Fund for Teachers - The Podcast (Carrie Caton)

For the first time in our 20-year history, Fund for Teachers will host a national convening of educators called Plan It for the Planet – An Environmental Summit on Saturday, April 10th. This free virtual event, cohosted by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, will bring together leading innovators from America’s preeminent environmental organizations to help teachers and their students develop action plans to implement in their school communities. (For more information and to register, click here.)

The summit brought to mind a 2017 Fund for Teachers Fellow who is also an environmental innovator – Aaron Appleton. In addition to researching the connection between an Indonesian rainforest and the carbon marketplace with a Fund for Teachers grant, he has also researched the carbon sequestration capacity of meadows in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with a grant from Earthwatch Institute and cougars of Yellowstone National Park with a grant from Ecology Project International. Aaron is now leveraging his experiences teaching and researching to shift from environmental innovator to educational incubator by developing new virtual reality platform at the Harvard Innovation Lab to morph science education away from a transactional process to a constructive one.

While we had an interesting discussion on his life as a teacher’s kid and an ethnomusicology major, his startup and his thoughts on what science education will look like post-pandemic, Aaron had a few questions of his own about how things are going at Fund for Teachers...

In the United States, 6.4 million children between the ages of 4-17 have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and about 1 in 54 children are identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Those statistics are heightened at Ledyard Middle School in Gales Ferry, CT, where one-third of the student population receives either special education services or 504 accommodations for ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, or emotional needs. Kristen is a veteran special education teacher and recreational cyclist. When the Connecticut Cycling Advancement Program came to her school five years ago suggesting that cycling could help children focus and also improve academic performance, Kristen took the handle bars and now coaches the largest school bike club in the state. Listen to how she built a collaborative community among special education students and those from transient military families, members of the nearby Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, and the general student population of the local middle and high schools; and how she plans to expand the program with a Fund for Teachers grant.

A report prepared by the US Navy for the Department of Defense documents that "more than 40,000 American Indians left their reservations during World War II to serve in ordnance depots, factories, and battle fields. American Indians also invested more than $50 million in war bonds, and contributed generously to the Red Cross and the Army and Navy Relief societies." The Institute for American Studies reports that Native Americans had the highest ratio of service men of any ethnic minority or the white majority -- with 42% of the eligible adult Indian males serving in the war. Furthermore, 40 percent more Native Americans voluntarily enlisted than had been drafted.

Why, then, are there so few resources documenting Native Americans’ role in World War II’s European theatre? That’s what Bret Godfrey wanted to know. The son of a Naval officer and the member of the Potawatomi Tribe in Oklahoma, Bret wanted to teach the sacrifices made by his forefathers and those of many of his students at the American Indian Magnet in Saint Paul, MN. After finding no curriculum and no mention of American Indians’ WWII contributions in Minnesota’s social studies standards – Bret decided to create his own resources using a Fund for Teachers grant.

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 will spend 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.

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Resources referenced in the podcast:

This American Life's "Kid Politics" on democratic education

American Psychological Association article “A New Look at Self Injury”

The Supreme Court recently ruled that college athletes may benefit from perks beyond tuition, room and board and five state legislatures determined that college athletes may begin profiting from their personal brands.

This ruling can be life-changing for student athletes, like those with whom Wendy Hutchinson works. As the academic advisor for the men’s basketball team at Edmondson-Westside High School in Baltimore, Wendy is part of the basketball team coaching staff – she even travels with the team and sits on the bench. While two of the school's graduates went on to play in the NBA, Wendy knows that only 1.6% of college athletes make it to the pros. Another statistic represents a more pressing issue for her students: only 55% of Black male student-athletes graduate from college within six years. According to a report produced the USC Race and Equity Center, “Perhaps nowhere in higher education is the disenfranchisement of Black male students more insidious than in college athletics.” This summer, Wendy is using a Fund for Teachers grant to make sure her basketball players have a better shot at success in all its forms.

Were you one of the millions of viewers who didn't give away their shot at watching the Hamilton premiere on Disney+ last weekend? Billed as "the ultimate immigrant success story," the blockbuster musical was penned by and starred a man who grew up in an immigrant community playing the only Founding Father not from America. Lin Manuel-Miranda told Oprah that, "As an immigrant, you work three times as hard and are promised maybe a fraction as much." This fact, not the choreographed chronicle of Alexander, more closely reflects the lived experience of Tim Leon-Getten and his "Spanish for Spanish Speakers" students.

Most of Tim’s ancestors settled in Minnesota from Ireland during the Potato Famine. His great-great-grandmother was the first European born along the shores of Lake Minnetonka. His other side of the family came from Sweden in the 1880’s and his great-grandfather Carl Gustav wrote the fight song for the University of Minnesota, where Tim earned his graduate degree. Tim’s path to teaching Spanish began when he loved learning as an exchange student in Chile and later Spain. Twenty-nine years later, we have the privilege of talking with him about immigration and his students at Open World Learning Community in Saint Paul, MN.

The 1968 musical film “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” gave us a charming performance by Dick Van Dyke, a nightmarish scene involving a Child Catcher, and an Academy-award nominated song that shares the film’s title. The film’s lesser known tune “From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success” could characterize the work of Swedish landscape architect Charles Theodore Sorenson. From the ashes of HIS disaster, however, grew the concept of Adventure Playgrounds. Sorenson built elaborate playgrounds, but no children played. In 1931, he imagined instead a "junk playground" in which children could create and shape, dream and imagine a reality. His idea of a junk playground, one equipped with hammers, nails, saws and even fire, is now called an Adventure Playground and there are more than 1,000 of them across Europe. In the United States, there are only a handful of these sites that facilitate “risky” or “child-directed play,” making the research of Adventure Playgrounds nearly impossible for two teachers from a suburban village adjacent to Chicago. Until they received a Fund for Teachers grant.

