• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts

The Educators Room logo

  • Start Here
    • Impact Statements: Teacher Expertise
    • Newsletter
  • Browse Topics
    • Content Strategies
      • Literacy
      • Mathematics
      • Social Studies
      • Educational Technology
      • ELL & ESOL
      • Fine Arts
      • Special Education
      • Popular Topics
        • Teacher Self-Care
        • Instructional Coach Files
        • Common Core
        • The Traveling Teacher
        • The Unemployed Teacher
        • The New Teacher Chronicles
        • Book Review
        • Grade Levels
          • Elementary (K-5)
          • Middle (6-8)
          • Adult
          • New Teacher Bootcamp
          • Hot Button Topics
            • Menu Item
              • Principals' Corner
              • Charter Schools
              • Confessions of a Teacher
              • Interviews
              • The State of Education
              • Stellar Educator of the Week
            • Menu
              • How to Fix Education
              • Featured
              • Ask a Teacher
              • Teacher Branding
              • Current Events
  • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout- An 8 Week Course
    • Becoming An Educational Consultant
    • Teacher Branding 101:Teachers are The Experts
    • The Learning Academy
    • Books
    • Shirts
  • Education in Atlanta
  • Teacher Self-Care
  • The Coach's Academy
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts
×

July 17, 2015 Current Events in Education

Melinda Gates: “We Must Celebrate Teachers”

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Cari Zall

Cari Zall has been a Social Sciences educator for over 12 years, in both brick & mortar and online environments. She currently works as the Curriculum and Instructional Support Manager for an online high school dropout recovery program, and is the Assignment Editor and a writer for The Educator’s Room, an online education magazine. Cari is certified in Gamification and has worked on several projects incorporating Gamification into online and traditional education environments. Her areas of expertise include Gamification and Student Resilience & Motivation; Conflict Resolution & Collaboration, and social justice education. Prior to her teaching career, Cari worked for 15 years in civil litigation and as a human rights activist in Northern Ireland and Washington, DC. She holds a BA in Conflict Analysis & Resolution, an Masters in Teaching, and an MA in Political Science. Cari is a James Madison Fellow, and is the author of the book, How to Finish the Test When Your Pencil Breaks: A Teacher Faces Layoff, Unemployment and a Career Shift. You can finder her on twitter at @teachacari.
  • Students: The Original American Revolutionaries - February 21, 2018
  • The Case of the Shrinking Education Department - November 12, 2017
  • We Must Teach the Worst of our History; Not Glorify It - August 14, 2017
  • Transgender Student Rights are Human Rights - February 23, 2017
  • Why "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" Still Matters in 2017 - January 16, 2017
  • No Right to an Education: Detroit Schools and the Secretary of Education Nominee - November 29, 2016
  • I Think I Failed You - A Civics Teacher's Letter to her Former Students - November 16, 2016
  • Transforming the 'Trump Effect' in Schools - October 27, 2016
  • Implicit Bias: The Missed Post-Debate Discussion - October 4, 2016
  • 15 Years after 9/11: Days of Infamy & Memory as History - September 12, 2016

 

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"]

Melinda Gates & Vicki Phillips of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, chatting about teachers as leaders at ECET2 2015

Melinda Gates & Vicki Phillips of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, chatting about teachers as leaders at ECET2 2015

I have been very privileged this week to attend the national Elevating & Celebrating Effective Teaching & Teachers (ECET2 – pronounced “eeset two”) Conference. I have been inspired and rejuvenated by my various collaborative experiences with my fellow educators from around the country.  But the 450 of us had a surprise treat at our morning general session on Thursday, when Melinda Gates sat down and chatted with us about teachers leading the way in education.

ECET2 evolved out of an idea from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that there should be an opportunity for teachers to gather and simply elevate and celebrate each other’s work. From that first ECET2 gathering only about three years ago, the teachers who attended went back to their home states and instigated local, regional, and statewide ECET2 gatherings. The energetic and organic expansion of the idea was unexpected but continues to be supported by the Foundation. The entire point is to gather together to celebrate effective teaching and teachers, and foster teacher leadership through collaboration.

