May 30, 2023
News
Cultivating Our Learning Lives
Let’s try to re-center our instructional stances in that place where our own joy and motivation to learn prevails.
As we turn the page on 2022, I’m so grateful for the determined and dedicated group of changemakers we partner with both within NTC and across the nation. In my early tenure at NTC, I am heartened and guided by the compassion and wisdom of our staff, partners, supporters, and others leading this movement. You are the heart of our community, and our collective work is an example of the sustained equity practice we must all engage in in service to our young people.
At the end of the year, we pause to celebrate rich and diverse holidays and traditions but recognize that the challenges and hardships many of our friends, colleagues, students, and community members face do not disappear. We hold them and each other in our hearts.
Yet, the newness of 2023 does hold promise. Dynamic, engaging, rigorous, optimal, and inclusive learning in classrooms doesn’t just happen. It takes work from so many — teachers, coaches, school leaders, administrators, paraprofessionals, nonprofit partners, school community professionals, families, and students. Every one of us, working independently and in solidarity, is a critical agent of change.
Let’s remember the power of our community when we encounter the next impasse. Wendell Berry shared that when we get to the “real work” a community truly shines:
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
In 2022, we have so much real work to celebrate. Our accomplishments are a wellspring of what’s possible and a forecast of what’s to come.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” These few examples of real work required collaboration, diversity of thought, and a willingness to embrace risk and discomfort. I hope you, too, get some time over the next several weeks, surrounded by loved ones and holiday traditions, to embrace all of your “little bits of good.”
My best wishes for a holiday season and New Year full of well-being, love, and peace as we commit to the journey ahead.
See you in 2023.
With gratitude,
Tommy Chang
CEO
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NTC offices will be closed December 19 – January 2 in celebration of a winter break and new year. We’ll return on Tuesday, January 3, 2023.
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May 30, 2023
News
Let’s try to re-center our instructional stances in that place where our own joy and motivation to learn prevails.
May 12, 2023
News
This National Teacher Appreciation Week, we share our gratitude for the educators who lend a part of themselves, are champions of students at every stage of their lives, affirm the cultural backgrounds of young people, foster lasting relationships in the classroom, empower agency within students, and so much more.
April 28, 2023
News
Each year, our annual report is an opportunity for us to share our accomplishments working in service to educators and students nationwide. And this year, we are highlighting some of the pre-work and post-work that goes into every successful partnership.