By empowering our students to lead and serve lead for change is changing lives, transforming communities and improving our world. Learn more, check out the research and access free leadership curriculum now at leadforchange.org. Good evening everybody or afternoon depending on where you are joining us from time, Kelly, booze and the prep director of the American Federation of Teachers share my lesson tonight. We kick off our 2022 share my lesson virtual conference and I am proud that I get to be here with our afti President ***** Weingarten. But before I turn this over to Randy, I'm gonna let you in on a few housekeeping items for this evening. Hello everyone, welcome to our 2022 share my lesson virtual conference. My name is Kelly Booze, director of the American Federation of Teachers. Share my lesson before we begin. We'll go over a few housekeeping items. For those of you who have joined us many times before, you know that we make our webinars as engaging as we possibly can. So to get us started, please open up that group chat box and tell us where you are from and why you are joining us today and what interests you about this particular topic. In addition to the group chat, if you're joining us live, you will be able to provide some different reactions throughout the webinar today, so let us know what you're thinking and throughout the webinar, whatever reaction you want to give, share it with us and share it with your fellow participants. At the end of this webinar, we will be facilitating a question and answer session. Use that Q&A widget to submit any questions that you want us to ask the presenter. If you have any technical issues, please also use a Q&A widget and one of our share. My lesson team members is there and ready to respond to you. If you would like a copy of the slide deck or any of the related materials, you can find those in the resource widget. For those of you who want professional development credit, you will be able to download a PDF certificate at the conclusion of this webinar verifying your participation today, you do need to answer the poll questions that you will see throughout the webinar. To access that certificate now, let's turn it back over to your moderator who will put up a sample poll question for you to try. The poll question is located directly in the slides. You can answer your question. And then hit submit. From all of us at share my lesson. Thank you for joining us today. Enjoy your webinar. OK. And I am putting up that poll question right now. The question is how many share my lesson webinars? Have you attended and you can submit your response? It should be popping up on top of your screen. This is my first and I'm excited a few a lot too many to count. And then while you are responding to that question, go ahead and open up your chat box. And share with us if you've attended a share my lesson webinar with us in the past, what are some of your favorite one webinars that you've attended and why? I have to say just looking up our lineup that we have. We have Randy tonight and our lineup of webinars that we have coming up this week. I am just tickled pink with the content sessions that we were offering for our conference this year. I'm always excited and so I don't wanna say that this is the best conference ever, but this really is incredible lineup that we have today. So I give you guys a chance. To respond, I want to introduce our President and my friend of the American Federation of Teachers, ***** Weingarten. Now I know you guys get to see Randy probably on the news. You know if you're active on Twitter, you probably will see Randy on Twitter. She is I and as an employee of the FT I get to see her a little bit more behind the scenes and I have to say this woman walks a walk, talks the talk. She is an incredible champion for students. For teachers, prepare professionals for public employees for higher education. In fact, today you may hear some background noise as she's talking because she's joining us from the airport in Colorado where she spent the day in Colorado working with a higher education adjunct faculty on collective bargaining for the for Colorado. No, you know again, whether she is going into schools to lead to walking the line with any teachers or any of our locals. Or you know, just. Phone and calling to check in on seeing how people are doing. She really does care and her heart is there and she just is a champion for for everyone. So let's take a quick look and see where your response was. Push that response so we've got a lot of newbies joining us today. Thank you for that. Thank you for joining us and I'm glad it looks like we have some people. Last year they joined our the Secretary of Education who was newly sworn in who joined us last year. That was a lot of fun and enjoying reading the. In the chat box as well. So if this is your first webinar, that's great. I hope you sign up for more webinars and I'll go over some of those options at the end of the session tonight. So without further ado, I'm gonna stop talking since the main event is our good friend ***** Weingarten. Randy thank you so much for being here for such a being such a champion for all of us and particularly for the work that you've done with. Share my lesson and the FT and the offering that we're able to provide to teachers. Nationals higher education anything like that. Thank you Kelly. And as Kelly said, I am sitting in at in the Denver airport and we. Changed a couple of things around so that I could actually be with you for an hour today before I fly back to Washington. We were in Colorado all day today trying to get collective bargaining for public employees in Colorado for teachers for higher education, and we had a big lobbying day so, but this is kind of not unusual for teachers. You're used to and for bus drivers and for our professionals and nurses, you're used to having ambient sound. All over the place, and so you know. So you're hearing all that ambient sound and I'm trying to be in, you know, as quiet a place as I could be in, but I really, really wanted to be with you and we really wanted me to kick off the whole, you know, share my lesson week this week even though I would say that many of the you know other