WHAT IS THE TEACHERS INSTITUTE?
The Teachers Institute is a professional development institute for Pre-K-12 educators. The institute offers opportunities for teachers to examine the social, economic, and political relationships between stereotypes, the larger culture, schools, and their effects on classrooms and surrounding communities.
Unlike traditional cultural-competency training, the Teachers Institute begins with a different premise. Rather than treating race, class, gender, or sexuality as categories to be managed, fellows explore these constructs as social and historical symptoms of social disconnection. Through mentoring, online resources, seminars in social theory, and public symposia featuring leading thinkers in the humanities, arts, and sciences, fellows experience professional learning that is grounded in both the science and the art of social connection.
Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and social cognitive neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman in conversation during the Teachers Institute symposium: "Is Racism the Neural Adversary of the Social Mind?"
“The Teachers Institute was an amazing experience because it allowed me to have a voice and be heard; it gave me a new sense of confidence and embraced my passion for art, education, and social justice.”
HOW DID THE INSTITUTE GET STARTED?
The Ed Factory's Teachers Institute is designed and facilitated by Lisa Arrastia, founder and senior consultant of the Ed Factory. The Teachers Institute began in 2011 in the Twin Cities. Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) sought an innovative professional development program for its teachers. Funded by the MPS Office of Equity and Diversity and coordinated by the University of Minnesota's Department of African American and African Studies, The Teachers Institute @Minneapolis was the first Ed Factory institute.
Fellows learning from writer, educator Bill Ayers during the Teachers Institute symposium, "Love Pedagogy: Disrupting the Violence Against Young Bodies."
“The Ed Factory’s Teachers Institute has helped me to see student-student relationships in a new way. It has changed my daily practice and how I relate with my students and how I encourage them to relate with one another.”
WHAT DOES the institute accomplish?
Answer: deepen students' understanding of SELF, DIFFERENCE, and OTHERS
Morgan Fierst and Stephanie Woldum began their tenure in the Teachers Institute as fellows and later became Institute Mentors to new fellows. During their fellowship term, Morgan and Stephanie led their algebra students through an examination of math, race, and Minneapolis home foreclosures resulting from the Great Recession. Morgan and Stephanie designed a challenging, project-based learning experience for students. With support from the Teachers Institute, Morgan and Stephanie, along with six of their students, presented their project at the "Creating Balance in an Unjust World" conference in San Francisco. Morgan is the winner, and Stephanie was a finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching.
Read about their work, inspired by the Teachers Institute, in the Twin Cities' Star Tribune.
ANSWER: THE INSTITUTE USES a love pedagogy to build AUTHENTIC social CONNECTIONS between teachers AND students
Listen to how the Teachers Institute helped Je'meyah want to come to school every day.
Morgan Fierst, Teachers Institute 2011-2012 fellow and 2014-2015 mentor.
“The Teachers Institute is an unbelievably powerful and critical medium for development. I’m grateful to the institute for enriching my ways of thinking. I’m a better teacher, student, and person because of the exposure to critical thinking that the institute facilitated.”
HOW CAN I be a part of the teachers institute?
Contact us so that we can let you know when the Teachers Institute will be in a city near you. We will then email you a link to the application.
As a fellow, you'll have the support of an experienced Institute Mentor as you focus on your individual, interdisciplinary project while also learning to teach for understanding, promote social connection, engage students in the making of their own learning, and develop classroom values dedicated to curiosity, innovation, and imagination. After the successful completion of the program, your fellowship award amount will be anywhere from $500-$1,000, depending on your city or town, and you could receive graduate credit and a Certificate of Advanced Study from a local college or university. Additionally, CEUs are provided to fellows for all Teachers Institute seminars and symposia.
Except for the Teachers Institute Foundations seminars, which are held on designated school days at the beginning of the fellowship term, you can expect to spend six to eight Saturdays with the Institute, with three to four hours of instruction each day throughout the term. Most Institute events are held at the city's host organization.
Claudia Rankine, author of the award-winning Citizen: An American Lyric and Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University in conversation with Marlon James, winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings, and Professor of English at Macalester College in conversation during the Teachers Institute "'Strangers in the Village': Imagining (Young) Black Bodies in America."
HOW can I bring the institute to my city?
The Ed Factory is available to facilitate single-day seminars, multi-day experiences, as well as semester or year-long programs. We work with teachers inside and outside their classrooms, as well as with educational organizations, districts, and individual schools, while collaborating with local art institutions, artists, colleges, and universities.