American historian Jacques Barzun said, “Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.” The national nonprofit Fund for Teachers is out that change that. Frustrated with society’s lack of appreciation and respect for educators, Fund for Teachers strives to honor teachers as the professionals charged with preparing our students for productive futures. Since 2001, Fund for Teachers has awarded approximately $30 million in grants to almost 9,000 of the nation’s most innovative and dedicated preK-12 teachers in public, private and charter schools. No other organization in the country trusts teachers to determine what’s missing in their classrooms, design their own solutions and do what it takes to make it happen. To date, Fund for Teachers Fellows have pursued their unique versions of relevant, personalized learning in 152 countries on all seven continents. And thousands of schools now have at the head of the class experts in STEM, career and technical education, literacy, history, health and well-being, fine arts, social justice, and social emotional learning.

On this inaugural episode of Fund for Teachers – The Podcast, learn about one of the country’s largest investors in teachers, its new initiative called The Ramsden Project, and how you can become the next FFT Fellow. Guests include: Executive Director Karen Eckhoff and Program Officer Alycia Johnston.

In her essay “Don't Say Nothing," Jamilah Pitts exhorts educators that teaching as an act of resistance and teaching as an act of healing are not mutually exclusive. That when teachers choose to remain silent about moments of racial tension or violence—violence that may well touch students’ own communities or families—these children are overtly reminded of their inferior place in society. That engaging in dialogue about mass incarceration rates; the militarism of police and the killing of innocent black men and women is but one antidote to systemic racism. That essay was written FOUR YEARS AGO, in the fall of 2016, after the murder of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile and before the killngs of Delrawn Small, Botham Jean, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. Last week, after the murder of George Floyd, Fund for Teachers reposted Jamilah’s article and reached for her thoughts on what, if anything, has changed on the racial pandemic landscape since she wrote her piece in 2016.

Wartime efforts during World War 1 were quite peculiar. President Woodrow Wilson fed a flock of sheep on the White House lawn to cut down on landscaping costs. Germans experienced a ban on bratwurst so the intestines of cows could be redirected toward making Zeppelins. And in Russia, Czar Nicholas II banned vodka to keep everyone’s head in the game. More than a century later, one wartime effort for fighting COVID-19 might be considered equally as unique – running 3D printers.

On this episode of Fund for Teachers – The Podcast, meet the teachers/FFT Fellows on the front lines of this community-wide effort:

• Jim David, assistant principal of STEM School Chattanooga

• Michael Stone, director of innovative learning at Public Education Foundation - Chattanooga

• Kristin Burrus, digital fabrication ecosystem lead in Hamilton County Schools and VWeLab specialist, and

• David Vanzant, lead chemistry teacher at the STEM School.

Interested in joining the effort? Visit the GoFundMe link to make a tax deductible donation that goes directly toward purchasing raw supplies in bulk through orders negotiated by Chattanooga’s manufacturing association.

Tina Vasquez is a first generation American, and so are the students she teaches at Charlottesville High School. But their experiences as immigrants are very different. Tina came to America with her parents from Germany; one of her students arrived from Central America via a truck concealing layers of humans stacked on each other and a subsequent walk across a desert. Other students have never been to school before, never sat at a desk – spending their lives working in agricultural fields to help support their families. Her students most often arrive alone, hoping to connect with family members resettled there by the International Rescue Committee. And they look to Tina hoping to develop survival language skills, social emotional skills and friends.

Today we visit with Tina Vasquez, teacher of Newcomer Students at Charlottesville High School in Charlottesville, VA. Tina is a new 2020 Fellow who designed a fellowship to attend the International Colloquium on Languages, Cultures, and Identity in Schools and Society, in Soria, Spain. When she executes her plans next summer, she will begin on the shores of southern Spain where most refugees arrive by boat, attend and present at the Colloquium, research across Spain innovative programming addressing the refugee issue, and complete a home stay. All of this to explore the impact of ethnic and cultural identity-related issues on academic success in Newcomer high school refugee and immigrant English Learners and develop new approaches that support them.

According to The New York Times article, “How Do We Tell A New Generation of Teenagers About the Vietnam War?” the majority of ground troops in Vietnam were teenagers and those who had recently been teenagers. This is exactly the age group that Rachel Eastman teaches United States History at Clear Creek High School in League City, Texas, 30 minutes southeast of Houston. A home-schooled student from kindergarten through high school, Rachel decided to become a teacher after her professors at College of the Ozarks made history come to life for her. She believes that students who value history will, in turn, become empathetic and thoughtful citizens who are invested in civil discourse and community involvement. It’s this belief that inspired her Fund for Teachers fellowship proposal which ultimately made her a 2020 Fund for Teachers Fellow.

In crafting her fellowship proposal to research the Vietnam War, Rachel attended a Veterans meeting and sought their input for designing an experience that would make Vietnam and the war meaningful and relevant to her students. As a result, she will explore, document and photograph historic sites, while volunteering with the non-profit Peace Trees to, enhance instruction of this era and accompany learning provided through Vietnam Veterans’ classroom visits.

Two hours south of Helen Keller’s home is the town of Trussville. Every elementary, middle and high school has the same mascot and the district prides itself on “One Trussville.” So it stands to reason that when 15 visually impaired students lacked resources to help them stay on pace, their peers stepped up. Led by two Fund for Teachers Fellows, elementary students learned how to braille through a year-long elective called “Build A Better Book,” an effort that drew the heartfelt thanks of parents and the interest of twelfth grade engineering students.

Today we visit with April Chamberlain, technology director for Trussville City Schools. At the time of her fellowship, April was a librarian who, with the district’s four other librarians, researched best practices modeled by Chicago-area school libraries to redesign how students work with space, time, resources and community mentors in order to explore, create and publish using new media. She holds a bachelors and master’s degree in Early Childhood Education and is actively involved in the Alabama Leaders of Educational Technology, Alabama Digital Literacy Computer Science Course of Study Committee and Task Force, @TechBirmingham, and International Society for Technology in Education. April is now the technology coordinator for Trussville City Schools and when we learned how she is facilitating students’ efforts to create adaptive resources for visually-impaired peers, we had to find out more.

At first glance, commonalities between an Iowa women’s prison, a teen sex education office, an alternative school in neutral gang territory, an orphanage in Rwanda, and Stanford University is difficult to identify. But there are actually two things all of these locations have in common – social emotional learning and today’s guest, Lara Schmidt.

