Summer Odysseys Energize EL Teachers for New School Year

Fund for Teachers Grants Bridge Teacher Learning With Dynamic Classrooms

Houston (August 31, 2010) – Students returning to many Expeditionary Learning classrooms may confuse their teacher with an explorer, researcher or scholar. They’re actually one and the same, thanks to Fund for Teachers grants that sent 37 EL teachers on summer learning odysseys this summer.

Tapping their inner-student, these teachers individually designed and experienced fellowships to engage and inspire both themselves and, subsequently, their students. As a result, their teaching and curriculum will now reflect insights, experiences and primary sources collected from around the world.

For example:

• Minturn Middle School (Minturn, CO) students will begin a project to provide refurbished bicycles to their Colorado community bolstered by Kari Bangtson and April Slagle’s five week study of climate change policy and strategy in Scandinavia, traveling by bicycle;

• Third graders at the Genesee Community Charter School (Rochester, NY) will read a non-fiction textbook featuring photography of Galapagos Islands’ indigenous animals based on Spero Michailidis’ volunteer work with an Ecuadorean conservation organization; and,

• Students participating in choir, glee club and musical productions of West Platte Jr.-Sr. High School (Weston, MO) will be directed with techniques Denali Alt and Erin Hale learned from the Broadway Workshop and the Juilliard Conducting Workshop in New York City.

After navigating the globe on $14.2 million in FFT fellowships over ten years, these and 4,000 more “Fellows” daily inspire school communities with experiences and insights only attainable by “being there.”  Each fellowship is as unique as the teacher who designed it; and regardless of the destination or discipline, our Fellows have returned to more than 2,500 schools inspired by their pursuit of ideas, terrains, and cultures on all seven continents.

Teachers interested in pursuing 2011 summer grants may apply online beginning October 1 at fundforteachers.org/apply. Deadline for applications is January 28, 2011.

FFT, has awarded $1,073,103 in grants to 328 EL teachers since 2004. To learn about their adventures, visit www.fundforteachers.org/fellowsearch, or visit facebook.com/fundforteachers to follow all 2010 Fellows’ summer odysseys.

Fund for Teachers is a national, donor-supported organization celebrating its tenth year of awarding teachers the chance to pursue learning opportunities that have the greatest impact on themselves, their students and their communities.

For More Information: Carrie.Pillsbury@fundforteachers.org 

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