Mandela Schumacher-Hodge is the Co-Founder & COO of Tioki and we’ve reblogged her reflection on her latest charge in full with her permission.
It’s been exactly one year since I dropped out of my UCLA Urban Schooling Doctoral Program to pursue my passion to build an edtech company that I hoped would both empower educators to showcase their unique skills and talents, as well as enable schools to find the best educators possible for their students.
I firmly believed that every single child deserves to have a great teacher, that every great teacher deserves the chance to exercise their passion of educating students, and that my team and I had the desire, talent, and drive to create the tool that would turn these beliefs into reality.
As my team and I have expanded our platform to include connectivity, knowledge-sharing, and discovery, I’ve often times received questions as to “Why?” Mandela, why are you doing this? Why are you going in this direction? Is this the right thing to do?
Photo courtesy of Mandela Schumacher-Hodge
Lakota Mowrer taught in the 2006 South Dakota corps.
Lakota people have a saying: wicoicage sakowin kin un wicakagapi. It means “building for the seventh generation.” As a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, my personal journey has been deeply rooted in challenging injustices affecting young generations of Native Americans.
I saw how historic injustices in public policy and practice had created huge disparities in my own community. Public education policies touted as the “great equalizer” were implemented as forced assimilation, removing native children from their homes and placing them in boarding schools charged with “civilizing the Indian.”
Native American Initiative video by Teach For America
Daniel Millenson was a 2009 Teach For America corps member in the Mississippi Delta.
On Tuesday, more than 100 million Americans will take an action that many consider the pinnacle of citizenship – we will cast our ballots for President. Change often starts in the voting booth, but as we pursue true, lasting change, we should view Election Day not as the end of the race, but merely the beginning.
Photo by Electiontechnology via WikiCommons
Bill Ferguson (Baltimore ’05) represents Maryland’s 46th District in the State Senate.
Several weeks ago, a former student of mine sent me a Facebook message. This student is someone who I'd never forget—he's incredibly smart, talented, and motivated, and he stood out as a student committed to his future.
We hadn't connected in awhile, and it was really great to hear from him. In his message, he wrote, "Mr. Ferguson, can you give me any advice on getting into an office environment? I'd love to work on computers. I don't have the 'education/degrees' as proof, but if given the chance, I know I wouldn't disappoint." My immediate thought was, he's right, give him the chance, and he will succeed. He deserves it.
Photo by Øyvind via Wikimedia Commons
Lauren Secatore (Chicago Corps ’03) is director of knowledge management for Chicago Public Schools. Her opinion is reposted with permission from her Facebook page; links were added by Pass the Chalk editors.
Lots of people have noticed that I have been uncharacteristically quiet over the past few weeks in regard to the Chicago teacher strike. I have lots to say on this issue, but for the first time in my life, I sat out of a debate. And here’s why:
What should have been a substantive discussion about education became reduced to a shouting match. What should have been a nuanced conversation about policy became politics. What should have been discussions ABOUT children became adults acting LIKE children while arguing ABOUT adults. What is a comprehensive, complicated, and critical issue became simplified to choosing sides. And the amount of coverage the strike received was inversely related to the quality of that coverage. It was enough to make me consider changing my life’s work to reforming journalism.
Photo by Firedoglakedotcom via WikiCommons
Elisa Hoffman was one of the founding teachers at Edison-Friendship Public Charter School, Woodridge Campus in Washington, D.C. (where she was on 9/11).
On September 11, 2001, I was in my classroom teaching reading to twelve wiggly, yet incredibly attentive six-year-olds. It was a gorgeous day and the sun was pouring in through the windows when Ms. Fox, the teacher I shared my space with, came in and motioned for me to join her by the door.
Photo courtesy: Elisa Hoffman
Two weeks ago I had the honor of recognizing the 10 recipients of Teach For America’s first annual Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching. More than 120 students, teachers, staff members, family, and guests gathered at the Hotel Intercontinental in New York to celebrate these exceptional educators and their contributions to our work. It was a moving ceremony, with tributes from students and even a video message from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recognizing the accomplishments of our awardees.
Award winners (L-R) Lavinia Rogers, Isaac Pollack, Jenny Tan, Belzie Mont-Louis, Laura Kretschmar, Sanee Ibrahim, Candice Frontiera, Eric Diamon, Taylor Delhagen, Ed Chambers
Over 7,000 Teach For America alumni are teaching in classrooms across the country today. They are indispensable to fulfilling our mission—and our country’s aspiration—of a future where all children can have an excellent education.