Lara is a teacher on special assignment with the San Francisco Unified School District. She is currently a co-director of its Advancement Via Individual Determination program serving first generation college students and also an Induction Coach working with new teachers. Prior to this post, Lara earned a Master’s degree in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership Studies from the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, where she also lectured and worked as assistant director of professional development; while in graduate school, she was also a policy analyst intern for restorative justice initiatives with SFUSD, where she previously established a special education program at Leadership High School. But before any of that, Lara was a Fund for Teachers Fellow and designed a fellowship to investigate how Agahoza-Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda teaches traumatized students coping skills through social emotional learning curriculum, advisory programs and service learning. My initial conversation with Lara was postponed due to the wildfires threatening San Francisco, so I was grateful for the opportunity to visit with her about her passion for social emotional learning, students burdened with multiple childhood traumas and the teachers who work alongside them.

A CNN report cites that after America’s 2016 presidential election, our collective stress “metastasized into a full on cultural disorder” called American Thanksgiving Anxiety. So what are we approaching in the wake of the 2020 election AND a pandemic? Many of us are anticipating a Thanksgiving meal at a dinner table surrounded by masked and politically-polarized relatives – so there’s no better time to learn from a Fund for Teachers Fellow who pursued learning around creating communities of peace.

Today we visit with Treena Thibodeau, middle school teacher at New York City’s Chinese/English dual language Shuang Wen School. After realizing the high level of stress and competition among her students who vie for coveted seats at one of the city’s nine elite public high schools, Treena designed a fellowship to explore restorative justice practices among New Zealand's Maori culture and the Lakota Sioux to integrate equity and peacemaking practices within the school culture.

We caught up with Treena in her classroom to talk about what she learned on her fellowship and what we can apply not only with students, but also with our larger communities.

On the morning of March 11, as the coronavirus began closing schools and teachers began considering what remote learning might look like, Trina Harlow (a veteran art teacher) pondered what she could do to support her peers attempting to teach a tactile subject over Zoom. She created the Online Art Teachers (K-12) Facebook group, primarily as a service project of sorts – for art teachers/by art teachers. Now one month later, that group has almost 10,000 members from 110 countries and 130,000 posts providing art projects and resources for students learning from home.

In 2019, Zach Rondot used his Fund for Teachers grant to attend the 6th World Summit on Positive Psychology in Melbourne, Australia, where he learned the principles of Positive Education. He now applies insights he gained in his fourth grade classroom at Costello Elementary in Troy, MI. In this episode, taped during the first week of distance learning due to COVID-19, Zach shares his experiences and resources for helping students stay positive in the midst of a pandemic.

In 2017, Lauren Greenspan and Julia Handelman were teaching in Columbus, Ohio, where they experienced students’ social emotional distress on a daily, hourly basis. In response, they founded the Youth Yoga Project to be a part of the solution that meets the emotional needs of all K-12 students. Their solution remains rooted in teaching, but now Julia and Lauren teach teachers how to implement their research-based mindfulness curriculum. Started by teachers for teachers, the Youth Yoga Project has trained 1700 educators and empowered 40,000 students with skills to calm their nervous systems and brains, allowing them to make responsible decisions.

Each generation has a novel. For teenagers today, it might be The Hunger Games, for the generation before, Harry Potter. It’s the book that ushered students into reading when nothing else would. For those of us who grew up in the 70s or 80s, that book was The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Made into an iconic movie by Francis Ford Copolla who directed the VERY young Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio, and C. Thomas Howell as Ponyboy, The Outsiders holds a consistent place on students’ required reading lists, including that of Gary Malone – 8th grade English teacher at Junior High School 189 in Flushing, New York.

Today we visit with Gary, who designed his Fund for Teachers fellowship to experience locations in Tulsa, OK, that Hinton and Copolla brought to life in The Outsiders. Along the way, he was interviewed by The New York Daily Newsand Tulsa World, attended the Grand Opening of The Outsiders House Museum, met author S.E. Hinton herself and established a collaborative writing initiative called “The Stay Gold Project” to inspire students' creation of their own realistic fiction pieces based on their communities.

In the summer of 2018, while Eric Levine’s students might have been reading dystopian novels about a worldwide pandemic, he was working alongside epidemiologists at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. Today, Eric is teaching teachers with the information he acquired and engaging students in real-life learning about the medical and social justice components of a public health crises – such as the coronavirus.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, more than 900,000 people quit jobs in state and local education last year, while private schools lost an additional 600,000 people. So what would make an overworked, underpaid teacher want to increase their workload and add to their schedules a monthly, two-hour meeting after school?

The answer? An Innovation Circles Grant from Fund for Teachers.

Last year, Fund for Teachers offered a new opportunity specifically for teachers who already received a Fellowship grant. With up to $1,000 (as opposed to $5 -$10,000 for their original grant), Fellows were encouraged to think more theoretically about challenges witnessed in their classrooms and to pursue related experiential learning during the summer. The biggest differentiator, however, was the opportunity to process that learning with other Fellows throughout the fall. Each teacher brought to monthly virtual meetings their independent summer research loosely organized around the topics of social justice, art & design, accessibility, and social emotional learning. And, together, they workshopped how to leverage that research in the classroom.  The program was so well received that we committed to a second year of Innovation Circle Grants, and the online application opened February 10th.

Today, we’re learning from Marci Addy, a high school literature teacher in Beaverton, OR, and member of our first Innovation Circles Grant cohort. She participated in our Social Emotional Learning Innovation Circle, using a $1,000 grant to attend online workshops and develop skills in project-based learning. Then she walked students through the PBL process, helping them demonstrate authentic learning while maturing as learners and citizens. I reached out to learn more about this experience and why she believes Fellows owe it to themselves to also apply.

Here at Fund for Teachers, we’ve spent the summer following our 2022 Fellows, as well as those from 2020 and 2021 whose fellowships were deferred, as they pursued learning around the country and five continents. It’s now September and most of our grant recipients are back in the classroom, so we’re bringing back Fund for Teachers – The Podcast for our fourth season.

