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Member News -- March 21, 2017
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What Positions Should NNSTOY take on Federal Education Policy?
2017 Federal Policy Survey
Taking this survey allows State Teachers of the Year and Finalists to weigh in on NNSTOY's policy positions. Your responses help determine what federal policy issues NNSTOY should focus on and what we should say as we advocate for policies that benefit our students and our profession.
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NNSTOY Conference Update
Highlights
Our fifth conference agenda is getting quite full as we build out plans to gather this summer to strengthen our teacher leadership. We are carefully curating events designed to build our practice, advocate for students and the profession, and influence policy.
Visit our
conference webpage to sign up for up-to-the minute reminders. There you can
sign up for our Day on the Hill July 19 and
reserve a table to promote your latest book.
Use
#NNSTOY17
and
@NNSTOY
to talk about the conference on social media. The webpage URL is:
http://www.nnstoy.org/nc2017/
Book your hotel room. (Think about staying overnight July 19 if you are attending our Day on the Hill. Hill Day activities end around 6:00 PM.)
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What We Are Reading
Interesting and emerging ideas about education from around the country
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Washington Update
Jane West
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New Ways to Engage
Plug into teacher leadership outside of your school.
Submit an idea for Teach to Lead - Columbus, Ohio.
The 12th Teach to Lead Summit will be held in Columbus May 5-7. The focus of the summit is "Innovation through Teacher Leadership." Learn more and submit an application, due March 30.
Nominate your principal for the Rohatyn Prize.
The application process is now open for the $25,000 prize that goes to the principal of a "school that advances opportunities for students by positioning teachers to lead, learn, and thrive." The prize focuses on programs that reflect and help create a modern teaching profession. Examples include initiatives that have fueled collaboration, established mentorships, or strengthened "intervisitation." Applications close May 12..
Apply for an SEL grant.
Education First seeks applications for teacher-led projects that foster social-emotional skills in students in grades PK-12. Their Innovation in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Awards will grant up to $5,000 to individual teachers or groups of teachers to implement the project in their classrooms and schools in the 2017-18 school year. Awardees will also have the opportunity to present their work to a group of national SEL practitioners, experts and advocates at a convening in October 2017. Learn more and download an application, deadline April 21.
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New & Noteworthy
Tools and opportunities to support #TeachersLeading
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Kudos, Shout-Outs & Accolades*
News from the NNSTOY community
Mike Soskil's (Pennsylvania 2017) article "Teacher of year urges educators to speak up" was published by the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Soskil writes, "Too often we have let others tell the narrative of teaching. We must each use our voices to take that narrative back."
Brian Curtin
(Illinois 2013) and Justin Minkel (Arkansas 2007) are currently involved with the Center for Teaching Quality and their 2017 blogging strategy. Curtin leads a March/April roundtable blog around "Collective Leadership." Check out the opening blog by Kris Kohl or join the Twitter conversation about these teasers (#teachingquality #CTQCollab):
- How can education move beyond rockstar teachers to collective leadership that elevates the profession?
- #holacracy: distributed authority via self-organized teams, not traditional hierarchies -- can it work in schools?
- Do strong education leaders enhance or diminish collective leadership?
- Rockstar teachers have unsustainable instructional and leadership loads. Can collective leadership help?
Shanna Peeples
(National and Texas 2015) published "What if we are designing for disengagement?" Peeples cites the work of Rolf Faste, writing, "His work centered on the core principle that design affects the behaviors and experiences of the user. Considering everything from a user's perspective not only helps us become more sensitive to people and cultures, it allows us to create meaning for users."
A number of NNSTOY members, including Brett Bigham (Oregon 2014) participated in an ECET2 meeting in Oregon March 14. Check out the pictures on Facebook!
Kristen Lum Brummel (2011), Chad Miller (2012), Catherine Caine (finalist for Nationl Teacher of the Year 2015) and Stephanie Mew (2016) recently began organizaing to begin a state NNSTOY chapter in Hawai'i.
Curtis Chandler's
(Kansas 2011))article "Ideas to Tap Emotions in Middle School Learners" was published on Middle Web. Chandler writes that successful teachers "realize the impact of students' emotional state - or affective domain - on academic success. How a student feels towards what is being taught and what they are asked to do works either a catalyst or deterrent to learning."
Using his usual low-key and beat-around-the-bushes style,
Tom Rademacher (Minnesota 2015) posted to his blog an called, "
Hey, Principals, You Are Screwing Up!"
Rademacher writes, "Principals: If you lose good teachers from your building at the end of this year, then you are screwing up. Principals, If people are leaving a profession that no one enters without passion, that no one enters expecting to be easy, you are not doing your job. Principals, every teacher that walks away from the kids in your your building and is thinking of your face is your fault."
Justin Minkel's
(Arkansas 2007) article "A Teacher's Pursuit of Imperfection" was published in EdWeek. Minkel writes, "The mistakes [in the classroom] are part of the joy. The sloppiness is part of the humanity. A classroom should be a messy, vibrant place where the unexpected is woven into the fabric of each day, where slips, stumbles, and blunders abound-along with moments of grace and the unpredictable brilliance of children."
*Send us your scoop!
If you have professional information to share in
Member News,
please connect with laurie@nnstoy.org.
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Fordham Institute,