Thanks to FFT Fellow Tim Barry for his reflection on his two Fund for Teachers fellowships inspired by students’ curiosity and focused on elevating the experiences of Native Americans during World War II.

I am in my sixteenth year as a Special Education Teacher and have spent fifteen of those years teaching middle
school. Based on students’ needs, much of my time is spent teaching and supporting students in English and social studies classes. Our 7th-grade students read Code Talkers, by Joseph Bruchac and Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Houston as part of our English curriculum that explores the importance and impact of identity. In 8th grade, we read All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque. The beauty of this subject matter is that it fosters intellectual curiosity in our students. They want to know more, they want to ask questions, and oftentimes, these questions create dialogue and a spirit of inquiry that extends into authentic, teachable moments.

As a student of history, I am very familiar with the Pacific and European Theaters of World War II. Admittedly, the story of the Navajo was one that I was aware of, but not well-versed in. When reading Code Talkers, the idea that is most foreign and confusing to our students revolves around “why?”

Why would the Navajo be so loyal to a country that attempted to erase their culture? Why would these people be willing to save the country, with nothing in return?

As Code Talkers is our students’ first introduction to the World War I & II subject matter, it is the ideal opportunity to take an anchor text and extend the discussion beyond the pages of a book. This is not just a story of what the Navajo did, but an introduction to WHO the Navajo are. This fellowship provided me with an opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of how their culture and identity impacted their role in World War II and bring back an authentic experience to the students.

Having previously completed a Fund for Teachers fellowship to Manzanar in 2018 to examine life in and around Japanese Relocation Camps in Utah and Colorado, I was awarded a second grant last summer to engage with the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico. I examined the importance of cultural identity and explored how that identity empowered them to overcome marginalization by the U.S. Government and embrace the role as Code Talkers in World War II.

Read more about Tim’s 2023 fellowship here.

The highlight of my fellowship was hearing Peter MacDonald speak at the National Code Talkers Day event. Mr. MacDonald, at 94, is the youngest of the three living Code Talkers. He told the story of his enlistment at the age of 15 and the pride he felt in being Navajo and wearing the Marine Corps uniform. During his speech, he implored the Navajo youth to continue learning, protecting, and using the Navajo language despite its challenges because language is the key to sovereignty.

As I spoke to members of the Navajo Nation, I began to question my qualifications to teach about the Code Talkers’ story. This was not due to any unfavorable reception of my fellowship; quite the opposite, everyone I interacted with was welcoming and willing to share their knowledge. My concern revolved around doing justice to their culture, community, and the Code Talkers. Ultimately, it will drive me to deepen my learning and seek experts to share their stories.

The experiences I returned with have allowed me to provide authentic insight and perspectives to increase and enhance my students’ comprehension within our Code Talker unit. I gathered a variety of vetted, leveled texts to enrich academic discussions among students of varying ability levels. Most importantly, I have created relationships with people who can offer a cultural background vastly different from my students and foster a climate of understanding.

My Fund for Teachers fellowship reinforced the importance of self-discovery and lessons presenting themselves. My experience initially concentrated on enhancing my understanding of Code Talkers, which evolved into a story of the preservation of language, culture, and identity that is still challenging today.

When experiencing new cultures, we cannot rely solely on academics studying from a distance. It is critical to interact with communities directly to ensure that shared knowledge is culturally relevant.

Additionally, the fellowship enhanced my desire to explore and foster a sense of intellectual curiosity with my colleagues. The opportunity it provides for teachers to enrich their learning and share the inspiration of self-study rekindles much of the excitement that brought many of us into teaching.

This month, social media feeds will be flooded with memes for teacher appreciation and posts about how vital teachers are to our society. At the same time, Fund for Teachers will hand $1.7 million in checks to 396 teachers for summer fellowships they designed. The contrast between memes & money puts into sharp relief America’s attitude toward those with whom we entrust our children: teacher appreciation not validation.

Meet our new grant recipients and learn about their summer itineraries here.