We are already in contact with Fellows who experienced lifechanging fellowships this summer – they are eager to share their learning on future episodes. However, since they are in the midst of processing their learning and welcoming new students into their classrooms – we sought out the FFT Fellow making national news as part of Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute, founded by New York Times columnist and author David Brooks.

In 2013, Megan Helberg and her husband (then an English teacher/now principal in rural Nebraska) used a Fund for Teachers’ team grant to retrace the footsteps of Poland’s Jewish and non-Jewish people during the Holocaust to develop a greater understanding of its lingering impact and help students grapple with the atrocities committed. Since that time, Megan created a Holocaust curriculum that united their community, formed a travel club that takes students and adults on collaborative educational journeys, was selected as a Museum Teacher Fellowat the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and asked to join the Nebraska Community Foundation’s board of directors. In 2020, she was named Nebraska Teacher of the Year – an honor her mother received 25 years prior, and in 2021, the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes named Megan a Lowell Milken Fellow. 

In our visit, we dialogued about how her trajectory went from “I’ll never be a teacher” to a private audience with First Lady Jill Biden, as well as her encouragement to other teachers thinking about applying for a Fund for Teachers grant. But we began with the same question that kicks off all our podcasts: Why did you become a teacher?

Hey, you over there…yeah you…the teacher sitting in front of the computer staring at your 2023 Fund for Teachers grant application – the one you’ve labored over for months – the one containing the aspirations you have for yourself, your students, your school and your community.  I’ve got some valuable insider information that can help you more confidently push “SUBMIT” by January 19th. You’re going to want to hear this.

Fund for Teachers’ Chief of Staff Stephanie Ascherl wants to share some insight gleaned from her 18 years with the organization – observations, suggestions, and advice that can strengthen your proposal and ease your stress. This is an episode of Fund for Teachers – The Podcast you don’t want to miss…

Since 1983, the third Monday of January is recognized as a federal holiday to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. In the state of Alabama, that same day is also recognized as Robert E. Lee Day. Grappling with this simultaneous celebration, and the state’s complex civil rights history, is Blake Busbin – director of social studies education for the Alabama State Department of Education. Blake grew up in Atlanta and, as a child, would visit the plantation owned and operated by his ancestors during the Civil War. He earned his undergraduate, master’s, Ph.D. AND a certificate in Education, Instructional and Curriculum Supervision from Auburn University, from which both of his parents also graduated. Furthermore, Blake’s 15 years in the classroom was spent at Auburn High School. 

So how does someone with this deep Southern heritage become responsible for and passionate about helping  teachers and students reconsider narratives about the long Civil Rights movement that can seem embedded in the culture? That, according to him, has been an interesting progression.

We’re winding down the month of February -- designated as Black History Month, first celebrated as Negro History Week in 1926 and expanded to a month in 1986 by the United States Congress. According to the Association for the Study of African American Life & History, the designation began in 1915 when University of Chicago alumnae Carter G. Woodson traveled from Washington, D.C. to Chicago to participate in a national celebration of the 50th anniversary of emancipation. And according to FFT Fellow Pratia Jordan, students need to remember that Black history didn’t start or end then, or with slavery.

I’m Carrie Caton and the goal of each episode is to elevate teachers as the inspiring architects of their careers, classrooms, and school communities. 

Today we’re learning from Pratia Jordan, teacher at O’Donnell Middle School in Houston, Texas. Last summer with a Fund for Teachers grant, Pratia retraced the Transatlantic Slave Trade through historical sites in Europe, Africa and North America to create multi-modal, 3D virtual learning experiences that allow students to deepen content knowledge and make personal connections to the past and its continued relevance to our present. Pratia is active on social media, producing her own podcast, and also active as the mother of two young children with another on the way. Since her fellowship, Pratia has been named Teacher of the Year at her school, for her district, and a finalist for her region. We were able to catch up with her to learn more about her fellowship and its epiphanies, sharing both with eighth grade students who have a lot of questions about how we got to this point in history, literally and figuratively.

While Fund for Teachers has invested $30 million in teacher grants for summer fellowships since 2001, this marks only the second year that we’ve awarded Innovation Circle Grants. To extend the value of our traditional summer fellowships, we created this space for FFT Fellows to connect and collaborate around key priorities in education. Fellows propose innovative inquiries into a predetermined set of topics and, through a selective process, receive up to $1,500 to individually pursue summer learning experiences and then convene virtually with other Fellows to reflect and implement their learning in the classroom.  Today’s podcast is specifically about Innovation Circle Grants – what they are and what they can do – for teachers and their students.

Today we’re learning from FFT Fellow Pooja Bhaskar. In 2016, Pooja taught at the International High School for Health Sciences in Queens and used a Fund for Teachers’ grant to achieve intermediate proficiency in the Hindi language in Bombay, India, to better support students and their families emigrating from Tibet, India and Bangladesh. Last summer, with an Innovation Circle Grant, they researched the art, agriculture and history of Guatemala's indigenous groups to incorporate authentic, interdisciplinary artifacts into science curricula for recently immigrated students at the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice.

Download Pooja's curriculum created on Food Activism and Plant Medicine with their grant here.

Then the pandemic happened. And that was just the beginning of the ordeal resulting in his distinction as our final 2022 FFT Fellow who completed their fellowship – in April. But his journey was worth the wait.

* Click here to watch Joey's interviews with his Community Based Instruction students at Deer Valley High School in Antioch, CA. 

Iceland is known as the Land of Fire and Ice, the most peaceful country in the world 15 years running, and – unfortunately for Big Mac fans – has zero McDonald’s. And, this year, it’s the fellowship destination for seven Fund for Teachers Fellows. Ranging in topic from sustainability and geothermal energy to yoga and elves, grant recipients from Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, and Virginia will learn within the Arctic Circle this summer. 

Before Fellows begin embarking on their experiential learning, we connect them with other grant recipients who plan to be in the same region or conference. Just this week on our Instagram we shared photos of Fellows meeting up in Egypt, Dallas, Guatemala and Salamanca. However, a driving rain in Reykjavik (and five layers of coats) prevented two Fellows from recognizing each other this week. When one posted a picture, we spotted them both and reached out to coordinate a call and compare notes. And for the next hour, we finagled enough Wifi to enjoy a fascinating conversation with about divergent experiences and intended impact from these exemplary educators. Editing it down was a struggle.