keynotes are really cool and the webinars are really cool and there's lots and lots of. People who are gonna be able to get a lot of a lot of credit for all of this stuff so. Do we say about this year? Look, we started share my lesson 10 years ago and the goal of share my lesson was to make education resources available to educators resources that are relevant, diverse of the highest quality. Anytime you need them with a click of a mouse, always free of charge by teachers. For teachers, that was what our goal was. And now 10 years later. Share my lesson has become a really vibrant online community with more than 1.9 million members. I just loved how many newbies are here today for the first time, we offer professional development, much of it for credit. We have webinars, we have guest speakers. We have conferences like this. Frankly, during the period of COVID, this became a real go to place for lots of different people and we are really, really glad. That we could do this, and I'm really, really thankful and grateful for Kelly Boos, who by the way has just been elected as a school board member in Northern Virginia. I'm really grateful for Kelly and her staff because that is how we build communities and that is what she's done. But who am I more grateful for? Sorry Kelly, I'm more grateful for you. And you have done this year and last year, whether you're a teacher, a bus driver, a paraprofessional, a nurse with guidance counselor, a PT who I met today. Oh my God. Thank you for hanging in there through all the twists and turns of this pandemic remote hybrid in person. And Speaking of in person, thank you for the unique understanding that in person learning is so important and for doing everything you have done for getting our kids back to our classroom safely and for keeping ourselves and your families safe. Thank you for digging deep. Every day through your exhaustion, I've seen it. I've been in over 100 schools myself this year since April. I see the exhaustion in people's eyes, and I also see the joy. Thank you for working with parents with caregivers and with everyone in our schools to help our communities recover. Particularly our kids. I could. But I want to just send gratitude in anyway. I hope that you can hear it. And yes, I believe that the safety protocols we push for was how we got schools we opened for in person learning those science based protocols are also how we have helped lift mass mandates. Indeed, you probably don't even know that in November 2021. Yes, a few weeks before. Normal crowd I asked the CDC for a science based metric for one schools could lift the mask mandates and they have since denounced one and lots and lots of schools. Most schools have now lifted those mask mandates based many of them on that science based metric. I don't know about you. I yearn for normalcy. I suspect that most of us do. I know most parents do. I know most kids do, but at the same time we need to keep ourselves and others safe, especially the most vulnerable. And that is why we need to use tools like vaccines and boosters and testing and the newly available drugs to treat COVID. Of this pandemic, and while the first year was hard, this year has been even harder. Students came back to schools with enormous needs, academic, emotional and social. Helping them. Cover I don't touch by the pandemic I don't know about you. I got COVID in December this year as did my wife and many of us. Are recovering or have recovered many of us lost loved ones. Many of us have been affected in many different ways and I know when I watched it in January that I bet you covered classes for colleagues who were in the middle of getting COVID. January was really, really really tough. But this is what the pandemic has also done. I remember pre pandemic in the Betsy de Vos era and in the you know people fighting about privatization and things like that. There were people like Betsy DeVos who were in love with remote education with virtual schools. They thought it was the best thing. I have made clear the vital role of public education in our lives and our communities and the vital role of being together in person. Saying there shouldn't be some ways of having some remote options, particularly for people who are really vulnerable. But what we've seen is that our public schools are the centers of community. It's not just where kids go to learn academics, it's where they build relationships. It's where families. Self relationships. It's where kids develop resilience. I know and overused word, but really important. But more than that, they're strong. Supported public schools are the great equalizer. It's the common ground in our beautifully diverse country, and where young people fulfill or have the quest to fulfill their promise and potential. And here's the truth. You know, we know. Parents know that America can't get back on its feet without you, our student. Can't move forward without you every day. You help students. Your students not only recover, but thrive, but get to their brighter futures. Indeed, I love this. I was reading the New York Times and as I was on the plane and I came across this article saying who's unhappy with schools, the answer surprised me. So I looked at that headline and I'm like, Oh my God, what is this going to be? So what was the big surprise and let me quote despite all the ink spilled lately about the clashes over masking, critical race theory and which books to assign or ban. Americans parents are happy overall. With their children's education and that writer who said she was happy with her, her kids schools and she knew her friends were happy. But she was surprised that so many other people were happy based upon all the poll results that she had seen and and what she's seen across the country. But we've seen this too in a eftps recent polling of parents. We did some really deep dive polling of parents in November and December and this is what we saw the majority of parents and caregivers. And educators and communities want strong public schools where kids learn the important skills and life lessons that help them thrive. After all Hindi 91% of kids are in public schools. What did they say? 72% of parents say their public schools provide excellent or good quality education. 