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.”
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.
Re-Routing Education
First responders in Hurricanes Harvey and Irma had no idea they were following the direction of high school students. Working feverishly behind their computers, Leah Keith Houle’s students in Red Bank, TN, created Humanitarian Outreach Team (or “HOT”) maps used by relief organizations attempting to identify safe routes to deliver supplies or evacuate people.
“When all the hurricanes started hitting this year, people came together across the globe to map our devastated cities and islands,” said student Aviana Harris. “By creating HOT maps, we knew we were saving lives. And I was a part of that!”
These high school students learned how to apply open data sharing for humanitarian efforts based on Leah’s fellowship spent mapping three Caribbean Islands for hurricane preparedness. Her geology students now consider surface shape and topography of areas; ecology and biology students look at water and land interfaces; and scientific research students apply the data to modify maps for first responders. Their 1,000+ hours of mapping directly impact relief efforts ranging from earthquakes in Nepal to hurricanes in the Caribbean to escape routes for Syrian refugees. They’ve even supplied NASA’s Planetary Society with mapping of the Archimedes Crater. The global impact of these students caught the attention of Tennessee education administrators, who asked Leah to create a GIS and mapping technology curriculum that was adopted statewide.
Click here to read how students supported Hurricane Harvey relief efforts and here for the school principal’s review of their work.
Hero, Victim or Traitor? Students Decide
The facts represent La Malinche (or Doña Marina) as a slave, advisor, mistress and emissary. Whether those roles positioned her as a hero, victim or traitor is up for debate — which is what the students of Glen Meinschein and Alejandro Avalos did this semester. Following a fellowship investigating one of the most controversial figures in Mexican history, Glen and Alejandro led their middle schoolers through an exploration of colonialism, feminism and indigenous history to reach a broad range of learners at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies. They share the verdict below…
Today, 42 women will be sworn into Congress, the most in US history. Susan B. Anthony and her British counterpart, Emmeline Pankhurst, would be proud of these activists, and also students of Eric Reid-St. John’s at Spain Park High School in Hoover, AL.
With his Fund for Teachers grant, Eric researched Anthony, Pankhurst and the suffrage movement they incited. While in London, he found in Trafalgar Square the location of the 1908 rally for which Mrs. Pankhurst was arrested (pictured). He also studied with three avant-garde theatres, laying the groundwork for his students’ creation of a play about Lady Constance Lytton, an English aristocrat who disguised herself as a working woman to support suffragettes. “Through research, I found that I could relate a lot to Constance,” said Rachel Ponder, who played the lead. “However, most of all, I was so in awe of her dedication towards the suffrage movement. Being a part of this creative process has inspired me both as a woman and as a human being.”
Ponder and 23 students representing each grade spent three months researching the suffrage movement in the United States and Britain before collaborating on a script and set. Each performer created a character journal comprised of photos, newspaper articles and other primary resources they uncovered. An Oxford professor who authored a book on Lytton Skyped into class to inform students’ research, as well.
“Current events were on my mind when I began this process and they continue to bring about a sense of urgency surrounding women’s rights,” said Eric. “My students took the history of this topic and explored its correlation with today’s headlines. They created a story that allowed people to see that the expansion of equal rights is the natural progression of a free society.”
Reviews are in, and at a state theatre competition, Ponder won Best Actress, her cast mates won Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Ensemble and Deeds Not Words was named Best in Show.
Conducting Dialogues
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.
Our Executive Director’s 2017 Reflection
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,
A Year of Learning, One Fellowship at a Time
It’s the New Year’s Eve song most of us mumble through, but the English translation of “Auld lang syne” is “times gone by.” Looking back over the year in fellowships, our grant recipients spent their time actively pursuing what they determined will best impact student achievement. Specifically,
546 prek-12 school teachers
completed fellowships on 6 continents
in 88 countries
now leveraging $2.1 million in Fund for Teachers grants
into amplified learning in 321 public private and charter schools across America
with approximately 11,000 students.
Fund for Teachers is proud of the way our Fellows transform learning communities after dreaming big and clicking “Submit” on the FFT application. Enjoy this homage to our dedicated 2017 Fellows and to all we wish a new year of interests and impact!
Teachers of the Year Share End of Year Thoughts
Three exceptional FFT Fellows made time amidst grading tests and hosting classroom parties to share with us their year in review.
Sydney Chaffee spent 2017 on sabbatical from Boston’s Codman Academy Charter Public School to represent the Council of Chief State School Officers as the National Teacher of the Year. In 2011, she used her Fund for Teachers grant to witness post apartheid-era restorative justice efforts in South Africa to inform her school’s Fairness Committee and justice-centered curriculum. Watch her interviews on ABC News and CBS This Morning.
This year, the state of Oklahoma recognized Donna Gradel as its Teacher of the Year. Donna teaches high school environmental science in Broken Arrow, OK, and is a two-time FFT Fellow. Watch her talk about her students’ work that garnered the attention of MIT and took them to Kenya to build an aquaponics system for an orphanage.
Ashli Dreher, a 2016 FFT Fellow, was one of five inductees into the National Teachers Hall of Fame this year. With her grant, Ashli attended the International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs in Linz, Austria, to investigate assistive technology solutions implemented with differently-abled students in school, community and transitional work experiences, to learn strategies for integrating these devices locally.
Goals Accomplished
Sydney: One goal I accomplished this year was being brave enough to take a stand by speaking and writing publicly on issues that matter to me–like the role of social justice in education or the importance of white teachers talking about race–even when I knew some people would strongly disagree with me.