Today we’re learning from Laura Nunn, teacher at Patrick Henry Elementary and Instructional Support Leader for Chicago Public Schools, and Frances Rivera, teacher at Ernie Pyle Elementary School in Indianapolis. Frances is in Iceland exploring issues of global warming, biological and cultural conservation, and sustainable development, to develop tools for teaching these issues in a Dual Language classroom. While Laura is there studying the folklore of elves and fairies said to inhabit and protect the Subarctic'snatural landforms and attending the Reykjavik Elf School, then walking sacred sites with scientists and storytellers. She plans to build a cross-curricular unit on what value stories have and how nature impacts the stories we tell.

For three years, I’ve started this podcast in the same way with the same question: Why did you become a teacher? This time, the three of us were so excited to connect that we didn’t get around to this question for a bit – but their answers are worth the wait…

When preparing to interview Fellows for this podcast, I’ll do a little research to provide listeners with some context. Usually, that Google search yields LinkedIn accounts, local media coverage, and sometimes statistics from high school glory days. With today’s guest, I ended up on IMDB -- an online database of information related to films, television series, and streaming content online.

My curiosity was piqued.

Today we’re learning from Gabe Staino – who has taught for 12 years, both internationally and in the States. But before that, he was childhood friends with Chris Raab,  also known as Raab Himself -- a member of CKY crew featured in the MTV series Viva La Bam and Jackass.  Gabe and Chris roomed together and graduated from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. Afterwards, lure of Hollywood trumped law school for Gabe, who instead experienced the MTV life with his buddy, toured Europe with the CKY band, and then, with Raab, co-wrote, co-produced and starred in the film Borrowed Happiness (thus the IMDB page). 

Soon after, Gabe took the advice of a college advisor and turned to teaching, for the past decade that's been at Atlantic County Institute of Technology  in Mays Landing, NJ – where he  teaches US History, an African American History elective, coaches the mock trial team he founded a decade ago, and is a member of the Global Leadership Professional Learning Community. In addition to film credits, Gabe also earned two graduate degrees – one in Secondary Education for History/Social Studies from Stockton University and a Masters in History with a Global Concentration from Arizona State. 

I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with Gabe from Tanzania after just leaving Ethiopia where he researched Ethiopia's ancient and modern history and culture to more effectively teach about this only African nation never successfully colonized by a European power…

Lhisa Almashy has amassed many accomplishments in her 28-year career teaching English as a Second Language (or ESOL): a master’s degree in education from the University of San Francisco; a doctorate in Leadership and Learning In Organizations from Vanderbilt; award member from and board member of Learning for Justice, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education for the State of Florida and Hispanic Teacher of the Year Award for Palm Beach County among them. 

But an accomplishment one won’t find on Lhisa’s LinkedIn is the fact that she’s the reason Andover High School in Bloomfield Hills, MI, instituted In School Suspension. 

What changed Lhisa’s trajectory from not being permitted to graduate high school due to a 1.2 GPA to talking with me from her Fund for Teachers fellowship in Vietnam this summer? A teacher of course…

Today we’re learning from Dr. Lhisa Almashy – veteran teacher at Dr. Joaquin Garcia High School in Lake Worth, FL. Her passionate and engaging teaching style has earned her local, state, and national recognition. She believes that building relationships is key to fostering success and a sense of belonging. After not receiving a Fund for Teachers grant on her first try, Lhisa became a 2023 FFT Fellow and used a $5,000 grant to complete homestays throughout Vietnam to improve linguistic awareness and cultural competency and, subsequently, support her increasing number of English Language Learners from this country.

I caught up with Lhisa while on her fellowship last summer, and – frankly – it took me this long to synthesize our 90-minute conversation, filled with laughter and tales of poignant encounters, to create this episode. But throughout the editing process, I was reminded of the intrepid nature Fellows share and the vital role Fund for Teachers grants play in keeping them curious, inspired and in the classroom. 

Spotify annually sends out its wrap up of your listening habits for the year and Fund for Teachers received a similar one for our podcast. The most downloaded podcast of our year was with today's guest. Stephanie Ascherl is our chief of staff and has been a program officer, as well. Because that episode was SO popular, we're bringing Stephanie back for another edition of "Tips you need to know when completing your grant application." We wanted to produce this podcast at this time as teachers are winding up their chaotic end-of-semester programs and concerts and grading -- going into the winter holiday when they might have some time, after they catch their breath, to revisit their grant proposals and focus a little on themselves, what they want to learn and how they want to help their students.

The deadline for submission is January 18, at 5p CT. Access the online application at fft.fundforteachers.org, as well as our Online Learning Center and the recording of a national webinar (with ASL interpreter) for more information. The 2024 FFT Fellow cohort will be announced on April 4, 2024. Good luck!

A 2022 piece by National Public Radio cited Anne Frank as “the most famous young author of all time,” as her diary, translated into more than 65 languages, is one of the most widely read books in the world. One such reader was Nikia Garland. Now a 24-year veteran teacher at Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, she was once a sixth grader at nearby Farrington Elementary Shool where she picked up the autobiography – never thinking that Anne wouldn’t survive. That surprising conclusion would inform Nikia’s future – rooted in education and social justice.

Today we’re learning from Nikia Garland, a native Indianan who earned both an undergraduate and master’s degree from Indiana University and currently teaches British Literature and AP Language and Composition. She has taught a wide range of secondary and college-level classes in the U.S. and internationally. In addition to being a Fund for Teachers Fellow, Nikia is a Terry Fear Holocaust Educator in Action recipient, a Mark Schonwetter Holocaust Education Foundation grant recipient, a Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellow, and a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow. In all of her free time, she is a chair for the Indiana Teachers of Writing conference,  president-elect for the Indiana affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of English – and mother of two sons.