The Latin word part “val” means strength and worth. Consider other words with that root: value, valor, valiant. Even the sound of these words evokes fortitude. Validation carries that same weight. When one validates something or someone, there’s an active acknowledgement associated with seeing, hearing, and knowing. In this light, appreciating something is tantamount to a thumb’s up emoji.

Fund for Teachers validates teachers by trusting them to design their own professional development in the form of summer fellowships. We put no limits on what or where teachers learn. We simply support their pursuit of new knowledge, insight and experiences – with $36 million in grants since 2001. In doing so, we communicate that teachers are professionals worthy of investment.

What does Teacher Validation Look Like?

For our grant recipients last summer, it ranged from documenting the Six Essential Elements of Geography throughout Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to examining across Alabama various methods of civic engagement utilized in the Civil Rights Movement. It also looks like relying on our Educator Advisory Council for programmatic design to amplify our impact on teachers. And funding Innovation Circles led by Fellows and composed of Fellows to deepen learning around topics in teaching while building community.

But validation doesn’t have to be synonymous with funding. (Our Fellows regularly report simply knowing their ideas merited recognition means as much as the grants.) Validating teachers as professionals can also look like:

• Acknowledging their dedication to assessing and responding to students’ needs, and not just
  the academic ones.
• Affirming their commitment to addressing learning goals in ways that leverage students’
  heritage and lived experiences.
• Applauding their courage to be bodyguards who protect students from bullets. And, yes,
• Advocating for pay increases with your local districts.

And how can we do these things? You’d be amazed at how far an old-fashioned, analog, personalized note can go. Beats a social media meme any day.

Day of the Dead is actually a two-day holiday in Mexico when families celebrate life and death simultaneously. From October 31 – November 2, people create ofrendas (or offerings) adorned with items such as foods, photos and items once enjoyed by family members who have died. This year, in the wake of COVID and also their Fund for Teachers fellowship, Rebecca Gauna and Sasha Villagrana decided to host a community-wide Day of the Dead Celebration at Chicago’s Robert Lindblom Math and Science Academy High School.

With their $10,000 FFT grant last summer, Becci and Sasha researched in Nayarit, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, Mexico, indigenous history, traditions, and folklore to inform learning for a Latino culture course, facilitate collaborations with English Language Learners in the special education program, and engage Spanish speaking parents. (Learn more about their experiences at Becci and Sasha‘s post-fellowship reporting.)

This fall, they began implementing their own learning with their students by creating a religious syncretism curriculum for their Latino Culture Colloquium. They also created an advisory lesson that was used school wide to talk about cultural identity. The community-wide Day of the Dead Family Night last week featured an ofrenda (above), performances by the Latino Dance Crew, and five craft stations in which students and their families created sugar skulls, made marigold flowers, and had their faces painted. Students led each activity and explained the significance and symbolism at each station.

“Many Mexican Americans who were born in the United States (including our students) often have a deep sense of feeling connected to Mexico yet have only visited a handful of times,” said Sasha. “The variety of the culture and languages we experienced within each state of Mexico really is so diverse that it is often hard for many Mexican Americans to comprehend or even understand how different it can be. This experience opened my eyes to how diverse the culture and language of Mexico really is and how little many of our students may even know about their family origins.”

“Indigenous groups in Mexico have been oppressed for centuries and this is clear when looking at poverty, access to healthcare, levels of education etc. in highly indigenous areas in Oaxaca and Chiapas,” Becci added. “Their stories too often go unheard when examining the history and culture of Mexico. We want to highlight the importance of indigenous subcultures within the dominant culture of Mexico and bring back inspiration for how marginalized communities maintain their culture and identity.”

Going forward, Sasha and Becci plan to create an interdisciplinary project between the school’s Latino Culture Colloquium, students in the school’s special education program, the art department and the library through a bilingual story time.  The teachers also established contacts with a nonprofit in Chiapas called Sueninos and a nonprofit in the Puerto Vallarta region called Entre Amigos through which will participate in language exchanges and cultural “intercambios,” as well as topics around dual identities and immigrant rights. We will also pursue our relationship with the Mexican Museum of Art in order to conduct an art and identity workshop.