Donna: One of my goals for the year came to fruition in the form of a new class I was able to design and teach at our high school. The name of the class is Innovative Research. Student groups research an area of interest and try to help solve a local, national or international problem. Some of the projects include mentoring and buddy reading programs utilizing high school bilingual students paired with elementary English Language Learners to increase proficiency scores, designing a motor room for autistic students to increase student engagement, sustainable chicken farming and feed for developing countries, bio-decomposition of Styrofoam, and sustainable non-conventional energy sources.
Ashli: What a busy year! I completed the work in a second certificate area of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in the Exceptional Needs Specialist area, and I also successfully defended my dissertation proposal. Inside the Classroom, a television show I produce and host weekly, was selected for national Hometown Media Awards in 2017 for excellence in public broadcasting and has expanded to an audience of 12.5 million on local cable. Episodes focus on individual teachers, their teaching careers, and the creative ways in which they engage their students in the classroom.
A student joins Ashli on the set of her program Inside the Classroom
2018 Goals
Sydney: Next year, I hope to increase my students’ engagement with people beyond our school, both within the local community and globally.
Sydney (right) was the keynote speaker at the University of Central Oklahoma’s annual Honoring a Noble Profession event, where Donna Gradel caught up with her for a photo.
Donna: A personal goal I have accomplished was to give more of my time to volunteer to help those with special needs. In the classroom, I hope my students will be engaged in successful learning and the research projects they have undertaken. We have also begun a collaboration between the city of Broken Arrow and our school district to help test, monitor and improve water quality in all the Broken Arrow streams and ponds throughout our city and parks. I hope to see my students working with city engineers, architects and storm water specialists to help improve our local environment.
Ashli: Next year I want to continue to develop innovative, student-centered thematic units that expand the world view of our students. As a FFT fellow, I had the opportunity to visit the Manor School in London, and I am working on preparing grants to implement the flexible seating arrangements we experienced while visiting their classrooms. After observing students with autism using flexible seating at the Manor School, I think my students with special needs would benefit from having flexible seating arrangements.
Donna: For enjoyment, Dust Bowl Girls about the history of women’s basketball in Oklahoma was my favorite. In Order to Live, the journey of North Korean Yeonmi Park is on my list for next month.
Fund for Teachers wishes all of our grant recipients and those whom they impact a happy holiday and year full of learning adventures.
Refugee Children & Brooklyn Students Find Commonalities Through Art
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.
Pearl Harbor Day Re-Remembered
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.
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.
Living La Vida del Profesor
by, Emily Parkinson | Edison Elementary – Morton Grove, IL
For as long as I’ve wanted to be a teacher, I’ve also wanted to teach abroad, immersed in a culture different from my own. During a particularly stressful experience this past year, it occurred to me that spending my summers abroad could be a perfect way to satisfy that international craving. I want to tell you a little bit about my fellowship living, learning and teaching in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and the biggest takeaways that I will bring to my practice here in the US.
Around November of last year when I considered applying for a Fund for Teachers grant, I started searching for summer opportunities abroad, specifically in Latin America because a large percentage of my students are Latino and Spanish-speaking. My main goal was to become fluent in Spanish so I could comfortably speak with a parent or translate an individualized education plan (IEP). A Google search led me to a company called Common Ground International, a husband-wife team based in Colorado who lead Spanish immersion trips for teachers, medical professionals and high school students. The ‘Spanish for Educators’ program was perfect for me: living for four weeks in Nicaragua and Costa Rica – working with local education-related organizations and schools, taking intensive Spanish classes with a focus on education, and living with host families in both countries. I knew this program would push me out of my comfort zone and help me not only become more proficient in Spanish, but also become a more culturally-competent educator.
Nicaragua
My fellowship began in the city of Granada, Nicaragua, a colonial city situated on the coast of Lake Nicaragua. Granada charmed me in every way imaginable, with its pastel colored buildings, bustling Parque Central, and breathtaking horizon filled with volcanoes and church steeples. What I loved most about Granada, however, was the people, including my hospitable host family comprised of three generations.
As for the work I did in Nicaragua, our days were split in half between educational outreach in the mornings and Spanish language classes in the afternoons. During the first week, we worked with an organization called House of Hope, a refuge and safe place for women who have escaped or are still experiencing forced prostitution. House of Hope works with some of the strongest women I will ever encounter in my life, who value their children more than anything but aren’t always comfortable parenting their children due to poor role models. Personally, the idea of being a white American going into another culture and trying to be a savior is something I have a lot of issues with. Who am I to tell these women how to parent, when I don’t even have children of my own? While that is a complicated issue, our program made a point to ask women what kind of support they needed so we could plan workshops that would actually benefit them. We ended up delivering workshops to the mothers about how to involve their children with age-appropriate chores. The women (pictured in a workshop below) were engaged, patient with our sub-par language skills and genuinely grateful for the useful information and resources.
During our second week, we worked with a local school on the outskirts of Granada that serves marginalized neighborhoods or ‘shantytowns.’ For families in these neighborhoods, money is scarce and education is often seen as a way out for their children. The students at the school are excited to learn and see a bright future for themselves. Since students were on break when we were there, we again put on workshops for parents. This time, the theme was more general: how to support your child’s education at home. My partner (Fund for Teachers Fellow Amy Holt from
Franklin H. Mayberry Elementary School in East Hartford, CT) and I focused on math development, and simple ways that parents can reinforce math concepts at home as part of their daily routines like cooking or walking to school. Again, the parents were eager to hear what we had to offer and willing to share their own input on how they talk to their children about math at home.