When seeking resources to support her Holocaust unit, Nikia realized that Indiana had a Holocaust Museum, founded by Auschwitz survivor Eva Kor. She ALSO found Fund for Teachers through a Google search and, last summer, used a $5,000 grant to document historical sites in Germany and Poland related to the novels The Book Thief and My Forgiveness, My Justice to expand student comprehension of significant events in world history and inspire them as social justice advocates and global citizens.

We caught up with Nikia two days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day (also commemorated in Indiana as Eva Kor Education Day), to hear about the learning she experienced and why feels it was vital for her students…

After listening, read Nikia's article “A visit to Auschwitz changed how I teach about the Holocaust" published by Chalkbeat Indiana on Friday, January 26th. 

Virigina Hall studied at Radcliffe College and Barnard College (the women’s colleges of Harvard and Columbia) and spoke three languages. She served as a consular clerk in Poland and Turkey, where a hunting accident required an amputation below the knee.

Noor Inayat Kahn studied child psychology at the Sorbonne and music at the Paris Conservatory. The daughter of Sufi Muslims, she was described as quiet, shy, sensitive, and dreamy.

Josephine Baker was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress and the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture. She was a school drop out who ascended to international stardom in France and befriended the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso.

A studious amputee, a shy artist, and a flamboyant entertainer. Who also happened to be secret agents during World War II and integral to the Resistance movement against the Axis powers. Could these women, who confronted sexism, ableism, racism, who refused to speak under Nazi interrogation and bamboozled German officials while extracting secrets also convince West Texas high school students that history is not about “the dead, old and irrelevant.” It was a mission two teachers chose to accept when they also accepted a $10,000 Fund for Teachers grant.

Today we’re learning from Renee Parson and Cory Cason, history teachers at Alpine High School in Alpine, Texas, set in the high plateau of the Chihuahuan Desert between the Glass and Davis Mountain Ranges. When not in adjoining classrooms, these women are coaching track and field, sponsoring History Club and supporting students involved in Future Farmers of America and UIL academic contests, among other activities. While the small school environment is rich with opportunities, exposure to the world beyond Brewster County – not so much. Cory and Renee leveraged their interest in female spies to craft a fellowship that researched Virginia Hall, Noor Inayat Khan and Josephine Baker throughout Europe to expand students’ mindset of what can be accomplished when ordinary people employ the courage to defy rigid societal norms in the name of humanity and justice.

Teaching is a family business for this mother and daughter. When Daneé Pinckney was a student, her mom, Gail Bowers-Craig, enrolled in night school to earn a degree in education. In fact, Daneé says much of what she learned about teaching was from watching and listening to her mother in those years of study. It was Daneé, however, who blazed the Fund for Teachers trail. 

Last summer, Daneé used her $5,000 grant to research the ancestry of Black America through Benin, Ghana, and the Togolese Republic to produce an expansion of the depth of knowledge of Western Africa that also strives to dismantle discriminatory perspectives that will deepen student connections to literature, art, culture, and self-identity. Along for the ride, and on her dime, was Gail – who used the time to do a little of her own research for her middle school science students. 

Upon returning to Ohio, where they live and teach 30 minutes apart from each other, Gail decided to follow the example set by Daneé and apply for her own Fund for Teachers grant. And this summer, with Daneé as her “plus one,” Gail and two teammates from Euclid Middle School in Euclid, OH, will explore the Galapagos Islands in the tradition of Charles Darwin to tangibly demonstrate for students how science is valuable in shaping community and deepening the understanding of ourselves and the people around us.

Today, we’re learning from this mother/daughter team about who inspires whom, how, and lessons they’ve learned from years together at home and at school.

Welcome to our fifth season of Fund for Teachers: The Podcast. We launched this platform (after buying and annotating the book “Podcasts for Dummies”) when Covid shut down schools (and everything else) because we wanted to stay in touch with our grant recipients and support the stalwart work they were undertaking as our students first responders. 

Forty-seven episodes later, we continue to welcome Fellows as our special guests to learn about their fellowships and how they are leveraging these grants into growth for themselves, their students and school communities.

Today’s episode kicks of our 2025 grant cycle and marks a first for us — two FFT Fellows join the conversation. This summer, by happy coincidence, Jaime Kerns (on fellowship in the Canary Islands) and Jasmine Adams (on fellowship in Johannesburg) and I (in East Texas) confused our time zones and found ourselves on the same call at the same time. The result: a conversation grounded in how their cultural heritage informed their fellowship design that now impacts their students’ education. 

Along the way, they also share advice for teachers considering applying for a 2025 fellowship grant (“just do it”) and tips for writing a winning proposal (“follow your passion”).

Show Notes:

Jasmine Adams teaches at Drew Charter Elementary Academy in Atlanta and this summer used a $5,000 Fund for Teachers grant to conduct a comparative analysis of Civil Rights activism in both the American South and South Africa, analyzing tactics employed by communities to promote equality for marginalized groups, to empower students with a profound understanding of the progress and ongoing struggle for equity via a civic action project integrating art. You can access Jasmine's post-fellowship report here.

A three-time FFT Fellow, Jaime Kerns teaches at Lookout Valley Middle/High School in Chattanooga and this summer used a $5,000 grant to embark on a cultural and linguistic journey across Morocco and the Canary Islands to deepen personal understanding of influences on Hispanic heritage shared by a growing percentage of her students. You can access Jaime's post-fellowship report here.

In the Fund for Teachers universe, September is very significant. Our grant recipients are back from their fellowships, back in their classrooms and reporting back to us about what they learned and how their students will now learn differently as a result.

September is also the month before we open our grant application for the upcoming year. We begin marketing the opportunity to teachers and districts, collaborating with our local partners to cast a wider net for applicants, and, hopefully, let more teachers know about the opportunity to design their best version of experiential learning with $5,000 as an individual or $10,000 as a team.

So with these bookends in mind, we wanted to produce a series of September podcasts, one per week, that highlights the learning of our Fellows over the past summer in a way that, hopefully, encourages potential applicants about what is possible should THEY chose to take a risk, take the time and make the effort to apply for a 2022 Fellowship Grant or – for previous FFT Fellows – an Innovation Circle Grant.