“Our fellowship provided us with pictures, anecdotes, and most importantly, local perspectives and insights into our course units which will help students feel pride and connection with their heritage and engage with the material,” said Becci.

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Becci Gauna has taught Global Civics, Honors Psychology, Honors Sociology, US History, and World History. She has also helped design and develop her school’s Latino Culture program and sponsors the school’s Latino Dance team. Sasha Villagrana has been a New York City public alternative high school teacher for six years — two of which were in prison to a range of incarcerated youth populations facing the most severe challenges. She has also served Lindbom’s bilingual coordinator, foreign language department chair, and has taught the Latino Culture Colloquium, as well as Chinese.

Sixty-six years ago today, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was lynched and shot for allegedly flirting with a young white woman at her family’s store in Money, MS. His body was recovered from the bottom of the Tallahatchie River three days later. Brandon Barr‘s students in Chicago are the same age as Till was when he died. Brandon felt that similarity would resonate with his English students in a powerful way. This FFT Fellow plans to add anecdotes and artifacts gathered from his exploration of sites associated with Till’s murder, as well as Civil Rights sites in Memphis, to develop a unit focused on his life and the legacy of his death. Brandon shared his motivation and plans for students below…

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As a veteran middle school teacher, a lot has changed over the course of my career, including learning standards, forms of standardized testing and the novel uses of emerging technology. For the most part, I have been able to navigate these changes well. One change that I have not been as quick to adapt to is creating curricular opportunities for students to think about why advocating for equity is important in history and in the present day.

The Civil Rights Movement is rife with historical moments that are sad and unfortunate. I have seen a number of my colleagues, and I include myself in this, who have taught in a way that victimize African Americans. While it is true that many African Americans were victims of living in segregated and oppressive societies, the Civil Rights Movement is also rife with examples of individuals asserting their collective power and resistance in fighting oppression. I am looking to reframe how I have taught history from the this time period to focus more on empowerment while also improving the accessibility of learning materials and increasing engagement for all learners. My students need to see examples of what it means to fight for justice in order to be ready to engage in “good trouble” when they encounter injustices and inequity in the future.

To that end, every year I try to teach about Emmett Till because his death has a significant legacy; it is often evoked when injustices happen in the present. I want to make the case study that I do with students more robust and highlight the actions of both Till’s mother and uncle. Both acted in ways that demonstrate agency and upstander behaviors, and my goal is to highlight their actions rather than leave my students focusing solely on the brutality of Till’s death. I think I can teach this history in a deeper way that shows the impact that direct confrontation of inequity and injustice can have when deployed in a strategic fashion. That’s why I designed this particular fellowship and joined Fund for Teachers’ Equity cohort with an Innovation Circle Grant. Next week, I will visit the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, MS, to strengthen my instructional approach to this period of his history using an equitable lens for how the information is shared and presented to my students.

In thinking specifically about equity, there is the principle of direct confrontation that dictates that there is no path to equity that does not involve a direct confrontation with inequity. When we think about the historical legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, we see the power of individuals actively confronting inequity. The actions of individuals created real change because of their engagement and advocacy. I want my students to understand that African Americans lived (and in many instances still live) in environments that sought to diminish their collective power and privilege. I want students to see the creativity that many individuals demonstrated in finding solutions that fought inequity and dramatically improved the quality of life that African Americans can have in the United States because of their direct action. By extension, I want students to think about problems in the world today that stem from inequity and reflect on how they may use their collective voices and actions to induce change.

In 2010, Brandon received a Fund For Teachers grant to explore Holocaust and WWII sites, meet with survivors, and build a relationship with a partner school in Berlin, Germany. From that experience, he became a regional consultant for IWitness and was present for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Read more about that experience on his blog published by Facing History & Ourselves. (Photo of Brandon courtesy of the USC Shoah Foundation.Top photo of Emmett Till courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center.)