78% say they are pleased with the quality in the performance of their kids teachers. 78% of parents. Expressed their satisfaction with how their kids schools handle the pandemic 80%. And our colleagues worked really, really, really hard to help our kids throughout the pandemic, including now and 83% of parents say they are satisfied with the school's efforts to keep students and staff safe. Yeah, teachers have gone from being called heroes who did everything they could to keep kids connected and learning to being cast as villains for being concerned with their own safety. So. A lot of people talk to talk about how important education is, but we see that teachers and other educators and other support personnel are not valued the way they should or the work is not valued. If it was the case, every educator and every school would have the conditions and the supports to do our work successfully to help our kids recover and to help keep students and staff safe and healthy. As I said before on Saturday. That was my hundredth in school visit. I don't count strike lines. I don't count lobbying like we did today with the governor in Colorado, but just being in schools with all of you or being at the bus depots with you. And I've seen the incredible resilience and grit and just amazing fortitude and education. That you have shown. And I've also seen where staff and students have been shortchanged, so let's talk about some of this stuff well, being. There was an epidemic of anxiety and depression in kids and adolescents before the stress and the isolation of COVID. Our schools never had the counselors and psychologists. The nurses and other professionals kids need and that you rely on and so often the classroom teacher, the classroom paraprofessional, the bus driver you become the first responders to all of your kids needs, and I know you do it with open hearts. But it's not fair to you or to our kids. It's not what classroom teachers were trained to do. That's what mental health and health. Professionals were trained to do and we need more of them, and the feds actually estimate that at 2025. The shortage of school counselors will reach 78,000 for everyone. School psychologist or estimated 1182 students and more than 1/4 of the schools in America still don't employ, and so I really, really appreciate what the Biden administration has tried to do in terms of. American rescue plan. Getting that money out there and getting and saying that it's can be used for these kinds of things. But we know that we need more. We need this work on the ground and that's what FT Affiliates have been fighting for and winning around the country. More nurses, more guidance counselors, more psychologists, more speech and language professionals and other professionals. We know our students need. I wanna shout out Chicago in LA in New York City and Saint Paul. Best places that have negotiated these things contractually and frankly, it's one of the reasons that our educators in Minneapolis who I just visited last Friday and then the week before, why they were on strike. That and class size and 44. Power puff. And we do welcome. As I said before, the Biden administration focus first on American rescue plan, but also now, as you heard in the president's state of the Union and mental health and underfunding to put staff and supports into place. One way of addressing this really urgent need is what some schools have done across the country, which is having Community Schools. They serve as hubs of well-being and support for children, for families and communities. Community Schools solve a problem. That educators have long encountered that a student who is hungry who is in distress who can't see the board. The struggle to learn. So by integrating. Academic and nutrition and medical and mental health services all in one place or all in the same kind of infrastructure. Community Schools truly need meet the need of the whole child, and I would argue the meat of the needs of families and so by anchoring the school and the daily life of the community and connecting families with these kind of services. Community Schools also do something else. They build trust. And transparency and remove the obstacles that families have had. And so that's why the FT is part of a coalition and part of the push for 25,000 Community Schools by 2025. And we're seeing in these state legislative pushes and pushes throughout the country. Right now, more pushes for Community Schools and we can get you more information about this if you'd like, we really think. That this is a really incredible piece of infrastructure that help kids recover and to help really address social, emotional and frankly academic needs of not only kids but families and make it doable for you to do your jobs. Let me talk about the support educators need for years. There's been talk of a teacher shortage. Why? Because there has been a teacher shortage. You know what happens with us is that we do more more for less, doing more. For less. It's like our middle name, but at one point or another. Gets to be too much and their pandemic has driven even more teachers out of the profession. Frankly, it's a really a shortage of people who would consider teaching. Or is there a shortage of respect, support, autonomy, and funding so that students and teachers can be successful and that we have the salaries befitting are perfect? I think you know the answer. In focus groups, pre pandemic educators told us they were frustrated, demoralised and stressed. They lamented the lack of classroom autonomy. The deep professionalization of. The lack of respect and appalling sense. There's just complete. Oh my God, I need help. We can't do all of it. Even though we so do Lepore, who just who's been writing at U.S. history textbook during this period of time. Sturgis, dusk. This so well in a recent article that she did in The New Yorker and I quote. Now with schools open mass coming off, teachers are trying to figure out not only how to care for our kids, but also what to teach how to teach it. Without losing our jobs, there's a rock and a hard place. And then there's a classroom. You need the freedom to teach. More than ever, educators need time to plan and