When not volunteering in the community, I took Spanish classes for four hours each day, focusing on education-specific usage of the language such as how to talk to parents about their child’s progress or how to address student behavior in the classroom. I even learned technical, IEP-related terminology and, by the end of the program, was able to translate an IEP! Goal accomplished!
Overall, Nicaragua left a huge impression on me. Observing people so dedicated to improving the lives of others through education was incredibly inspiring. Parents’ commitment to their children’s education, despite difficult circumstances, was unwavering. The two weeks I spent in Nicaragua went by way too fast, and before I knew it I was hopping on a bus for a nine hour journey to Costa Rica.
Costa Rica
Costa Rica was drastically different from Nicaragua. I think the most emotionally challenging day for me was the day of transition between the two countries. The beautiful landscape I saw out the window was just as enchanting as Nicaragua, but as we entered the cities of San Jose and Heredia, I was struck by the economic differences. From the abundance of American fast food chains to the (relative) lack of stray dogs, to the style of dress, Costa Rica was in a very different situation economically. Overall, the drastic differences in the standard of living between two nations was shocking and tough to process.
The work I did in the community in Costa Rica was different, as well. Instead of working with parents, we spent most of our time working with students, which I was so deeply missing! Getting to interact with kids again, although challenging in my second language, brought me so much joy and energy. I was living in a small city in Heredia called Santo Domingo, a town where people say “hello” on the sidewalk and everyone seems to know each other. We spent our first week putting on an educational day camp for kids in Santo Domingo who were still on break from school. My colleagues and I set up separate learning stations and I decided to teach the kids some of my favorite math games from my own classroom. Their eyes lit up when they found out that they could actually practice math through games (pictured below). I asked if they ever played games in school and they laughed and shook their heads no. One student even got excited about a multiplication chart, something she had never seen before, exclaiming, “Ay, que chiva!!” (“Oh, how cool!”) We played dice and card games, practiced our multiplication facts, listened to the Moana soundtrack in Spanish, and laughed as the kids taught me some new vocabulary. Parting with these kids on the last day proved difficult. (One first grade boy even told us, “These were the best days of my life!”) Luckily, we would be seeing some of them the following week at their school.
Students in Santo Domingo were back in school the following week (my last week in Costa Rica) and we got the opportunity to work in a local public school. I got to assist the ‘Apoyo de Aprendizaje’ teacher (learning support) in her classroom where she worked with students with learning disabilities in small groups. This teacher was absolutely amazing. Everything was made into a game (unlike what students had told me the week before!) and students were so engaged and excited to learn. Overall, this school’s approach to Special Education seemed very effective. I observed a lot of collaboration between the special education teachers and general education teachers, and the school created an inclusive atmosphere, even though students who needed individual attention were serviced in a separate room when necessary.
Biggest Takeaways: Why Will This Matter in My Classroom?
The most important thing for me in this whole experience was developing skills to better equip me to serve my students. Here are a few major takeaways that I believe will make me a better, more culturally-responsive educator:
Knowing how it feels to be an outsider: As a white person in America, my privilege protects me from the emotionally-taxing weight of being an outsider. My students, however, coming largely from minority backgrounds, feel this way every. single. day. It was important for me to have the opportunity to be a cultural outsider, feeling totally insecure in my use of the language and clueless about certain cultural norms. Learning a second language is incredibly difficult, and so many of our students in the US have to do it while we expect them to do so many other things. We expect our immigrant students to adjust seamlessly to the norms of our culture AND keep up with the same expectations as their peers. While I don’t believe in lowering expectations, it is important to be mindful of the emotional toll associated with adjusting to a new language and culture. I now know some of that myself and I will definitely be more sensitive to my students’ needs this year.
Learning that you can’t judge based on one snapshot: This truth something consistently challenged me, both Nicaragua and Costa Rica. I can’t count the number of times that something I had heard about education or culture in one of these countries was debunked. For example, I was told by numerous people (Nicaraguan and North American) that the standard of education is so low in Nicaragua, it’s unlikely to see high quality learning taking place. However, my Spanish teacher in Nicaragua was one of the most highly-skilled educators I‘ve met. Costa Rican adults and children told me how most of their learning is dry, repetitive and focused on rote memorization; yet, I worked alongside a Special Education teacher who made learning a game. I could go on and on about the misconceptions that I encountered, but all in all, I was reminded how important it is to take individual experiences as what they are: individual experiences, rather than a general notion about an entire culture.
The importance of building community: What struck, especially at the local school in Costa Rica, was the family-like support of the community. For example, at recess students ran into the hallways and onto the field for free play without recess monitors! I didn’t see any student excluded, any fights or major issues. Why is it that in my Chicago school with hired recess monitors, we had to cancel recess because of too many unsafe issues? It really got me thinking about cultural differences and our approach to community building and social emotional learning. I sensed the familial love and respect in a classroom the second I walked in, and this is something I will work hard to build in my own classroom this year
Overall, I could not have imagined a more effective and energizing experience abroad, doing what I love most – teaching! My language skills improved drastically in only a few weeks. Most importantly, I met people with whom I will always remain connected, even though we may be many countries away. I am so grateful to Fund for Teachers for allowing me to have this opportunity and I cannot wait to start this school year off better than ever before!