Because Rashaun James was awarded one of each of these grants, she’s the perfect person to kick off the series.

Rashaun is a 15-year teaching veteran who holds a bachelors degree in Middle School Childhood Education, master’s degree in Educational Literacy and teaches at Mifflin Middle School in Columbus, OH. Last summer, Rashaun used an Innovation Circle Grant to attend classes at the Anahata Education Retreat Center in Floyd, VA, where she learned research-based tools to support the mental health and social emotional learning of students. Three years prior, she used a Fellowship Grant to film a teaching documentary exploring events surrounding the French Revolution in Paris that also incorporates the lives and works of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens & the Brontë sisters from the same time period in London. In both of her proposals, she tossed in some surprising thoughts on race, equity and her opinion that London and Paris go together like Jay-Z and Beyoncé. 

September the 15th begins Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. The Fund for Teachers fellowship of Chicago art teachers Carolina Ibarra and Claire Reynes celebrated the same thing last summer. 

In an effort to integrate their elementary students’ culture as a source of inspiration in the art room, these teachers used a Fund for Teachers’ team grant to research the history of traditional Mexican crafts that utilize sustainable art making practices with eco-friendly art materials. Carolina and Claire completed a homestay with contemporary artists in Michoacan and then experienced the centuries-old practice of weaving in Oaxaca. In addition to making art and new friends, they also made – in their words – magical moments that will now translate to their students – the majority of whom are Hispanic.

Marlee Matlin, the only Deaf performer to have won an Academy Award, said

“Every one of us is different in some way, but for those of us who are more different, we have to put more effort into convincing the less different that we can do the same thing they can, just differently.”

Theatre teacher Amy Patel is committed to figuring out how to teach differently so her deaf and hard of hearing students make their marks at James Clemens High School in Madison, AL. Amy initially received a Fund for Teachers grant in 2017 to explore the inner workings of professional theatre in New York City and better prepare students for possible careers and professional applications of theatre. When two new students who were Deaf subsequently enrolled in joined her theatre department, Amy realized she had a lot more to learn about empowering ALL students for the stage with equity and accessibility. When her own son lost his hearing, that realization turned into action.

“The teachers are not alright.” News accounts and social media pages attest to the fatigue – both mental and physical – America’s teachers are experiencing this fall as they continue to adjust to the new normal after the past year of pandemic classrooms. It seems our teachers could use some of the social emotional learning strategies they are sharing with students trying to cope. Hyam Elsaharty knows a lot about that. She used her FFT grant to research in Malaysia how collectivist communities apply SEL skills in homes and schools, then applied her findings at Chicago’s Mather High School, where one-third of students were refugees, immigrants and/or English Language Learners. Now, she’s sharing her expertise with Seattle Public Schools as its Consulting SEL Teacher for the entire district.

Today, we’re learning from Hayam Elsaharty, a Fund for Teachers Fellow who also serves on our Educator Advisory Council. Hyam holds an undergraduate degree in criminal justice from the University of Indiana, a master’s degree in Resource Development from Northeastern Illinois University, a second master’s degree in Education from Quincy University and a certificate in English as a Second Language. With her 2017 Fund for Teachers grant, she and a colleague investigated programs in Malaysia supporting Rohingyan refugees who fled genocide in Myanmar. With new knowledge and insights, Hyam and her teammate expanded the advisory curriculum by creating a series of meaningful units that meet the specific social and emotional needs of refugee and immigrant students. The following year, buoyed by her fellowship experience, she applied for and was awarded a Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms grant to research Social Emotional Learning in Peru. 

After being named Chicago Public Schools’ first Social Emotional Learning Teacher of the Year, she moved to Seattle to help direct a district wide SEL focus on adult education, and supporting educators to develop knowledge, confidence, and agency in teaching students SEL skills. Our conversation began talking about her fellowship and how it changed her life personally and professionally, then migrated to the topic of how teachers can use social emotional learning for themselves.

Today’s podcast airs on Black Friday, when millions of shoppers flock to malls to begin and finish holiday shopping. This scene stands in stark contrast to those witnessed by fifth-grade teacher Janelle Rei this summer. Between meeting with Sudanese refugee students and teachers and observing families living and working in cities built of garbage, Janelle witnessed joy and gratitude for the little things, including school supplies she delivered from her own students at Great Neck Elementary School in Waterford, CT.

Janelle is a Fund for Teachers Fellow who used her grant to experience in Egypt the locations in which two books in the fifth-grade curriculum are set to support student learning and to make global connections through The Global Read Along program. Janelle holds an undergraduate degree in education, as well as a master’s degree in special education from Bridgewater State University, and she recently completed a second master’s degree in educational technology from Eastern Connecticut State University. Her first motivation to teach, however, came from her mother, who continues to teach elementary students in nearby Rhode Island. Our conversation covered her motivation for guiding students to be empathic global citizens, how her fellowship is facilitating that, and her advice for our future FFT Fellows working on their proposals.

Forbes, CNN, Fast Company, The New York Post and even Town & Country claim that MasterClass is one of this year’s top holiday gifts. The streaming platform offers lessons from the best in their fields, delivering – according to its website -- a world class online learning experience. We decided to follow suit and offer a Fund for Teachers MasterClass on crafting a successful grant proposal. Our expert: Four-time Fellow Chris Dolgos.

Today, we’re learning from Chris Dolgos, a sixth grade at Genesee Community Charter School in Rochester, NY. In addition to receiving Fund for Teachers grants in 2003, 2006, 2015 and 2020 (which he deferred until this summer), Chris also regularly reviews grant proposals as part of our Selection Committees and also is an inaugural member of our Educator Advisory Council. History and geography are two passions he brings to life in his classroom, through field work, guest experts and product-driven curriculum. Chris has contributed to EL Education’s publications and Common Core curricular efforts and is a NY Educator Voice Fellow. He is also the recipient of EL Education’s Klingenstein Award, nominated by peers and presented to one educator with the national network who stands out for their remarkable service to their school community, as well as their persistence in passionately developing students with character who excel academically and contribute to making the world a better place. 

