5-Day Campaign Results:
Share a teacher’s story on social media:
Click on any teacher below. You’ll find easy ways to share at the bottom of each post!
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Benjamin Grignon
I was full-on ready to be a full-time artist. And then I was invited to be a teacher at a summer institute in Denver, through the Native American Youth Outreach Program. I think it was seeing those kids connect to our traditional arts — part of our cultural inheritance that they had little exposure to […]
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Ja’Rahn Leveston
My mom taught for 30 years. And after I went to grad school she said, ‘Why don’t you get some experience in the city schools?’ I did it, and I haven’t left. You get really attached to the work and the students, especially once you see them meet the standards that you help them set […]
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Jessica Lander
I have the honor and joy of teaching U.S. history and civics to recent immigrant and refugee students. My students come from more than 30 countries: from Colombia, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to Cambodia. Most of my students have been in the U.S. for less than five years.
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Margi Bhansali
I went to school to be a journalist. My financial aid package required that I take on a work-study job. So during my first year of school, I worked with Jumpstart, an AmeriCorps program where they put college kids in Title I preschools. As part of that job, I was an assistant to the teacher […]
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Tamika Fluker
I was working at The Bridge Home at St. Mary’s Women and Children’s Center. It’s a shelter for infants to 12-year-olds. If the Department of Child and Family Services pulled a kid from their home, we housed and counseled them. I started off as an overnight counselor and quickly moved up to daytime supervisor. Some […]
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“It’s hard to be what you can’t see.”
If our boys are in trouble, our society is in trouble. It’s hard to be what you can’t see.
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“The arts enhance every part of education.”
I’ve been told, “this student can’t read” or “they’re a non-reader.” But in my class, in my play, they’ve learned their lines. So I believe strongly: the arts enhance every part of education.
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“The classroom needs to be that space for dialogue.”
The fear in my mind of saying the wrong thing is a fear I have as a teacher constantly. And that scares me as an educator who constantly is trying to create positive dialogue that considers all sides of the debate.
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“This is my 9 to 5.”
I remember that Monday morning getting an email from our principal. We had lost a student. And I froze. I remember calling to the security guards, “Hey, watch my class.”
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“We’re not trying to do that anymore.”
I just love that she had that moment of feeling like a kid, and not feeling like she’s carrying anything… And hopefully she remembers that forever, ’cause I will.
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“When you see a teacher, it’s really a community.”
I’m originally from Atlanta, Georgia. Inner city, poverty-stricken area. My sister and I are first generation in our family to go to college and to get our advanced degrees.
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“Your calling is way beyond content.”
I think it was the first time that I realized how much impact teachers have. The experience that you give the learners in your classroom can change the paths that they walk for the rest of their lives.
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A high school trucking program
It was about the third classroom I walked into that I saw a distinct pattern. It was in the written instructions that the teacher would leave for me. It’s called the sub plans. And at the bottom of all the sub plans was always a list of students’ names. And above that list of names was a title. And that title said, “Problem students.”
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Amy Traynor
Early on in my career, I was more afraid of talking to parents. But I had a principal who said, ‘If you’re not calling them first with a positive, then when you call them with a negative, it’s going to be harder.’ So I tried to do that. And I have had great success with […]
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Ashley Kannan
I grew up in Oak Park in the 1980s. People were all about the melting pot. The idea was that everyone is the same and nobody looks different — we’re all part of this collective homogenous blob. One of the drawbacks to that was that I was never really seen. I remember this time in […]
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Dan Shutes
My junior year of high school, the varsity team had to coach a youth basketball team. It was a couple of practices a week and a couple of games throughout the month in wintertime. I remember how fun it was on Saturday mornings, just being around the kids. I vividly remember how they looked at […]
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Dana Guenterberg
In school, I was the quiet kid. My silence and my kindness were perceived as intelligence, and I just never stood out. I never really felt seen — and I needed to feel seen. I was pretty close with my brother. He ended up going to jail when I was in fourth grade. We were […]
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Diana Callope
I’m not sure what I would do if I weren’t teaching. Sometimes I think maybe architecture, because it’s math and I like design. But I have a memory from second grade, when they talked about jobs – things you want to do when you’re a grown-up – saying ‘I want to be a teacher.’ I […]
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Elliott Hile
I was the kid who was under the table with a fireman’s helmet on, covering his ears because he didn’t understand what people were saying. I would get frustrated all the time because I didn’t understand multiple syllable words. So in elementary school, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I wouldn’t have learned to adapt without […]
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Francis Pina
I was an econ major. I wanted to work at the Boston Federal Reserve and go to the London School of Economics. But I graduated in 2009, and there were no jobs available, due to the housing crisis and Great Recession. So I started working at a local public charter school. There was reinforcement coming […]
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Hot chocolate and parents as partners
In that moment, just sitting there enjoying that with them, I noticed that I was not doing those things as much in my last couple years of teaching. Because I was so exhausted. And those special moments that made me have this great connection with my students, those special moments that made me love my job, were not as frequent.