Emily is a Special Education teacher in the Chicago area, educating students in a school with a high concentration of Spanish-speaking students. She is passionate about social-emotional learning and
mindfulness in the classroom. Emily is pictured at the top of this post (on the left) with Amy Holt; you can read Amy’s perspective on this same fellowship here.
Quantifying Air Quality
In support of the recent International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, we share the learning of Jodie Harnden (Sunridge Middle School – Pendleton, OR) who joined an atmospheric aerosol research project with scientists at NASA Langley to develop a similar student project modeling how authentic science is conducted to collect and analyze data useful to the community.
In emergency medical practices the airway, or being able to breathe, is the first priority, making air pollution a major threat to those who breathe…which is everyone! In my seventh grade science classes we study the structure of the atmosphere and air pollution problems and students learn about different pollutants and how they affect our location. While students do develop an understanding of air quality conditions, they do not have the opportunity to collect their own data and analyze that data in order to answer questions, as scientists would do.
And neither did I – until my Fund for Teachers grant.
One of the challenges of being a science teacher is that I had never been an actual scientist. While I have spent my career learning to be the best teacher I can be, I lacked in experience that relates to the actual processes of scientific research and data analysis. For me to lead students to think and work as scientists, I needed the experience myself. The two-week fellowship collecting air quality data with NASA Langley provided an intensive and exciting opportunity to interact and work alongside actual scientists, followed by developing related classroom applications for students.
I had the opportunity to participate in the data campaign as a volunteer intern under the direction of NASA scientist Dr. Margaret Pippin. My air quality data research took me to sites around Hampton, VA, monitoring aerosols, or tiny solids that are considered pollutants. I became proficient in using the Calitoo, a device that measures aerosol optical thickness, and indicator of particulate matter. I learned what the impact of clouds can be on the accuracy of measurements and established my GLOBE account for submitting my own data.
Previously I had only demonstrated the Calitoo with borrowed units. Now I will be having students collect and submit data on a regular basis to the GLOBE Project. Collecting data for a long-term project is a change from just occasional measurements. Students will now be the scientists,
collecting and submitting the data for use, and have access to the data for future use, as well.
The greatest accomplishment of my fellowship was developing a true understanding of the different stages of scientific research. Data campaigns have a planning and funding period, then, if approved, all participants coordinate for the campaign period (in this case, two weeks), then hope for good weather. Collection days can be very long! After rest and recovery, analysis of the data begins and will be the focus for the next year, prompting future research.
School has started and smoke from regional wildfires has created a difficult situation for many. Outdoor activities have been cancelled as we come to grips with the loss of beautiful forests. We can’t even make aerosol measurements because the smoke blocks the sun. Students are getting an early introduction to the air quality unit. We have begun to enter data into GLOBE, but the smoke prevents the collection of quality data (a good lesson for students!). Normally our rough time is January and February when cold, high pressure settles in to create an inversion, trapping the smoke from wood stoves; however, this year may mark different conclusions. I have taken note of an unusual ozone
concentration near one city west of the Cascade Mountains, a problem we don’t have, but can study from afar.
While there are numerous environmental issues that are worth studying, air quality continues to be a challenge in our area. While the causes may sometimes be out of our control (such as weather and wild fires) awareness and understanding is not. Mitigation of contributing factors that are human-caused are something we will continue to study, learn, and take appropriate action when possible. This August we have experienced a severe air quality issue, something to study further in the fall.
Along with my personal experiences at NASA Langley, I was able to witness the inclusion of student interns in the research process. I came away more convinced that ever that science is a process and something to be understood, not just a set of facts to be learned. The future of science depends on doing science, and I must give my students opportunities to contribute to the field of science. School, in many ways, is an artificial microcosm of life and I will be able to expose students to so much more now that I was exposed to more myself.
A National Board Certified teacher, Jodie is in her 33rd year of teaching science at the middle
level, most of it in Pendleton, Oregon. She thrives on the opportunity to learn, bringing experiences back to the classroom and sharing with others professionally. While it won’t be a problem until retirement, rock collecting is a favorite activity.
Turning Students into Montessorians
Honoring Maria Montessori’s Birthday by Carrying on Her Vision
Happy (belated) birthday to Maria Montessori, born on August 31,1870, and founder of the eponymous learning style characterized by independence and freedom within limits. Two teams of teachers used liberty afforded by Fund for Teachers to design fellowships that further enhanced early childhood education informed by Montessori.
A team from Alighieri Montessori School in East Boston attended the International Montessori Congress in Prague, focusing on Montessori techniques as a path to social change and a higher-quality education that cultivates life-long learners and responsible citizens. Achala Godino, Lisa Schad and Maureen Magee-Quinn networked with more than one thousand “Montessorians” who embraced their founder’s message: “It is the role of education to create peace in this world.”
“Maria firmly believed that children did not need to be taught ‘peacefulness’ – rather, it was the role of education and educators to help remove the obstacles that stand in the way from children revealing their true nature, which is peace, joy, and kind regard toward others,” said Achala. “It was jolting to reflect on her socio-political writing of the early 20th
century. She was looking upon a world embroiled in two World Wars and looking upon the child as the answer to the militarism, xenophobia and authoritarianism of the day. Sadly, her writings on the topic are as relevant to the 21st century as they were 100 years ago.”