If you’re looking for tips on submitting the most compelling Fund for Teachers proposal possible, keep listening…

According to a brief published by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, white college freshmen entering civil, mechanical and electrical engineering programs outnumber Black and Indigenous People of Color 7:1. A panel of experts at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine cited factors such as lack of funding and resources available for minorities who want to focus on STEM, the lack of accessibility to technology by low-income students, and sub-par teaching at lower tier schools. These experts never toured The Howard School’s Future Ready Institute of Architecture, Engineering and Construction in Chattanooga, or met its director, Japho Hardin.

Japho designed his fellowship to enroll at Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Waitsville, VT. Afterwards, he will experience an off-campus design/build program called The Rural Studio at Auburn University, and document prominent works of American Architecture in New York City. His mission, both at The Howard School and with this fellowship, is to provide Architectural & Engineering Design students with equitable access to quality design education.

Are you considering applying for a Fund for Teachers grant, but don’t know where to start? What better place than to take advice from Maine’s 2021 Teacher of the Year and Fund for Teachers Fellow Cindy Soule. Cindy is a 4th grade teacher at Gerald E. Talbot Community School and holds a Master of Science in Special Education from the University of Southern Maine and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from the University of Maine at Orono. In addition to recently being named Teacher of the Year, she is also a candidate for Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

This summer, she and two peers will use their Fund for Teachers grant to explore phenomenon in Hawaii related to Earth, Physical, and Life Science units to create opportunities for organic student-driven inquiry aligned to Next Generation Science Standards and applied across the district. We caught up with Cindy in her classroom to talk about her fellowship, statewide recognition, BrenéBrown’s influence on her well-being as a teacher and her tips for crafting a successful Fund for Teachers proposal.

When Enkeleda Gjoni’s students enter her math class, learning geometry is the least of their problems. One hundred percent of her students are English Language Learners, as was Enkeleda when she immigrated from Albania with “only her education.” Two decades later, she holds two master’s degrees and models for her students what is possible – especially for someone who is competent in mathematics.

Today we’re learning from Enkeleda Gjoni, 2019 Fund for Teachers Fellow and math teacher at Boston International High School, where 100% of her students are English Language Learners. The daughter of a teacher, Enkeleda is originally from Albania, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Education and Mathematics. She immigrated to the United States two decades ago knowing no English and now holds one master's degree in Education from the University of Massachusetts at Boston and the other in Teaching Mathematics from Harvard University. She is also a member of the English Learners Success Forum, an Edvestor’s Math Fellow, an advisory board member for the Better Math Teaching Network and member of the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment. With her Fund for Teachers grant, Enkeleda investigated the connection between math, history, and art through research of the Parthenon, Acropolis, theaters, and churches in Greece to deepen knowledge of Greek mathematicians and founders of math (such as Euclid, Pythagoras, and Archimedes) and create hands-on, multidisciplinary projects for students and the wider educational community. In advance of Pi Day (March 14, 3.14) I was curious about how Enkeleda became a math teacher and, particularly, how she engages non-native speakers with mathematical equations.

A smart, but angry young student who dreamed of becoming a pediatrician; a chemistry major; a Target hourly employee; and a substitute teacher. This was Veronica Wylie’s circuitous path to her high school classroom in Hazelhurst, MS. Along the way, she’s earned three master’s degrees, founded a nonprofit, interned with NASA and is currently collaborating with Harvard to create antiracist science curricula. The motivation behind all of this activity is providing her students opportunities – even if they are 60 feet underwater.

Today we visit with Veronica Wylie, high school science teacher at Wylie is a high school chemistry and physical science teacher in Hazlehurst High School. She designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship to earn a diving certification to complete archaeology and marine life trainings with the organization Diving With a Purpose, a nonprofit that partners with the National Association of Black Scuba Divers on submerged heritage preservation and conservation projects worldwide with a focus on the African Diaspora. She is also a Ph.D. candidate in education leadership and administration at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. Her latest of three graduate degrees is a Master of Arts in Teaching chemistry student at Illinois State University. She interned this summer with NASA’s Office of STEM Engagementin Houston and also started collaborating with teams as a Fellow at Harvard’s Antiracist Science Education Project through the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. One of my first questions to her was, “When do you have time to teach?” to which she replied, “I teach whenever I can, wherever I can, about whatever is relevant.” Then I asked her about her work, her students and her fellowship.

In the video Sarah Kirk submitted for the Oklahoma School Counselor of the Year last year – an honor she subsequently won -- she quoted a report stating that if students have just one person who loves and believes in them, their outcomes are far greater. “Well,” Sarah said, “I want to go beyond that. I want to be the one person who is absolutely crazy about them. I want them to know that this is more than a job for me, that they truly have my heart.” But how does Sarah do that when students can no longer come to Kendall-Whittier Elementary School in Tulsa, OK? That’s what NPR’s Morning Edition wanted to know for its April 20th story titled “Closed Schools are Creating More Trauma for Students.” And because Sarah is a 2019 Fund for Teachers Fellow, we were able to catch up with her to hear more and learn how all of us can help students experiencing trauma.

Sarah used her FFT grant to complete ChildLight Yoga and Mindfulness for Children Teacher Training in Dover, NH, to -- as the school counselor -- help young people develop body awareness, manage stress through breathing and access an alternative to tuning out through constant attachment to electronic devices. Sarah is a member of the American School Counselor Association Board of Directors, the Oklahoma School Counselor of the Year and a national finalist for School Counselor of the Year. The daughter of a teacher, Sarah earned undergraduate degree in Human Development and Family Science, as well as her Masters degree in Counseling from Oklahoma State University. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision. She has a heart for creating and implementing programs and interventions that meet the needs of the whole child, and – for the past four weeks – meeting those needs has primarily revolved around determining if the 900 students at her school are safe and have enough food to eat.

When Rodney Ward's eighth grade math students came to him asking questions about the coronavirus, he answered them with algebra. He now teaches 129 students in an elective, online course called "Coronavirus Math & Modeling." We visit with this UC Berkeley grad, veteran teacher and FFT Fellow about this and additional classes that are silencing students' moan: "When will I ever use this in the real world?"