Fund for Teachers - The Podcast

Internationally renowned environmentalist Jane Goodall said, "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

In 2015, Barbara Dalio decided she wanted to make a difference for teachers. Connecticut teachers, specifically. Based on the formative role teachers played in the lives of her three sons, Barbara chose to invest in her home state’s educators as a means of also impacting its students. 

The vehicle she chose to make this happen was Fund for Teachers.

Six years later, more than 1,125 preK-12 teachers have leveraged $4.7 million in Fund for Teachers grants, provided through Dalio Education, to transform the educational landscape of Connecticut.

One week ago, Fund for Teachers hosted a dinner that convened many of Connecticut’s 2024 grant recipients, or FFT Fellows, for an evening of inspiration and encouragement provided by 10 teachers who presented about their fellowships last summer.

We couldn’t resist the opportunity to pull a few away from the cohort for brief visits about their learning — and their advice for teachers pursuing 2025 Fund for Teachers grants.

Show notes:
National Webinar - November 20 Registration
Teachers of Color Workshop Registration
Rural Teachers Workshop Registration

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress

Welcome to our fifth season of Fund for Teachers: The Podcast. We launched this platform (after buying and annotating the book “Podcasts for Dummies”) when Covid shut down schools (and everything else) because we wanted to stay in touch with our grant recipients and support the stalwart work they were undertaking as our students first responders. 

Forty-seven episodes later, we continue to welcome Fellows as our special guests to learn about their fellowships and how they are leveraging these grants into growth for themselves, their students and school communities.

Today’s episode kicks of our 2025 grant cycle and marks a first for us — two FFT Fellows join the conversation. This summer, by happy coincidence, Jaime Kerns (on fellowship in the Canary Islands) and Jasmine Adams (on fellowship in Johannesburg) and I (in East Texas) confused our time zones and found ourselves on the same call at the same time. The result: a conversation grounded in how their cultural heritage informed their fellowship design that now impacts their students’ education. 

Along the way, they also share advice for teachers considering applying for a 2025 fellowship grant (“just do it”) and tips for writing a winning proposal (“follow your passion”).

Show Notes:

Jasmine Adams teaches at Drew Charter Elementary Academy in Atlanta and this summer used a $5,000 Fund for Teachers grant to conduct a comparative analysis of Civil Rights activism in both the American South and South Africa, analyzing tactics employed by communities to promote equality for marginalized groups, to empower students with a profound understanding of the progress and ongoing struggle for equity via a civic action project integrating art. You can access Jasmine's post-fellowship report here.

A three-time FFT Fellow, Jaime Kerns teaches at Lookout Valley Middle/High School in Chattanooga and this summer used a $5,000 grant to embark on a cultural and linguistic journey across Morocco and the Canary Islands to deepen personal understanding of influences on Hispanic heritage shared by a growing percentage of her students. You can access Jaime's post-fellowship report here.

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress

Teaching is a family business for this mother and daughter. When Daneé Pinckney was a student, her mom, Gail Bowers-Craig, enrolled in night school to earn a degree in education. In fact, Daneé says much of what she learned about teaching was from watching and listening to her mother in those years of study. It was Daneé, however, who blazed the Fund for Teachers trail. 

Last summer, Daneé used her $5,000 grant to research the ancestry of Black America through Benin, Ghana, and the Togolese Republic to produce an expansion of the depth of knowledge of Western Africa that also strives to dismantle discriminatory perspectives that will deepen student connections to literature, art, culture, and self-identity. Along for the ride, and on her dime, was Gail – who used the time to do a little of her own research for her middle school science students. 

Upon returning to Ohio, where they live and teach 30 minutes apart from each other, Gail decided to follow the example set by Daneé and apply for her own Fund for Teachers grant. And this summer, with Daneé as her “plus one,” Gail and two teammates from Euclid Middle School in Euclid, OH, will explore the Galapagos Islands in the tradition of Charles Darwin to tangibly demonstrate for students how science is valuable in shaping community and deepening the understanding of ourselves and the people around us.

Today, we’re learning from this mother/daughter team about who inspires whom, how, and lessons they’ve learned from years together at home and at school.

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress

Virigina Hall studied at Radcliffe College and Barnard College (the women’s colleges of Harvard and Columbia) and spoke three languages. She served as a consular clerk in Poland and Turkey, where a hunting accident required an amputation below the knee.

Noor Inayat Kahn studied child psychology at the Sorbonne and music at the Paris Conservatory. The daughter of Sufi Muslims, she was described as quiet, shy, sensitive, and dreamy.