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My perspective as a parent — and as a teacher
I know as a parent that I know my kids really well. I know what their strengths are, I know what their weaknesses are, and I have the idea of what I want my kids to have as a part of my family. As a teacher, I know that teachers bring a very different perspective.
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On AI & human connection
One of the differences between learning from an AI program and learning with a teacher in a dialectical manner is that you don’t have that empathy, connection, dialogue. All of our kids have so much potential and deserve for someone to have high expectations of them and to help them improve and grow, whatever that means for them.
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On empathy for teenagers
Students have so many things that they have to do, both academically and non-academically, and I think it gets very easy for adults, whether they work in classrooms or not, to not have empathy for what students are going through developmentally, emotionally, academically.
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On parents communicating their joy
Parents are heard by the school administration… I would like to encourage parents to communicate their joy, not just their frustration.
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Pam Gresser
Teaching runs in my family. The bell was my grandma’s. She was the last teacher at a one room schoolhouse in Cold Spring, Wisconsin. Because she was the last teacher, they gave that bell to her. She wrote on that card that both her mother and her aunt also taught in that school. The picture […]
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Supporting incarcerated students
I’m a teacher for the Department of Education at Rikers Island. My background is 35 years in the construction trades and six years now with the DOE teaching incarcerated students.
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The power of language and the language of power
We had a discussion in class one day where we talked about code switching — where we talked about the power of language and the language of power. We talked about how the purpose for communication is to be understood, and if you’re doing that, you’re doing just fine.
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The room where it happens
When you remove your children from this arena, you are not only stopping them from hearing other points of view, but you are stopping others from hearing your child’s point of view.
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The school has to be a sanctuary
Because we don’t have art in our building, I actually have an easel and paint in the back of my classroom. The kids come in for breakfast, they see me painting.
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Why it’s impossible to only teach content
She told me that every single day, me making that effort to go talk to her was what kept her from harming herself. I just think about that kid. What if I hadn’t — what if I was so concerned with the content that I did not make the extra effort to make sure that she was okay?
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Why the social-emotional aspect of teaching is important
My connection with a student was able to save her life. I was her Business teacher. And there was a point where she was always in class, always participating. She was actually one of my best students. But during the course of the first year I had her, she started missing class.
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About this initiative:
#passthe🎤 is a Teachers in Their Power campaign in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week.
Passing the mic is one of the best ways to support teachers and their students. Educators have a deep understanding of what’s happening in our schools, but they don’t always have the chance to be heard. By intentionally elevating the voices of teachers, we create spaces where teachers can share their experiences as professionals and as advocates for children.
Passing the mic can also help address inequities that exist in our education system. Teachers from all different backgrounds offer valuable perspectives. By amplifying their voices, we draw attention to the unique challenges of communities across the country — as well as possible solutions.
Did you know?
- Teachers and principals have 2x the stress rates of the general working adult population. (RAND 2022)
- Over half of American teachers plan to leave education earlier than they had planned. (NEA 2022)
- Although 94% of teachers believe they can make a difference in this world, only 60% feel confident voicing their opinions and concerns. Only 54% feel they have a voice in decision making at school. (Quaglia survey of 30,000 teachers)
You can learn more about Teachers in Their Power by reading the About page or browsing the FAQ.
As always, you can nominate a teacher or volunteer here.