A three person team, also from East Boston, crafted a slightly different fellowship, but one that also increased competency in the Montessori system. Deborah Arlauskas (Tynana Elementary), John Arlauskas (Murphy K-8) and Margaret Arlauskas (Alighieri Montessori) studied in the Netherlands Dutch culture’s intersection with Montessori and early childhood learning to better teach/reach their English Language Learners and their families.
After a guided visit of Amsterdam’s Association Montessori Internationale (where Maria’s study was preserved as a museum), John, Deborah and Margaret spent the next five days volunteering and observing at the 2 Voices Montessori School. The fellowship concluded with second school visit at Casa Bilingual Montessori School in Pijnacker. Following AMI’s recommendation, the team visited this particular school due to the bilingual instruction (English and Dutch) and the 50 weeks-a-year schedule.
“My content knowledge of Montessori instruction has deepened to a more advanced level of understanding,” said Margaret. “Specifically, I learned how teachers and instructional leaders in the Netherlands adapt the Montessori curriculum and manipulatives to meet student needs. For example, the Montessori approach to education should be the vehicle to help students meet state standards and content/language objectives for lessons and units.”
Maria Montessori’s legacy lives on on the work of these teaching teams, dedicated to developing children as well-rounded individuals. Throughout the first two of four developmental phases outlined by Maria (self construction from 0-6 years and peace/happiness 6-12 years), students at three East Boston school will now benefit from heightened instructionin this discipline.
“As public Montessori teachers in East Boston, serving a mainly immigrant community living under the strain of poverty, we are committed to delivering the highest quality Montessori education that will usher forth the next generation of global citizens and peacemakers,” said Achala. “We were grateful to have had the opportunity to engage in these conversations and be again re-inspired to manifest Dr. Montessori’s vision.”
Queen of the Jungle
Yesterday was National Wildlife Day, created in 2005 and carried forward in the memory of animal lover and conservationist Steve Irwin. Irwin sought to educate the public, especially children, about conservation and endangered animals. FFT Fellow Leanne Mortell and her fellowship in South Africa perpetuates his dream. A kindergarten teacher at Bluff Elementary School in Claremont, NH, she shares below “A Day in the Life” of her Fund for Teachers fellowship volunteering with Wildlife ACT in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in Zululand, South Africa, where she learned data gathering techniques used to monitor endangered animal populations to create a science unit teaching young students the scientific method.
My fellowship to Africa in winter was more than I could ever imagine. I arose before sunrise, gulped down breakfast with a half cup of instant coffee and headed for the truck while loaded down with my camera equipment. Our troop of five volunteers climbed in, wearing multiple warm layers and wrapped in blankets. We headed off with our researcher to be in position before the sun rose to find some of the most endangered species of the animal world.
After six or seven hours of searching for and observing African wild dogs, lions, and cheetahs, we returned to camp for a few hours of food, rest and a review of photos taken from the morning jaunt only to return to the truck for our evening rounds. After dark enveloped us leaving us with no ability to spot any more animals, our troop returned to camp to cook dinner, do dishes and crash into our beds for much needed rest so we could be revived enough to do it all over again the next day. I did this routine for 2 weeks. I loved every minute.
The mammals I saw during our drives left me in awe. We tracked a pack of African wild painted dogs along dirt roads as they ran through the terrain on a hunt. We found lions resting near the road and observed them for hours as they slept. Elephant herds blocked the road in front of us as we traveled, allowing us to observe them closely as they fed. We watched rhinos feed with their babies beside them. A cheetah emerged from the grass and jumped on a tree beside our truck. We observed him for thirty minutes before he left to watch impala in the distance. Giraffes fed from the tops of trees, then silently,
with the grace of the finest ballerinas, slipped away.
Amazing; experience of a lifetime; a childhood dream come true. These words only scratch the surface of the emotions I felt during this fellowship to Africa. Populations of many African mammals are dangerously low. Through our morning and evening drives, I witnessed many of these species roaming freely in their natural environment while collaborating with researchers working to protect them from their greatest threat – humans. This work wasn’t glamorous, nor did it seem heroic; it was hard work under difficult conditions. Yet, these people were working at it every day, living on the reserve to gather needed scientific data. And their work is making a difference. Numbers of African wild dogs and white rhinoceros are slowly on the rise. Although cheetah numbers are down, our data collection will allow more to be brought into the reserve to aid in genetically diversifying the population there to continue to promote the species. The beauty of these creatures is beyond words and now, after my fellowship, thought of loosing them brings a rising panic from deep inside. However, the knowledge that there are teams of people working these long hours under tough conditions to prevent their extinction brings admiration.
I am inspired students to help students realize that we have a gift freely given to us and we need to learn all we can to protect it. To let them see the images of these animals through my photographs and bring them outside to their own piece of the world to see it’s beauty and teach them ways to learn about it, protect it, and love it as I do is a privilege.
I now plan to educate my students on authentic methods of scientific research. Bringing the classroom outdoors will expose them to learn about their own neighborhood in a new way and help them connect to nature. By providing them the instruction, modeling and practice they need to feel proficient at these skills will give them the confidence and desire to continue to learn and expand their knowledge.
Thank you, Fund For Teachers, for this rare opportunity. I will share with my students how to observe animals, record their numbers and learn ways to identify each one. I hope to instill in my students the desire to learn how to care for the land for the benefit of all and I look forward to sharing with my
colleagues about this amazing opportunity through your organization to learn in hopes that they will be inspired to apply for their own chance at an adventure.
