What’s Right With Our Schools: Fund for Teachers
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – The best educators never stop learning. Fund for Teachers gives them a chance to focus on their subjects with leading experts around the globe.
Dan D. Challener is the President of the Public Education Foundation.
He explains, “Through a partnership with Fund for Teachers, the Public Education Foundation is able every year to offer summer learning fellowships to Hamilton County teachers. The teachers who win the fellowships are able to study anything they teach. We’ve had teachers study atomic theory, geothermal energy, rainforests, sustainable farming. I mean, anything they teach, they can study. The fellowships provide enough support so they can go to the place where they’ll learn the most. So, the teacher who was studying geothermal energy wanted and went to Iceland, where two thirds of houses are heated by geothermal energy. The teacher who wanted to study rainforest went to Costa Rica.”
Challener concludes, “So the fellowships really empower the teachers to go and learn deeply about something they teach, and then they bring it back to their classrooms, and they have more knowledge and more excitement and more energy, and it really benefits students and we see that in a number of ways. So, what’s really been exciting for us, after about we’ve done these fellowships for ten years, and after about five years, we wanted to try and assess their impact. What we saw is, first of all, the teachers who win these fellowships are outstanding teachers. It’s all about the connection and the energy, and that’s what these fellowships do so well. So, I think what’s most important in this is the learning that the teachers have and the learning that they can then bring back and share with their students. Sometimes people get caught up with the fact that they travel somewhere. What’s really important is that they’re learning where they can learn the most and bring that back home for their students. So, they have a real chance to stop and think and then bring that learning home. That’s why this matters. It’s an extraordinary opportunity for teachers that really help students.”
