Investing in Teachers to Transform Schools

The first few months of the 2025-2026 school year have flown by!

Here in Washington, DC, this time has been one of mixed emotions for teachers and students: Enthusiasm and excitement for the learning on the horizon and uncertainty and anxiety around external events impacting our community, like the increased presence of armed law enforcement and ongoing government volatility.

And this is why Inspired Teaching is more important than ever.

Inspired Teaching has dedicated 30 years to supporting teachers in the Washington, DC region—and around the world—in embracing uncertainty, fostering curiosity, and adopting an improvisational mindset.

This fall, we are:

• Providing more than 30 hours of in-classroom support and monthly professional development workshops to our Teaching with Improvisation Fellows and their colleagues at dozens of schools across Washington, DC and Virginia.
• Demonstrating the Inspired Teach Approach through citywide and national Speak Truth seminars and regular programming at partner schools, where students are learning how to lead respectful dialogue on difficult topics and connect those topics to real-world action in their neighborhoods.
• Delivering weekly resources for sparking curiosity to people around the world as we continue our mission of making curiosity the word of the year through our Curiosity Challenge.
• Creating excitement and enthusiasm for learning, and offering tools for effecting change in our classrooms, communities, and the larger world in the weekly Hooray For Monday newsletter and podcast.
• and much more!

Links:

• Inspired Teaching's Curiosity Challenge

This season marks 30 years of Center for Inspired Teaching.

From the very first Institute of 1996to the 2025-2026 Teaching with Improvisation Fellowship that kicked off in June, and the many hundreds of professional learning programs in between, it is a joy to have reached so many committed, curious educators in the last 30 years.

And in reconnecting with some of those educators—check out recent issues of Hooray For Monday featuring Inspired Teachers from a 2011 Institute—we’ve been reminded of the many thousands of students who have benefited from the Inspired Teaching Approach. That’s why we have done this work for three decades—and plan to continue for another 30 years!

Here’s what we’ve been up to at Inspired Teaching:

• The Teaching With Improvisation Fellowship is a yearlong learning experience for teachers grounded in the art of improvisation and the 5 Core Elements that lead to an engagement-rich classroom. The Fellowship kicks off with a summer Institute in Washington, DC each June. Fellows study the Inspired Teaching Approach, learning to integrate an improvisational mindset into instruction, and collecting an array of tools and resources. During the school year, Fellows lead professional development for their colleagues and receive extensive in-classroom support from Inspired Teaching experts. We’re excited to work with this year’s cohort!
• In SY 25-26 we’ll continue our partnership with Rappahannock County Schools in rural Virginia. We’ve selected a group of high-performing teachers to serve as the district’s Inspired Teaching Support Team. They are leading district-wide professional development, teaching their colleagues about the 5 Rules of Inspired Teaching Improv, the ABCDEs of Learner Needs, and much more, toward the goal of fueling curiosity and increasing student engagement district-wide. Stay tuned for updates on their progress throughout the year.
• As we prepare for the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, we’re excited to continue creating space for young people to connect and communicate with one another through ongoing partnerships with 3 DC high schools—EL Haynes, Eastern, and Capital City—as well as new partnerships in New Orleans, Louisiana and Rappahannock County, Virginia. Students tackle current, complex, and controversial topics, such as lowering the voting age, school safety, criminal justice reform, and student well-being, with curiosity and respect for one another, in each Speak Truth seminar.

Links:

• http://www.inspiredteaching.org