Josephine Baker was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress and the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture. She was a school drop out who ascended to international stardom in France and befriended the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso.

A studious amputee, a shy artist, and a flamboyant entertainer. Who also happened to be secret agents during World War II and integral to the Resistance movement against the Axis powers. Could these women, who confronted sexism, ableism, racism, who refused to speak under Nazi interrogation and bamboozled German officials while extracting secrets also convince West Texas high school students that history is not about “the dead, old and irrelevant.” It was a mission two teachers chose to accept when they also accepted a $10,000 Fund for Teachers grant.

Today we’re learning from Renee Parson and Cory Cason, history teachers at Alpine High School in Alpine, Texas, set in the high plateau of the Chihuahuan Desert between the Glass and Davis Mountain Ranges. When not in adjoining classrooms, these women are coaching track and field, sponsoring History Club and supporting students involved in Future Farmers of America and UIL academic contests, among other activities. While the small school environment is rich with opportunities, exposure to the world beyond Brewster County – not so much. Cory and Renee leveraged their interest in female spies to craft a fellowship that researched Virginia Hall, Noor Inayat Khan and Josephine Baker throughout Europe to expand students’ mindset of what can be accomplished when ordinary people employ the courage to defy rigid societal norms in the name of humanity and justice.

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress

A 2022 piece by National Public Radio cited Anne Frank as “the most famous young author of all time,” as her diary, translated into more than 65 languages, is one of the most widely read books in the world. One such reader was Nikia Garland. Now a 24-year veteran teacher at Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, she was once a sixth grader at nearby Farrington Elementary Shool where she picked up the autobiography – never thinking that Anne wouldn’t survive. That surprising conclusion would inform Nikia’s future – rooted in education and social justice.

Today we’re learning from Nikia Garland, a native Indianan who earned both an undergraduate and master’s degree from Indiana University and currently teaches British Literature and AP Language and Composition. She has taught a wide range of secondary and college-level classes in the U.S. and internationally. In addition to being a Fund for Teachers Fellow, Nikia is a Terry Fear Holocaust Educator in Action recipient, a Mark Schonwetter Holocaust Education Foundation grant recipient, a Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellow, and a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow. In all of her free time, she is a chair for the Indiana Teachers of Writing conference,  president-elect for the Indiana affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of English – and mother of two sons.

When seeking resources to support her Holocaust unit, Nikia realized that Indiana had a Holocaust Museum, founded by Auschwitz survivor Eva Kor. She ALSO found Fund for Teachers through a Google search and, last summer, used a $5,000 grant to document historical sites in Germany and Poland related to the novels The Book Thief and My Forgiveness, My Justice to expand student comprehension of significant events in world history and inspire them as social justice advocates and global citizens.

We caught up with Nikia two days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day (also commemorated in Indiana as Eva Kor Education Day), to hear about the learning she experienced and why feels it was vital for her students…

After listening, read Nikia's article “A visit to Auschwitz changed how I teach about the Holocaust" published by Chalkbeat Indiana on Friday, January 26th. 

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress

Spotify annually sends out its wrap up of your listening habits for the year and Fund for Teachers received a similar one for our podcast. The most downloaded podcast of our year was with today's guest. Stephanie Ascherl is our chief of staff and has been a program officer, as well. Because that episode was SO popular, we're bringing Stephanie back for another edition of "Tips you need to know when completing your grant application." We wanted to produce this podcast at this time as teachers are winding up their chaotic end-of-semester programs and concerts and grading -- going into the winter holiday when they might have some time, after they catch their breath, to revisit their grant proposals and focus a little on themselves, what they want to learn and how they want to help their students.

The deadline for submission is January 18, at 5p CT. Access the online application at fft.fundforteachers.org, as well as our Online Learning Center and the recording of a national webinar (with ASL interpreter) for more information. The 2024 FFT Fellow cohort will be announced on April 4, 2024. Good luck!

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress

Lhisa Almashy has amassed many accomplishments in her 28-year career teaching English as a Second Language (or ESOL): a master’s degree in education from the University of San Francisco; a doctorate in Leadership and Learning In Organizations from Vanderbilt; award member from and board member of Learning for Justice, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education for the State of Florida and Hispanic Teacher of the Year Award for Palm Beach County among them. 

But an accomplishment one won’t find on Lhisa’s LinkedIn is the fact that she’s the reason Andover High School in Bloomfield Hills, MI, instituted In School Suspension. 