Leanne has worked as an educator, occupational therapist and principal. She uses these experiences to reach out to all her students to inspire in them the quest of knowledge of the world around
them and to use their unique talents for the benefit of all.
Learning New Steps
While many schools are forced to eliminate access to the arts, Franklin Elementary Fine Arts Center in Chicago was established to integrate artistic talent with academic success. Dance teacher M.K. Victorson designed her Fund for Teachers fellowship around intensive teacher workshops that would help her rewrite her existing curriculum, focusing on creative dance, multicultural dance, and genre studies to engage her K-8 learners.
“Ms. V” enrolled in three opportunities – Dance Education Lab (DEL), Broadway Teachers Workshop, and Finis Jhung Ballet in New York City – to rethink how her curriculum can engage all of her dance students whether they are ballet dancers or breakdancers or just not sure about dance at all. Her excellent blog documents her learning, and we share a post written to her students
below…
Dear Students:
I’m sharing some photos here of my incredible workshop last week at DEL: Planet Dance: Multicultural Dance Education. I attended this workshop with all of you in mind as you are always telling me you want to learn different forms of dance. Words can hardly describe the overall experience of this workshop, which had many interesting strands to it. But I’ll say a few:
We began our week by talking about what culture is and what it embodies. (how would you answer ‘What is Culture’? Think about it). Seeking an answer, we:
looked at our own cultural makeup and created dances about it
viewed several dances from around the world and analyzed the movement in each
discussed the reasons why people dance and create dance: recreation, work, communication (to name just a few)
learned a welcome dance and song from Ghana
practiced and explored flamenco steps and rhythms from Spain
viewed a Japanese dance where the dancers used umbrellas
created new dances inspired by all of these sources, and more!
We danced, created, and we discussed dance in great detail. The question we kept coming back to was:
How do you teach a cultural dance if the culture is not your own?
What do you think, readers? We talked about this at length. We talked about problems, concerns, sensitivity in exploring dance of other cultures. We did not come up with a final answer, but I know that I came away from the experience with much to think about and share with you. This year I will be able to bring in even more residencies that I am hoping will expand our cultural dance knowledge and literacy. Do you have something you can teach me?
Included in the photos are pictures of my collaborative group. At DEL, we finish each intensive week by collaborating in a group and engaging in practice teaching for our fellow teachers. I am very excited about the work my group did because my collaborators and I really worked well together and listened to each other. Crystal, Eva, Monica, and Halley are smart, inquisitive and sensitive beings and I learned so much from them. Oh, they are great dancers, too!
Together we created a lesson around examining bias in dance criticism. It was written for high school, but I think it has relevance to you, my K-8 students. We looked at images and text from a review and created short dances based on it. Then we gave each other feedback on the dance. Finally, we looked at the whole review and discussed the issue of bias and who gets to critique dance. We talked about how to respond to dance by naming what you see before placing judgement. It was fascinating and I am excited to do some of this with you!
I also have some flamenco inspired movement to share with you, courtesy of my teacher, Puela. And there is so much more!
Dancing at you from New York,
Ms. V
M.K. is an eight-year veteran of the Chicago Public Schools and has been teaching and creating in Chicago since 1996. She is passionate about curriculum development, advocacy and inclusion in arts education. A dedicated and energetic teacher, M.K. has been awarded grants from numerous institutions including Chicago Foundation for Education, the Target Corporation, and the Oppenheimer Family Foundation.
Reader, I Studied Her
Charlotte Brontë, who sent her Jane Eyre manuscript to a London publisher on this date in 1847, wrote, “Your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.” This summer, Amanda Kingston (Odyssey Leadership Academy – Oklahoma City) used her time (and a Fund for Teachers grant) to research the Brontë sisters, especially Charlotte – regarded as “the first historian of the private consciousness.”
On my Fund for Teachers fellowship, I navigated through five European countries in the hopes of learning more about Carol Gilligan’s work on the ethic of care in connection to the lives and histories of women. Among the women I journeyed to “meet” were Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, authors and sisters.
Haworth, England, is a small town that has capitalized on the mythology of the Brontë family. It’s hard to know if the Brontës modeled their stories after the environment of Haworth, or if Haworth has wrapped itself up in the Brontës. Whether it’s chicken or egg, at the heart, they’re inseparable. And, if you can’t get enough of the gothic atmosphere, you can hike out to the Brontë Waterfall across the moors and even farther to Top Withens, a possible location for the Wuthering Heights of Emily’s imagination. In the mist and among the heather you can almost hear Cathy still calling for Heathcliff.
The Brontë Parsonage Museum itself is in the midst of celebrating the 200th anniversaries of the Brontë children: for 2017, this is Branwell. The small parsonage is preserved beautifully, with portraits of the family hung in each room; the table where the women bent over needlework, writing, and dinners; and the study of the family patriarch, Patrick Brontë, complete with his spectacles and magnifying glass. The staff were enthusiastic and kind, offering up knowledge about the family not with an air of pretension, but rather as though talking warmly about old friends. The Brontës are very much real people to this crowd. Prior to this fellowship, I did not know much about the Brontës. I did a quick reread of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre earlier this year, and watched the BBC television special To Walk Invisible. The production worked closely with the Brontë Society and the museum also includes stills and costumes from the series.
For more on Jane Eyre’s iconic line “Reader, I married him,” click here.
