Live from Two Fellowships: It's Season 5

Welcome to our fifth season of Fund for Teachers: The Podcast. We launched this platform (after buying and annotating the book “Podcasts for Dummies”) when Covid shut down schools (and everything else) because we wanted to stay in touch with our grant recipients and support the stalwart work they were undertaking as our students first responders. Forty-seven episodes later, we continue to welcome Fellows as our special guests to learn about their fellowships and how they are leveraging these grants into growth for themselves, their students and school communities.Today’s episode kicks of our 2025 grant cycle and marks a first for us — two FFT Fellows join the conversation. This summer, by happy coincidence, Jaime Kerns (on fellowship in the Canary Islands) and Jasmine Adams (on fellowship in Johannesburg) and I (in East Texas) confused our time zones and found ourselves on the same call at the same time. The result: a conversation grounded in how their cultural heritage informed their fellowship design that now impacts their students’ education. Along the way, they also share advice for teachers considering applying for a 2025 fellowship grant (“just do it”) and tips for writing a winning proposal (“follow your passion”).Show Notes:Jasmine Adams teaches at Drew Charter Elementary Academy in Atlanta and this summer used a $5,000 Fund for Teachers grant to conduct a comparative analysis of Civil Rights activism in both the American South and South Africa, analyzing tactics employed by communities to promote equality for marginalized groups, to empower students with a profound understanding of the progress and ongoing struggle for equity via a civic action project integrating art. You can access Jasmine's post-fellowship report here.A three-time FFT Fellow, Jaime Kerns teaches at Lookout Valley Middle/High School in Chattanooga and this summer used a $5,000 grant to embark on a cultural and linguistic journey across Morocco and the Canary Islands to deepen personal understanding of influences on Hispanic heritage shared by a growing percentage of her students. You can access Jaime's post-fellowship report here.Learn more about Fund for Teachers on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages and apply for YOUR self-designed fellowship at fundforteachers.org.Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress