#TeachStrong.... I admit that I had my wonderings about what this campaign was really about. Did it have a certain political agenda? Would we be pulled into a group that would try to get us to side with them? Were we going to be asked to sign up to support a certain political candidate? When I got the email that said I was chosen as one of the 90 ambassadors from around the Nation I decided I would not get answers until I went and saw for myself. WOW, was I thrilled by what I saw and experienced. I can truly say the only agenda they have is to modernize and elevate the teaching profession! They are the real deal.....
TeachStrong Ambassador Convening March 5th, 2016
In the morning, I headed down to the conference floor where registration and breakfast awaited us as we gathered from all over the nation. One of the fun perks for us was the opportunity for head shots in front of the #TeachStrong backdrop. I feel that I was not the only one who was curious to find out more about this seemingly "too good to be true" campaign.
We started the day with a welcome and introduction to TeachStrong. We heard that as Ambassadors, we represent 27 different states and the District of Columbia. Some of us are first-year teachers and some of us have taught for decades. We are current classroom teachers, deans, principals, curriculum designers, instructional coaches, and librarians. We were given the chance to discuss the TeachStrong policy proposals and learn how we can elevate our experience in the classroom to drive change. Imagine what it would mean to us and our students if we, as a country, prioritized improving the systems designed to support teachers?
Goals for the Ambassador Program
- We want to ensure that educators have a role in shaping the shared vision of the TeachStrong campaign.
- We want you to be empowered to use your stories to inspire your communities to action.
- We want you to have the tools you need to engage with other educators and policymakers in the effort to make modernizing and elevating the teaching profession the top education policy for 2016.
By 8:45 we were moving into Telling Your Story~ We heard from Kyle Schwartz, 3rd Grade Teacher, Denver Public Schools-Caroline Gonzalez Scott, Director, Regional Leadership Development, Leadership for Educational Equity & Alexandra Fuentes, 9th Grade Biology/ELL Teacher, Alexandria City Public Schools.
We heard their stories of being educators in today's system.
We heard their stories of being educators in today's system.
After listening to these inspiring stories and having a break, we then moved on to listen to Lisette Partelow , Director of Teacher Policy, Center for American Progress talk on "From Principles to Policies". We heard more in depth about the 9 principles of TeachStrong and the path we will be part of to suggest policy change.
We were able to share how and why we became ambassadors and also what questions we still had among other thoughts during a whole group museum walk~
The next step was where we got to work delving into the different principles of TeachStrong. We each were able to pick our top 3 of interest and gathered into groups to hold policy workshops. I picked Career Pathways, Professional Development and Time, Tools and Support. We discussed and talked about our ideas and gathered them on a google document to share with the organizers of TeachStrong. It was an amazing sight to see the room packed with educators sharing their passion and expertise.
We broke for a delicious lunch and some informal sharing of where we came from and the schools we called our own~