In researching before the trip, I learned that in the original publications, the sisters chose not to use their given names. Instead, they used pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Charlotte explained after the deaths of Emily and Anne in 1848 and 1849 respectively, they wanted their work taken seriously, not frowned upon as womenly nonsense nor praised patronizingly as female folly. The Brontës were real writers with real things to say about the real world around them. And really, in 1847 when Jane Eyre was published, only male authors were taken seriously. The museum even includes a letter from a poet Charlotte admired advising her that writing was not for women.
I realized, a few days before in Chawton, that there is a reason we don’t say that Jane Austen’s books are about the human experience, though they certainly include suffering, trials, family, love, and loss. (The Jane Austen Society, coincidentally, is celebrating her life with the bicentennial of her death this year, as well.) The Brontës recognized this also, and when Charlotte sent Jane Eyre to be published she wanted the story of a young governess, a deeply misguided Mr. Rochester, and a “madwoman” in the attic to be a story received with the utmost sincerity and gravity, a story of human experience- not just male or female. And it was: Jane Eyre became the talk of London and new editions came out almost immediately. It’s a story of human experience and human emotions that belong to all of us, and I believe people recognized this, despite knowing the true identity of the author.
I’ll be honest, I was not a Brontë fan before visiting the parsonage. I enjoyed their books, yes, and they were interesting figures to me. But I wasn’t a “fan.” However, there is something about walking in the home of a person, seeing their correspondence and their village, walking across the moors of their lives for even just a day that spins stories to a different light. It makes you not just a fan, but a friend. I learned more about their heart and the courage they had to put their stories out to the world, and to put themselves in their stories.
I don’t think that it’s any accident that the original title of Charlotte’s first novel was Jane Eyre: An Autobiography.
Amanda serves as both a mentor and humanities teacher at Odyssey Leadership Academy in Oklahoma City and previously worked as a teacher in Louisiana’s public education sector. She is passionate about creating courses that focus on justice and empowering students to enrich and transform the community around them.
Teachers Looking for Troubles
This weekend marks the 48th anniversary of Ireland’s Battle of the Bogside, a riot between Protestants and Catholics that initiated a three-decade conflict known as “The Troubles.” FFT Fellows Saul Fussiner and David Senderoff (New Haven Academy – New Haven, CT) are currently in Ireland researching this period of history and share their experiences below…
We teach a Facing History & Ourselves course for sophomores called “History, Legacy, Judgment and Justice,” which deals with how societies attempt to heal after long periods of conflict. We originally taught this course using the case studies of South Africa and Rwanda, but five years ago, in response to student surveys, we switched our second study to be Northern Ireland. We shaped a unit to include an inquiry activity and some quick background on the history of the Republican/Unionist divide, some lessons on Northern Ireland’s Civil Rights Movement and on Bloody Sunday, some classes on the period of the Troubles (especially 1972-1998) and activities and an assessment based on the Good Friday Agreement and its legacy. After teaching on Northern Ireland for several years now, we wanted to learn more about the background of this crisis–the long history of British colonialism and Irish resistance–that led to this struggle in the first place. And we wanted to see how this struggle is remembered, on both sides, in the lands where it took place.
On our Fund for Teachers fellowship, we are gathering relevant materials across Ireland and Northern Ireland. Along the way, we are gaining awareness and knowledge to help students contextualize the Irish situation (both before and after partition) and demonstrate how people behave in groups.
Our fellowship focuses on museums, tours and arts events that provide a nuanced background on Irish and Northern Irish history. Initially, we intended to research only Dublin and Belfast, but are now expanding to a wider range of places, including Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Derry and County Down. We also are documenting our visit with photography and video showing some of the places we visit; we are especially intent on conducting interviews.
the Kilmainham Gaol Museum (contains the history of Ireland’s largest jail from the pre-partition period from
1798 until the Irish Civil War of the 1920’s, including the detainments and sometimes executions of the
leaders of the major Irish rebellions in that period)
Corrymeela Peace Community in Northern Ireland, where one of our visiting teachers is
a community member.
These activities are the backbone of our fellowship, helping us to build a comprehensive background for our course. By walking in the places where history was lived, one discovers interesting details about it, such as when I visited Alabama and saw with my own eyes how close King’s church was to the Montgomery state house and how close the projects of Selma were to the church where the marches were planned. In addition to everything else, we are spending much of our time in the North with the family of one of the teachers who visited us at our school two years ago, and he is a guide for us during our Belfast excursions.
Why teach about Northern Ireland in an urban school district in Connecticut?
We do so because the Good Friday Agreement represents what author Penn Rhodeen has referred to as the most successful example of a political solution to a major conflict in our time. Through dialogue and compromise, Nationalists and Loyalists were able to bring an end to thirty years of police brutality, bombings, kidnappings, murders, gangsterism and riots to forge a lasting – if precarious – period of peace. The warring factions in America’s own political system have been far less successful at dialogue and compromise, creating our current situation of mistrust of government and political institutions at home.
When we teach the Civil Rights Movement in American History, that teaching rests on an understanding of a long history of America and a feeling for the present day in our country. We are looking to replicate that long view and awareness in our understanding of (and teaching of) the Civil Rights period and Troubles period in Northern Ireland. We want to be able to “read between the lines.” We are both trying to become better historians of this place, and in order to do so, we wanted to experience it first hand, through interviewing of people there, and through studying in some of its most important museums and taking some of its tours and in walking
from here to there, literally, on its streets. The content of our Northern Ireland unit is always growing, and this fellowship will help us to become better resources for our students to understand this complex and confusing history.
