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Bringing the world into classrooms

A teacher receives the Fund for Teachers fellowship in 2016.

Teachers get the experience of a lifetime exploring places like Egypt, Dubai, and the Great Wall of China to bridge the gap between the classroom and the outside world for their students.

Fund for Teachers Egypt

Kristin Pfeiffer and Kristen Raduzycki, 2017 Fund for Teachers fellows from Northeast Middle School in Kansas City, Missouri, standing in front of the Abu Simbel temples in Egypt. | Tumblr

Fund for Teachers Great Wall of China

Kayla Barnes, Michelle Aguirre-Hill, and Xi Wang, 2017 Fund for Teachers fellows from Foreign Language Academy in Kansas City, Missouri, at the Great Wall of China. | Tumblr

Each year, Fund for Teachers gives educators across the country the opportunity to plan the learning trip of their dreams. The Kauffman Foundation will host an information session at 5 p.m. Nov. 17, as applications for the 2018 Fund for Teachers fellowship are now open.

With their all-consuming classroom duties, teachers rarely get to take business trips or have professional development opportunities outside the walls of their schools.

This year, thanks to Fund for Teachers grants, 22 teachers in the Kansas City region experienced a piece of the world to bring back to their classrooms. By design, educators awarded fellowships are the directors of their journeys, deciding the place, learning objective and experience they want to have.

This fall, students of Kristin Pfeiffer and Kristen Raduzycki, teachers at Northeast Middle School in Kansas City, Missouri, got to learn geometry via their teachers’ experiences studying Egyptian architecture last summer.

In their blog documenting their trip to Egypt and Dubai, the teachers wrote: “While students are inclined to speculate why learning about geometric shapes is relevant to their lives, we’ve found that showing them real-world connections of the specific concepts they are learning demonstrates relevance and increases engagement and achievement.”

Through blogs, pictures, journals, and artifacts the educators bring back a window into other countries and cultures. A team of teachers from the Foreign Language Academy in Kansas City, Missouri – Kayla Barnes, Michelle Aguirre-Hill, and Xi Wang – traveled to the Great Wall of China and ended their blog with a powerful thought: “The Great Wall wasn’t built by machinery. It was built brick by brick and stone by stone by the people of China. Hopefully this helps us all remember to be great.”

2018 will open the door for new teachers in the Kansas City region to invest in their development and expose their students to an uncommon experience.

Register for a Fund for Teachers grant >

Explore the world with 2017 Fund for Teachers fellows >

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