Melinda Gates spent an hour with the attendees, participating in a chat with Vicki Phillips, the Director of Education, College Ready in the U.S. at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates began by describing her own education experience growing up in Texas and pursuing computer science as a woman in the 1980s. When asked why the Foundation focuses on education, she replied that she and Bill “firmly believe that all lives have value, and we get frustrated that the world doesn’t behave that way.” They call themselves “impatient optimists,” and wanted to focus the Foundation where that value is most meaningful. Worldwide, that meant heath issues. In the United States, that meant education:

“If you look at the potential of our nation, it comes down to the education of our children.” “But,” she continued, “the national conversation about education and teaching is so discouraging. I think that is unfair because pliticians think about what can be done to teachers and classrooms, when it is teachers who know what is best. Teachers need to be seen as leaders.”

Melinda Gates spends hundreds of hours in classrooms, and has done so for years. She talked about a variety of visits she and her husband have made to schools over the years, and then discussed how the Foundation arrived at its current focus on elevating teachers. “We are learners too – when we started, we thought the answer was small schools. But what we discovered was that while in many cases small schools did help – it truly was the quality of teacher that made the difference for student success. So we pivoted from school size to teacher support.”

Gates listed the three issues the Foundation hears most from teachers:
1. The incessant crunch for time teachers experience;

2. How teachers feel so isolated and siloed in their classrooms; and

3. Poverty - and how incredibly difficult it is to teach in schools and communities of poverty.

So the Foundation now asks: “how can professional development be relevant for teachers facing these issues?” Gates related how new experiments in teacher support are being piloted in Fresno, CA and Bridgeport, CT, where teachers get release time on Fridays to use for collaboration and planning while their classes are taught by the same “Friday teacher” each week. The “Friday teacher” works closely with the classroom teacher to create a supportive learning environment each week for the students that does not disrupt the class direction. Meanwhile, the classroom teacher has the opportunity to use that time to truly professionally develop his or her own practice. Rethinking professional development as collaborative time within the current schedule is the challenge being met with these experiments.

I deeply appreciate the way Melinda Gates spoke with us as professionals, and how the Foundation has recognized that teachers must lead the way in creating a new education future for American students. It is not often that educators attend a conference where the focus is on celebrating them and their work. It is even less often that teachers hear directly from people who affect policy in real and meaningful ways acknowledge that we are the ones who have the most important voices in the conversation about education.

Throughout the chat, Melinda Gates sprinkled her conversation with stories about her own family and her own experiences, but in the end returned to her theme and the theme of the conference. “It’s crazy that we don’t celebrate teachers in this nation. That has to change.”

 

 [/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Default ThumbnailIt is Not Easy to be a Change Agent in Education An Educator's Checklist: 16 Things To Do in 2016 Teachers In Action: From the Classroom to the Convention Taking the Anxiety Out of Student Placement in Special Education
« Making Department Meetings Productive
Formative Assessment: Setting Clear Objectives »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

The Educator's Room was launched in 2012 to amplify the voice of educators. To date, we have over 45+ writers from around the world and boast over twelve million page views. Through articles, events, and social media we will advocate for honest dialogue with teachers about how to improve public education. This mission is especially important when reporting on education in our community; therefore, we commit our readers to integrity, accuracy, and independence in education reporting. To join our mailing list, click here.

What we do

At The Educator's Room, we focus on amplifying and honoring the voice of educators as experts in education. To date, we have over 40 staff writers/teachers from around the world.

Popular Posts

  • My Union Showed Up for Me, and I'll Never Forget It
  • Your Students Deserve a Diverse Classroom Library. Here's How to Set It Up.
  • You Don't Have to Watch the Tyre Nichols Video, But Be Ready to Talk About It
  • "Let's Make This Happen": Following Student Interests to Interest-Based Mentorships

Featured On

Buy Our Books/Courses

How to Leave Your Job in Education

Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout

Using Your Teacher Expertise to Become an Educational Consultant

Check out our books on teaching and learning!

The Learning Academy

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Services
  • Media Kit
  • FAQ

 

Copyright © 2021 The Educator's Room.