 

When the pandemic grounded our 2020 grant recipients’ plans, we wrestled with ways to continue honoring their passion and professionalism. The spaces normally filled with updates from teachers actively pursuing self-designed fellowships fell silent. That is, until we handed our Fellows a microphone.

Even prior to the pandemic, experts widely acknowledged that America’s students were experiencing a mental health crisis. A 2017 CDC report showed that suicide was the second-leading cause of death for 15-24 year olds. Add incidents of self-harm into the equation and the outlook is even more bleak. The average age a student begins self-harming habits is 13 and 45% of people use cutting as their method of self-injury. And who has the most exposure to students during these years? Ostensibly, its teachers.

Earlier this year, the Brookings Institution published an article titled “Educators are key in protecting student mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Cassi Clausen, teacher and founder of The Open School in Mission Viejo, CA, realized she was not equipped for this challenge. In 2018 Cassi received a Fund for Teachers grant to Attend the annual Sudbury Schools Conference in Kingston, NY, to learn best practices for supporting at-risk students. Using one of Fund for Teachers’ new Innovation Grants, she spent the summer in dialogue with psychology Dr. Thomas D’Angelo, an expert in pre-teen and teen mental health and self-harm practices, to shift her personal understanding of self-harm and learn how to create safe spaces for struggling students.

In celebration of  International Women’s Day, we share the teaching of Neha Singhal (Montgomery County Public Schools, MD). In one of our more unique fellowships, Neha conducted mini-ethnographic research on the experiences of doulas and other birth workers in New Delhi, India, to increase IB Anthropology students’ understanding of fieldwork and data analysis, and to spark interest in maternal health justice in the United States. Neha exemplifies what can happen when teachers are given the trust to design experiential learning. She combined her educational background (an undergraduate degree in international business, international development and conflict management and a master’s in social justice), previous experience (work with a non-profit on the Texas/Mexico border), and a passion for women’s health to create in-depth, project based learning for students.

My high school was only the second school in our district (the largest in the state) to offer IB Social & Cultural Anthropology and has become one of the few schools in the country to offer such a course. This study, aimed at deciphering the complexities of what makes us the same and different from one another, is extremely relevant for my students who come from 30 countries and speak multiple languages. The subject also corresponds to my commitment as a teacher to develop students’ analysis of history, oppression, power, and social justice to help equip them with the tools necessary to transform themselves and their communities.

In addition to being a social studies teacher, I am also a full-spectrum doula who is trained in providing nonjudgmental support to pregnant people in all decisions and phases of their journey. I became trained in this role after watching a documentary and doing my own research on the experiences of women giving birth at hospitals. It is unacceptable that the U.S. has a steadily increasing maternal mortality rate, which is also the highest in the developed world. There is a clear need for more attention to the issue and community-based solutions, and I used my Fund for Teachers grant to accomplish both.

For one month in 2019, I conducted mini-ethnographic research on the experiences of doulas and other birth workers in New Delhi, India, to understand what challenges and opportunities they see in lowering maternal mortality rates. I chose India partly because it holds significance to me as my birthplace and because the maternal mortality rate has decreased by 22% in the country from 2011 to 2016 according to recent data. I met with individuals in hospitals and nonprofits such as Birth India to collect data through a mixed-methods approach, using both participant observation and interviews, which are two popular methods in cultural anthropology.

Conducting this fieldwork gathering and analyzing data equipped me with new primary resources that now model and support my students’ research inquiries for their IB Anthropology projects. And, undertaking fieldwork helped me become a better teacher because I intimately understand the challenges and excitement that comes with “doing anthropology.” Now that I did the work I ask of my students, I can better explain the process of collecting data and articulating analysis about social phenomena.

