Education United States Project #624

Investing in Teachers to Transform Schools

by Center for Inspired Teaching

Project Report | Dec 26, 2019
Making Learning Joyfully Rigorous for Students

By Aleta Margolis | Founder and President

Students in Inspired Teaching's Speak Truth

Since 1995, Center for Inspired Teaching has been teaching teachers – and their students - how to engage respectfully in powerful conversations.

Through our program Speak Truth, high school students from public, charter, and private schools across the Washington, DC region engage in honest and respectful discussion about contemporary social issues. In 2019, students took on dozens of topics, including the New Green Deal; the psychological aftermath of surviving school shootings; the pros and cons of regulating social media; the college admissions scandal; and how to raise boys.

Through Inspired Teaching's transformative professional development programs, preK-12 teachers engage in their own powerful discussions on topics ranging from how to see the best in every student to balancing rigor and joy in the classroom.

Integrity, civil discourse, and empathy have been at the core of Inspired Teaching’s work for nearly a quarter century. We believe school is the place where young people must learn these skills so they can be active and thoughtful participants in our democratic society.

And yet so many students still endure a school experience that prizes compliance and teaches them to absorb material, instead of allowing them to grapple with meaningful issues and engage authentically in learning. This problem is pervasive, particularly in schools in low income communities, where research shows students are even more likely to experience instruction that prizes compliance over engagement.

Whether you have supported Inspired Teaching for years, or are investing in us for the first time, thank you. We need you, our friends and co-conspirators, to keep us strong as we continue to invest in teachers and students toward our goal of creating systemic change.

We look forward to the day when all children learn to think critically, engage honestly and respectfully, and learn joyfully every single day in every single school.

Thank you!

Students in Inspired Teaching's Speak Truth

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