As Challenges in Education Persist, Our Coverage Will Elevate Educator Voices
Schools have modified. Learning has modified. The private lives of everybody concerned in these techniques have modified. And they’re nonetheless altering, after two years of a brutal pandemic, untold financial hardship, political polarization and social unrest. No one understands this extra intimately than the academics, college leaders and college students who reside by it daily.
Elevating the varied voices of educators—significantly the views of these historically marginalized—is essential for making change. That’s particularly vital at this second, throughout what seems to be an inflection level in the historical past of American schooling.
During this era of upheaval, we’ve amplified the voices of educators as they navigate the fallout from the pandemic by our Voices of Change venture, creating alternatives for educators to mirror, share and be taught from each other by journalism, storytelling and analysis.
Just over a 12 months in the past, our journalists and researchers got down to higher perceive the psychological well being of scholars and educators and to find out how college communities are supporting resilience and well-being. We explored how college counselors are addressing their implicit biases, how educators are rethinking homework following a 12 months of distant studying and why it’s vital to speak about trainer trauma. And two reporters investigated challenges dealing with the workforce, one diving into the facet hustles and second jobs academics depend on to make ends meet, and the opposite inspecting a rising psychological well being disaster that’s taking some academics out of the occupation altogether.
We sought out new voices from throughout the nation, publishing a group of first-person accounts written by educators and researchers concerning the refined and vital methods their work and lives have modified since early 2020.
We additionally launched our first-ever writing fellowship for an inaugural cohort of seven distinguished educators spurring change in their communities. These fellows explored the intersections of non-public {and professional} id, constructing relationships, and reimagining curriculum and instruction for a brand new era of learners. They penned deeply shifting essays that gave us a glimpse contained in the experimental successes and failures that outlined their careers and courageously mirrored on their experiences confronting trauma, educating inclusive intercourse schooling and drawing from Indigenous data.
Meanwhile, EdSurge researchers facilitated neighborhood engagement occasions, reminiscent of our Virtual Learning Circles, bringing collectively various educators from throughout the nation to attach, mirror and share about points they’re dealing with in their follow.
We’re excited to share that EdSurge will probably be persevering with this work over the subsequent two years as we develop our Voices of Change venture, which, like earlier years, is being produced with help from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. As all the time, EdSurge maintains editorial independence over all of our journalism, in holding with our ethics assertion.
As we develop this work, our workforce is gearing as much as launch the applying for a brand new cohort of Voices of Change writing fellows, a paid alternative (subscribe to our Ok-12 e-newsletter for the most recent on the fellowship). Our reporters and contributors will proceed tackling acquainted themes—id exploration and improvement, relationship-building, the psychological well being and well-being of educators and college students—and a clutch of associated points. And our analysis workforce will probably be specializing in the experiences of historically underrepresented educators.
We’ll proceed spotlighting new voices and views on how college fashions, tutorial practices and the experiences of scholars and educators are altering, so should you’re an educator or college chief with a narrative thought you’d wish to share, please fill out our transient pitch form, and an editor could also be in contact to assist form it right into a story (we now pay $150 for all such revealed submissions). And should you’re a contract journalist with a fantastic story thought, be happy to drop us a line at ideas@edsurge.com.