Students benefit tremendously when their teachers are given the time to become energized and gain new ideas and perspectives. Teachers who have been invested in, invest in their students in return! The type of learning Fund for Teachers affords allows us to engage in creative experiences that enhance our connections with ourselves and our subject areas. It is also great role-modeling for students to see that teachers are lifelong learners and continue to have passions and goals. As a result of my fellowship, I am now waiting to hear about my acceptance in a PhD program in Cultural Anthropology!

While my fellowship helps me most readily with my 11th and 12th grade IB Anthropology students, with whom I piloted a new Medical Anthropology unit introducing the subfield focused on the impact of social, cultural, and historical forces on health and illness, how illness is experienced by various communities, prevention measures, and the process of healing. However, my experiences in India also benefit my 10th grade students in my U.S. Government class, as well as my Latin American Studies elective course. In my government class we have a unit on domestic policy where I implemented a research project that allows students to pick an issue, such as maternal health, and propose a policy-based solution. Our high school also hosts a medical careers program, which trains a sizable amount of our student population to explore careers in the healthcare industry and my students now present their new learning about birth, public health, and combating maternal mortality to students in the medical careers program.

Learning about issues women face in India regarding birth and realizing how similar those are to what we see in America made me even more confident in creating a unit on maternal health justice. At some point in their lives, it is very likely that students will either know someone pregnant, be the person giving birth, and/or be the partner of someone giving birth. Being in any of these three positions warrants the knowledge of pregnancy and birth as one way to tackle the crisis of maternal mortality in the United States (as well as many other countries). This fellowship is leading to learning outcomes that:

• Help students understand a specific situation (maternal health and birth) both in a global context and in their country of residence and
• Teach the practice of using research to solve real-world problems.

By directing my Fund for Teachers grant to confronting the problem of maternal mortality, I’m positioning my students as the solutionaries of the present and future.

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Neha Singhal is a high school teacher in Maryland who has taught students in several courses: IB Anthropology, Government, U.S. History, Latin American Studies, and College/Career Prep. She has also taught various courses in Asian American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park and University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Prior to becoming an educator, Neha worked with La Union del Pueblo Entero, a grassroots immigrant justice organization at the Texas-Mexico border, where she supported organizing efforts to fight for neighborhood development, immigration reform legislation, and workers’ rights.

 

As Naima Hall tells it, she had a hard time finding her way in the world of work. For a while she did construction work, then bartended. Only after a few more minutes into our conversation did she mention that this phase of her career came after she worked for the International Trade Division of Tiffany & Co. and directed New York City’s Sister City Program through the United Nations. These roles, while high-profile, left her empty.

“I felt like my life wasn’t real,” she said. “I had titles and positions that sounded interesting. And I felt like a blank slate. My family was proud, but I couldn’t get through the cognitive dissonance of achieving but feeling empty.”

Her next step came from an unlikely source – Craig’s List.

“The Helen Keller School for the Blind placed an ad for volunteers,” Naima said. “When I arrived, the social connectedness was there, the good cause, the good mission. “I think I knew I was on the brink of an aha moment, but had questions about vocational sustainability and  next steps.”

Her answer came quickly. After a few weeks, the principal of Helen Keller saw Naima’s potential and volunteered to write her recommendation for the master’s program in deaf and hard of hearing education at Hunter College. She eventually added this degree to her bachelor’s degree in communications and master’s degree in urban policy and planning to become an itinerant service provider for New York City’s Department of Education. As a teacher in the largest education program in the world serving students who are blind and visually impaired from preschool to 21 years of age, Naima goes onsite to provide braille and advocacy work for students who integrated into a general population setting. She turns print material into braille, either by hand or electronically, and makes tactile models of concepts using embossing tools and haptic construction materials to help students comprehend teachers’ instruction. She also teaches students how to advocate for themselves and ensures that schools are compliant in their educational delivery to this specialized population.

“I make stuff, teach stuff and get out of the way,” she laughed.

To expand the state’s core curriculum and further support her students, Naima used a 2018 Fund for Teachers grant to explore French historic sites attributed to the inventor Louis Braille and investigate French-inspired multisensory, experiential learning opportunities.

Read more about Naima’s fellowship here.

