pope Osborne. “It’s a job that lasts forever. Whatever you teach children today travels with them far into the future.” We agree and can’t wait to see where Riley, Jack and Annie take the students of Fork Shoals Elementary!

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Follow the rest of Riley’s Magical Mystery Tour on Instagram @graceorileysreadingclubhouse.

In addition to building Passats in its Chattanooga plant, Volkswagen builds a workforce through its onsite academy. That’s because job applicants arrive unprepared for technical careers, deficient in STEM skills and critical thinking capabilities. Daniel DeScalzo and Tarah Kemp also prepare a pipeline of qualified employees, they just happen to be doing it at nearby Dupont Elementary School.

“As we reflected on the impact of Volkswagen in our county, we grew curious about the influence of European branches of the company in educational communities abroad,” said Daniel. “We designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship to explore how assembly plants in Barcelona, Brussels, Ingolstadt and Wolfsburg, Germany, partner with schools to create an interdependency that produces gainfully-employed high school graduates.”

With help from Volkswagen’s senior vice president of human resources, the teachers researched real-world skills modeled in European plants and discovered that most of the employees on assembly lines were 17- or 18-year-olds who left work in nice cars and drove to comfortable homes. Technical and vocational training during primary school years positioned these students for careers and often fully-paid graduate degrees with the company.

Exposure to the inner-workings of the automobile plants helped Daniel and Tarah realize that the missing link between their students’ knowledge and future STEM professions was a deficiency in engineering design. In response, Tarah established a network among local business executives to increase students’ exposure to job opportunities close to home. She also pitched an idea to Public Education Foundation’s Teacherpreneur program to obtain funding for a 3-5 year initiative that promotes hands-on, project-based learning through a culinary unit. Daniel applied funds saved from the FFT grant toward the purchase of robotic kits and invited mechanical engineers from a local pump manufacturer to partner with students on prototypes.

“If you ask our students about career goals, they would list being a YouTube personality, sports star, video gamer or fashion designer,” said Daniel. “Through exposure to industry opportunities and engineers, we want students to say, ‘I want to make things, design things, do this for a living.’ We want them to know there’s so much opportunity out there and empower them to make a life for themselves and the world awaiting them.”

(pictured above touring Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg plant, the largest automotive factory in Europe.)