Stories From Educators

Educators share experiences and innovations.

Pause, Breathe, Draw: Art and Consciousness in the Classroom

posted Apr 18, 2014

As a young girl, Elizabeth Traina had a teacher tell her that she wasn’t an artist. Now she helps empower teachers and students through the belief that we are all artists. This is Elizabeth’s story.

My Love Affair with Breadfruit (And Other Stories from the Waiʻanae Youth Garden)

posted Feb 17, 2014

Tasia Yamamura is a FoodCorps service member on the beautiful Waiʻanae coast of Oahu, Hawai'i. To combat diabetes and heart disease, she is teaching young people how to grow and prepare real, healthy foods.

Fresh and Fly: Denver Rapper Teaches Kids to Be Gardeners Not Gangstas

posted Jan 28, 2014

For Ietef "DJ Cavem" Vita, HIP HOP is not just a form of music, it's a way of life—one he's using to teach kids about cultivating the earth and eating fresh veggies.

Art for the Sky

posted Nov 18, 2013

Daniel Dancer's Art For the Sky is a unique, team building activity for schools and special events that helps dissolve boundaries that often exist in our daily lives. These enchanting creations are a whole-body way of stimulating our imagination to see the elusive "big picture" and help us understand our interconnection with one another and all life.

And the Next Day, I Teach

posted Oct 21, 2013

What calls Aletha Fields, English teacher at Iroquois High School in Louisville, Kentucky, to continue to teach each and every day? Friends, family, mentors, students, faith, and care for one's self.

Fried Onions, Feather Beds, and Intro to Chinese

posted Apr 15, 2013

Here's a typical day at Brooklyn Free School.

Free to Be Me

by Gia Rae Winsryg-Ulmer

posted Apr 15, 2013

Gia Rae Winsryg-Ulmer knew she found her place to teach when she walked through the doors of Brooklyn Free School three years ago. See how Gia and BFS honor children's rights to be themselves and become the happy, healthy, and independent thinking people they are meant to be. This is Gia's Story.

How Does Nature Do That?

by Margo Farnsworth

posted Feb 01, 2013

Former park ranger-turned-professor Margo Farnsworth believes that biomimicry is one of the most important new tools for sustainability. It gets her students outside and unleashes their scientific and entrepreneurial minds.

Permaculture Helps Us Remember Who We Are

by Lilian Hill

posted Dec 19, 2012

Lilian Hill has a vision that the next generation of Hopi people will be healthy and find solutions to the challenges they face. Through Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture, she reconnects Hopi people of all ages to traditional farming and ecological wisdom.

Putting Teen Health First

by Judy Pruim

posted Oct 11, 2012

Judy Pruim's candid story takes you behind the scenes of Muskegon High's Teen Health Center—a place where students feel safe, and their success and well being are supported.

Go Local! Learning In and Outside the Classroom

by Sarah Anderson

posted Sep 17, 2012

Sarah Anderson writes of her unexpected journey of becoming a teacher and how place-based education has helped her empower her students and strengthen democracy in her community.

Changing the Course of Dyslexia

by Bob Broudo

posted May 02, 2012

President and headmaster Bob Broudo of Landmark School passionately believes that we have a civic responsibility to help students with language-based learning disabilities discover who they are as learners and how they can learn.

My Greatest Teaching Moment

by Jesse Hagopian

posted Mar 14, 2012

High school history teacher Jesse Hagopian celebrates the moment when his students started making their own history.

When You Tell Them My Story, Please Mention That I Like Flaming Hot Cheetos

posted Dec 21, 2011

What happens when students are given the honor and onus of writing a complete stranger's story in poetry form? Middle school students from rural and urban Oregon took the risk, transforming preconceived notions—from gangs to trailer trash, stuck up rich people to redneck hicks— into bridges.

Weathering Walker's Storm: Staying Positive in Wisconsin

by Jean Abreu

posted Oct 25, 2011

Jean Abreu talks candidly about Wisconsin Governor Walker's legislation, and how her school community in Wisconsin pulled together to protect what they worked so hard to create.