“Not a day that goes by that my students and I are not in proximity to the embossed system of writing Louis created during his life,” said Naima. “This fellowship was a career apex and reaffirmed my passion and sense of purpose within my own vocation.”

This experience, especially a teary eyed moment at Louis Braille’s grave, provided the inspiration to push through a difficult career aspiration – earning certification as a Library of Congress Certified Braille transcriber last fall. Fewer people pass this accreditation than the CPA or the bar percentagewise, making it one of the most difficult certifications to earn in the world.

The moral to Naima’s story? Don’t settle and don’t sell out.

“Sometimes young people jump in and stick in it for too long. I just kept leaving,” she said. “People looked at me like I was bananas when I left Tiffany & Co. and the United Nations. I couldn’t tell them why I left, but I knew I couldn’t stay, but I thought, “If I am dying on a long arc, I don’t want to go out with this being it. There’s a difference between quitting and reclaiming your life.”

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Naima invites everyone to follow virtually the New York City Braille Challenge, on March 8-10, 2021. This annual, city-wide event has four components: the academic competition, a braille experience, parent workshops and interactive activities.

This fall, Fund for Teachers introduced a new Circles program bringing Fellows together around various topics. This effort coincided with teachers’ return to school in the midst of a pandemic, so we were uncertain about interest and participation level. What we discovered, however, is that our grant recipients remain life-long learners despite the circumstances and the result has been life-giving for them and inspiring for us.

Members of Fund for Teachers’ Equity and Justice Circle began their final meeting of the semester by watching a Ted Talk inspired by a Martin Luther King, Jr.’s quote: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.” Reading critically, writing consciously, speaking clearly and telling your truth, according to the speaker/teacher/poet Clint Smith, are the four core principles posted in his classroom. These same principles could summarize the first collaborative learning experience undertaken by eight FFT Fellows around a timely topic.

Last summer, Fund for Teachers selected from applications a cohort of ten Fellows to attend a three-day Teaching for Equity and Justice webinar presented by Facing History and Ourselves, an organization dedicated to fighting bigotry and hate with lessons from history. Then, after full days of teaching virtually, the educators returned to Zoom for dialogue about race and culture with the goal of crafting an action plan to impact their students and school community.

Read more about Fund for Teachers Circles here.

“I did a lot of work on social justice fifteen years ago and I thought, ‘I’ve done the work! Good job!” shared 2019 Fellow Tim Flannagan, teacher at Stonington Middle School in Mystic, CT. “But after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, I wanted something more tangible than reading books and discussing with all white peers. I knew Fund for Teachers would do this well, and the resources and reflections, check ins and follow ups have increased discourse and equipped us to take informed action.”

Tim recently launched the Family Anti-Racist Circle in which students and their caregivers (or a member of the staff) read, discuss and identify ways to remedy racism in their community. He secured funding from local foundations obtain 5 copies of 15 books from which students can choose. After the read, Tim will then lead the group in brainstorming and researching ways to address an issue of equity and justice to develop a plan that to implement in the spring.

“I’ve attended several Fund for Teachers events since my fellowship in 2018, and one of the first questions asked during these meetings is Where did you travel on your fellowship? It occurred to me that no one asked that question in the Equity and Justice Circle. It’s not that we’re not interested, it’s just that our work has a sense of urgency and every minute of our sessions is so purposefully planned so that we leave one step closer to accomplishing our goals. Thank you to Fund for Teachers and Facing History and Ourselves for connecting me with this professional learning community and empowering me to create a more equitable and just classroom and school.”

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In 2018, Tim used his Fund for Teachers grant to join a photography tour in Cuba with professional artist and documentarian Louis Alarcon to create learning that combines insights about the island nation with photography and digital literacy skills. In addition to his Fund for Teachers grant, Tim also completed a Fulbright fellowship in Vietnam and received additional grants to learn in Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Germany. Tim has also taught in Brazil and Bolivia. Read about his fellowship here and learn more about his practice on his website, The Alternate Route.