There is an inquiry activity that we always do right near the beginning of the Northern Ireland unit, where students try to piece together clues to the puzzling struggles in Northern Ireland. Clippings and photos and statistics and maps and excerpts from interviews are examined and students create questions and inferences. We do a similar activity as they get into the specifics of the Northern Irish Civil Rights movement. Later, a big paper activity guides students through the escalation of violence in the 1970’s that followed Bloody Sunday. These are activities that can be added to and rejuvenated with the interviews and the video and photographs that we bring back.
For background information on The Troubles, the 1981 BBC documentary series directed by Ian Stuttard and compiled of key first-hand historical footage, is a good place to start. We also created this blog we’re maintaining throughout our fellowship to help document our learning throughout this grant and beyond.
Saul teaches History, Civics and Facing History & Ourselves at New Haven Academy. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Hunter College. He has screenwriting credits on two produced films and regularly performs as a live storyteller with the Institute Library Group and the Story City Troupe. Saul has led workshops for other teachers on storytelling, student social action projects and the Holocaust and was a teacher with March of the Living in Poland in 2012 and 2014.
Dave found his niche in education while searching for a way to inspire people to seek achievements through willingness and determination. His “false starts” in the military and as an extremely amateur musician paved the way for higher learning. Always a New Haven Public School teacher, he has taught middle and high school, focusing on critical analysis and inquiry skills.
(Photograph of Dave and Saul at Lough Gur with their “I’m a Fund for Teachers Fellow” sign)
The Politics of Music
As tensions heated up this summer between Russia and the United States, Kathy Morse served as a self-appointed ambassador of education, researching the arts in St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Moscow. She returned to ACESWintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School in Hamden, CT, with insight into how the arts plays such a vital role in Russia’s past and present culture and shares a few of her experiences below…
Before leaving on my fellowship, I asked my fifth graders to journal their impressions of Russia. Their input framed my research, which I will now use as the foundation for their sixth grade social studies class. Together, we will now look at our diverse world through the common lens of art, specifically, the music, dance and architecture I experienced with my Fund for Teachers grant.
For three weeks, I observed how culture is a driving force in Russia. In St. Petersburg, also known as “Venice of the North,” I explored the arts, history and geography of the city (the famed music conservatory, the Vaganova Ballet Academy and the State Hermitage Museum) while attending the Stars of the White Nights Festival. Specifically, I dove into the compositional techniques of Dimitri Shostakovich and his inspiration for his Seventh Symphony during the winter of 1941.
Next, I traveled to a city fixed in time, Novgorod, which lies between St. Petersburg and Moscow. At its peak during the 14th century, Novgorod was one of Europe’s largest cities and was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1992. Novgorod has maintained itself as a historical center and it is possible to get a glimpse of what Russia looked like hundreds of years ago going back as far as the Middle Ages. This gave me a deeper historical context of Russia.
Continuing on to Moscow, I spent three days exploring the Kremlin, Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, museums and attending performances at the Bolshoi Theatre. These sites are the most iconic, so I wanted students to know what they mean for the Russian people, as well as the importance Moscow plays in our world today.
Understanding WWII through the eyes of the Russian People by exploring Victory Park and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) in Moscow was an extensive history lesson. This country lost more than 25 million citizens to battle, starvation, disease and Stalin’s Terror. The museum also emphasizes the important role the United States and other Allies played in securing victory over Nazi Germany.
Using the Lincoln Center Education model of inquiry (practicing skills like noticing deeply, posing questions, making connections, and empathizing), my students and I will now be able to explore the Russian culture through the study of the arts of St. Petersburg, the history of Novgorod and the political importance of Moscow while making real world connections to other curriculum areas including literature, history and geography. If we Westerners hope to understand this enormous country, we might intelligently begin by trying to understand the culture which drives this mysterious country. That’s where we’ll begin in my class.
Kathy Morse (pictured in a Moscow subway station) graduated from Duquesne University with a degree in Music Education/Music Therapy while pursuing her passion of performance on the
French Horn. Her first job was with the State Orchestra of Mexico. Upon returning to the United States, she earned her Masters Degree from Yale University and toured world wide with various ensembles. She has carried her passion for music into the classroom for the past 26 years and has led teacher workshops for Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic.
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.
With his Fund for Teachers grant, Eric researched Anthony, Pankhurst and the suffrage movement they incited. While in London, he found in Trafalgar Square the location of the 1908 rally for which Mrs. Pankhurst was arrested (pictured). He also studied with three avant-garde theatres, laying the groundwork for his students’ creation of a play about 
Ponder and 23 students representing each grade spent three months researching the suffrage movement in the United States and Britain before collaborating on a script and set. Each performer created a character journal comprised of photos, newspaper articles and other primary resources they uncovered. An Oxford professor who authored a book on Lytton Skyped into class to inform students’ research, as well.
Before leaving on my fellowship, I asked my fifth graders to journal their impressions of Russia. Their input framed my research, which I will now use as the foundation for their sixth grade social studies class. Together, we will now look at our diverse world through the common lens of art, specifically, the music, dance and architecture I experienced with my Fund for Teachers grant.
Understanding WWII through the eyes of the Russian People by exploring Victory Park and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) in Moscow was an extensive history lesson. This country lost more than 25 million citizens to battle, starvation, disease and Stalin’s Terror. The museum also emphasizes the important role the United States and other Allies played in securing victory over Nazi Germany.