Chosen from more than 600 nominees, the 10 award winners reflect a wide range of experiences and teach in diverse settings. What they have in common is outstanding leadership. They are willing to take risks in pursuit of life-changing impact. They are not content to see academic gains alone—they are determined that every student will walk out of their classrooms with the tools to be life long learners, passionate readers, and skilled problem solvers on a path to and through college. None of these teachers is satisfied with where they are now—they ask more of themselves even when they’re getting great results. Their drive to push boundaries has driven our movement forward.
I met Megan Scelfo while I was an undergrad at LSU. She was from Franklin, Louisiana—a small community near the coast in St. Mary Parish. She was also a year younger than me, a dancer, and very passionate about her beliefs. Megan was the first person I ever met who had been taught by Teach For America teachers.
One of Megan’s high school teachers was Brent Maddin, a TFA corps member and science teacher who held study sessions at the Franklin McDonald’s and who pushed students like Megan to excel and take on leadership roles. For Megan, this meant following her interest in the arts and in community service. By the time I met Megan, she was a student in the LSU Honors College, and so was I.
Megan Scelfo (front row, in purple) and Trey Smith (center back, in black) at a meeting of the Rotaract Club of Philadelphia. Photo courtsey of Michael Tipton.
I grew up in Baton Rouge and had never heard of Teach For America until I got to college. Now, I was considering applying for TFA myself. Meanwhile, Megan, her friend Trey Smith, and another friend of theirs worked to start a program called FOCUS (Focusing on College and Ultimate Success)through the Honors College. FOCUS hoped to extend some of the arts and service opportunities that Megan had experienced through Brent to students in other low income communities in Louisiana. Megan and Trey successfully started the program, and FOCUS continues to do great work to this day.
For many TFA corps members and alums, the blog network Teach For Us is the place to blog about their own experiences. For TFUs’ readers, which include prospective corps members, current corps members, their friends and family, alumni, and yes, TFA staff, TFUs is the place to hear about what’s happening in classrooms and schools across the country. We posed a few questions to Adam Geller, the founder of Teach For Us, about his remarkable project.
You founded Teach For Us in 2006. How did you get the idea for the site?
Adam Geller: I came up with the idea for Teach For Us when I started as a TFA corps member. People were encouraging me to send an update email about my experience in the corps, yet I knew that receiving email updates is somewhat annoying. In fact, the subject line I actually used for the email was "One of those annoying 'this is what I'm doing' emails." The people on the other end can't tell you that they don't want to read it anymore. Additionally, emails can only reach a limited, closed audience.
I was also sure that there were likely many other corps members who were trying to document and share their stories like I was. But there wasn’t really a place for those stories to exist, and there definitely wasn’t a place to share those stories together.
What were you trying to achieve when you started TFUs?
When our family moved to D.C., I had trouble at first finding the childcare situation I wanted. A friend told me about a small charter pre-school that accepted two-year-olds and practiced full inclusion, educating children with special needs within the general classroom. I’d only considered charters in the abstract before, but I jumped at the chance to sign Alan up for the school’s admissions lottery. I was convinced that this school would offer my typically developing two-and-a-half-year-old a more individualized educational experience.
Alan won a spot, and I was delighted to find a deeply committed principal and well-trained staff members. And so I took my son to his first day of school, and at the door to his new classroom, I met…a Teach For America alumna.
Alan and Ms. Laura, his TFA alum teacher. Photo courtsey of Heather Harding.
We believe education is the most pressing issue facing our nation. On Pass the Chalk, we'll share our takes on the issues of the day, join the online conversation about education, and tell stories from classrooms, schools, and communities around the nation.
Learn more about Teach For America.
We want to hear from you. If you have a question, a comment, or an idea, please get in touch »
The thoughts, ideas, and opinions expressed on Pass the Chalk are the responsibility of individual bloggers. Unless explicitly stated, blog posts do not represent the views of Teach For America as an organization.
TFA-Related Blogs
Admissions Blog
TeacherPop
Teach For Us
Elsewhere
City Year Blog
CNN: Schools of Thought
Eduwonk
Ed Week Blogs
Flypaper
Good: Education
Gotham Schools
The Hechinger Report
Huffington Post:Education
Impatient Optimists
KIPP Blog
KQED: Mind/Shift
New Schools Venture Fund Blog
New York Times: Schoolbook
Taking Note
Time: School of Thought
World Bank: EduTech
Copyright 2012 Teach For America, Inc. All rights reserved
Teach For America logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Teach For America, Inc.
Teach For America was named one of America's top 100 Ideal Employers in Universum's 2011 American Student Survey.
Teach For America was named one of Fortune magazine's top 100 employers to work for.
Teach For America thanks our National Partners for their generous support.