What changed Lhisa’s trajectory from not being permitted to graduate high school due to a 1.2 GPA to talking with me from her Fund for Teachers fellowship in Vietnam this summer? A teacher of course…

Today we’re learning from Dr. Lhisa Almashy – veteran teacher at Dr. Joaquin Garcia High School in Lake Worth, FL. Her passionate and engaging teaching style has earned her local, state, and national recognition. She believes that building relationships is key to fostering success and a sense of belonging. After not receiving a Fund for Teachers grant on her first try, Lhisa became a 2023 FFT Fellow and used a $5,000 grant to complete homestays throughout Vietnam to improve linguistic awareness and cultural competency and, subsequently, support her increasing number of English Language Learners from this country.

I caught up with Lhisa while on her fellowship last summer, and – frankly – it took me this long to synthesize our 90-minute conversation, filled with laughter and tales of poignant encounters, to create this episode. But throughout the editing process, I was reminded of the intrepid nature Fellows share and the vital role Fund for Teachers grants play in keeping them curious, inspired and in the classroom. 

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress

When preparing to interview Fellows for this podcast, I’ll do a little research to provide listeners with some context. Usually, that Google search yields LinkedIn accounts, local media coverage, and sometimes statistics from high school glory days. With today’s guest, I ended up on IMDB -- an online database of information related to films, television series, and streaming content online.

My curiosity was piqued.

Today we’re learning from Gabe Staino – who has taught for 12 years, both internationally and in the States. But before that, he was childhood friends with Chris Raab,  also known as Raab Himself -- a member of CKY crew featured in the MTV series Viva La Bam and Jackass.  Gabe and Chris roomed together and graduated from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. Afterwards, lure of Hollywood trumped law school for Gabe, who instead experienced the MTV life with his buddy, toured Europe with the CKY band, and then, with Raab, co-wrote, co-produced and starred in the film Borrowed Happiness (thus the IMDB page). 

Soon after, Gabe took the advice of a college advisor and turned to teaching, for the past decade that's been at Atlantic County Institute of Technology  in Mays Landing, NJ – where he  teaches US History, an African American History elective, coaches the mock trial team he founded a decade ago, and is a member of the Global Leadership Professional Learning Community. In addition to film credits, Gabe also earned two graduate degrees – one in Secondary Education for History/Social Studies from Stockton University and a Masters in History with a Global Concentration from Arizona State. 

I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with Gabe from Tanzania after just leaving Ethiopia where he researched Ethiopia's ancient and modern history and culture to more effectively teach about this only African nation never successfully colonized by a European power…

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress

Iceland is known as the Land of Fire and Ice, the most peaceful country in the world 15 years running, and – unfortunately for Big Mac fans – has zero McDonald’s. And, this year, it’s the fellowship destination for seven Fund for Teachers Fellows. Ranging in topic from sustainability and geothermal energy to yoga and elves, grant recipients from Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, and Virginia will learn within the Arctic Circle this summer. 

Before Fellows begin embarking on their experiential learning, we connect them with other grant recipients who plan to be in the same region or conference. Just this week on our Instagram we shared photos of Fellows meeting up in Egypt, Dallas, Guatemala and Salamanca. However, a driving rain in Reykjavik (and five layers of coats) prevented two Fellows from recognizing each other this week. When one posted a picture, we spotted them both and reached out to coordinate a call and compare notes. And for the next hour, we finagled enough Wifi to enjoy a fascinating conversation with about divergent experiences and intended impact from these exemplary educators. Editing it down was a struggle.

Today we’re learning from Laura Nunn, teacher at Patrick Henry Elementary and Instructional Support Leader for Chicago Public Schools, and Frances Rivera, teacher at Ernie Pyle Elementary School in Indianapolis. Frances is in Iceland exploring issues of global warming, biological and cultural conservation, and sustainable development, to develop tools for teaching these issues in a Dual Language classroom. While Laura is there studying the folklore of elves and fairies said to inhabit and protect the Subarctic'snatural landforms and attending the Reykjavik Elf School, then walking sacred sites with scientists and storytellers. She plans to build a cross-curricular unit on what value stories have and how nature impacts the stories we tell.

For three years, I’ve started this podcast in the same way with the same question: Why did you become a teacher? This time, the three of us were so excited to connect that we didn’t get around to this question for a bit – but their answers are worth the wait…

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress

Then the pandemic happened. And that was just the beginning of the ordeal resulting in his distinction as our final 2022 FFT Fellow who completed their fellowship – in April. But his journey was worth the wait.

* Click here to watch Joey's interviews with his Community Based Instruction students at Deer Valley High School in Antioch, CA. 

Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.

Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress