Continuing Virtual Teachers Lounge for 2021- 22

Together with three fellow educators, we have been working with teachers during the Pandemic, and our work has helped us to  recognize how much teachers are missing opportunities to engage daily in informal ways with each other.  Usually, teachers can share, vent and problem solve in the teachers room. They can find support from peers. They can connect.   They can share stories; they can laugh; they can commiserate.

To meet this deficit and to help teachers
through the stresses of the Pandemic, we are creating a virtual teachers room where we will hold  four 90 minute sessions through March and April 2021 for 20 teachers.  The four of us will facilitate the discussions in two groups of 10 and then share as a whole.

The facilitators will provide resources and quality listening and feedback.  To incentivize already busy teachers to try out this free virtual teachers room and commit to four visits and share openly and privately, we want to give them a gift: a gift card for $20 plus the educational resource, The Feeling Alphabet Activity Set (a downloadable PDF) and a certificate of participation.  Our goal is to see if this approach helps teachers process their days and enables them to feel greater connection with others who understand their issues and can provide peer support.  In addition to helping these 20 educators, we want to ascertain best practices and determine the replicability and scalability of virtual teachers rooms.  

In short, the funding for this pilot goes to provide resources to the teachers as a participation incentive as the facilitators are donating their time.  Monies donated will provide the resources to buy the teachers the just described incentives.