time to work collaboratively with colleagues. You need time and the tools for in class formative assessments and the flexibility to change curriculum to build on student strengths and meet their needs. And and and in the 100 schools. That I have visited things I've looked for is places. Where this just this week I was at PS107 Q in New York City, where the UFT just opened another teacher center away to have professional development in a school where teachers can just let their hair down and say, can you help with this or this or this and have. Pete PD that's neat and having an ongoing basis, and they're doing more and more and more of that, but. We also need the latitude to teach and a lot of this was coming at now in terms of all the fights over curriculum and what to teach. So as a. High school social studies teacher I see and feel the debate over honest history as I'm sure many of you do. This time it's history and English teachers fighting to teach honest history, fighting to make sure that we include the struggles in America, including the struggles with racism and sexism. And look I'm a gay teacher. This struggles in terms of making sure that we we we. We you know that that that we can teach that gay teachers can teach instead of being fired. But this is my new stuff in the 1920s it was science teachers fighting for the latitude to teach biology and evolution. We see this every time there's a huge shift in America. And we're relied on to actually be the ones who are the truth tellers and who can connect that kind of critical history. The kind of history that aren't kids need to learn science. Our kids need to learn so for them to be problem solvers and critical thinkers. But educators need more as we support. Our kids who have experienced trauma you have to take care of ourselves and that's why share my lesson has done much on well being. As you've seen over the course of this last two years. But also just FY I if you need it. The AF T has a free trauma counseling benefit for any member or member of the Afd. We have a free trauma counseling benefit. And sorry, I'm a Union Leader. Educators need a decent wage. Do you know that teachers have paid 20% less than those with the same skills and other jobs? And now with the great resignation, there are lots of other jobs. There are over 6 million more jobs today. And there were a few months ago, and so we're trying to figure out the FT. Has this new shortage task force that focuses on all of these issues and and and we're investing in. How do we get the kind of collective bargaining practice and training that you need so that you can bargain these things on a local level? And how we help influence policy so that we raise teacher salaries and create dignity and respect so that teachers can. Teach all over the country and do so with a real. With an appropriate and then their student debt. Educators need relief from student debt and that. This is why the courts and in the Congress for the relief that we know you need, including the settlement of the case we brought against Betsy DeVos and that settlement, and this new administration has led to seismic changes around the approach to public service loan firm to get forgiveness. The promises now real, that promise of if. Hot or if you work. In the public service and you paid your loans for 10 years. The rest of your loans would be forgiven. Now that's real, and to make it even more real, we the FT has this program called summer. It's not about the season summer. It's just called summer, which is a navigation tool that helps student loan holders get relief under public service loan forgiveness. And again it's for free. And frankly, I get chills. The good kind. Not the bad kind. Every time I hear about a member logging into their student loan account, and instead of seeing a huge loan balance. Instead of the kind of stress and strain of paying that loan every month, they see a 0 because their debt has been erased. It is life now we need to do more. We are pushing the Biden administration to try to get student debt up to $50,000 cancel. But my point in talking about this is that work we've done in the Congress in the courts with the Biden administration. That's what moves, values and aspirations into action. So let's talk a bit about testing and about learning loss. Look, we know we need academic recovery after these two years of disruption. But the fear about academic learning loss has LED officials in some places to double down on standardized testing like starting this year as if we just went from March 19, 2019. To, you know, March 2022, but standardized testing. Doesn't help kids learn or teachers teach. What we know helps is. Things like project based instruction students showing what they know as they progress through unit rather than simply take a test at its conclusion. They own the learning process either individually or in teens. This approach to teaching and learning tells us far more about what students know and can do rather than ABCD, and a standardized test or using a standardized test right now to measure what's going on. At this moment we know. And to rank what's going on, we know. The kids learn in different ways and if we can have that kind of graduation rate in career tech Ed schools they use project based learning. 95% of kids and career tech Ed graduate from high school and and and have these different options. This is why we're pushing career project based learning. One of my favorite experiences as a teacher was the book court trials my students. Did in my high school law class that I taught, they could have simply taken tests. We could have done a bunch of things about as we did about sweet law, different kinds of law. But instead they were the judge. They were the attorneys, they were the witnesses. They were the jurors. They learn so much as they prepare for trial. And in presenting what they learned, they were teaching their classmates as well. I'm confident that teachers would do more of this if we had the authority, the tools, and the time currently eaten up by standardized testing. So you here, as we're talking about recovery Community Schools project based learning. But one of the things. That we have to focus on and with the AFP has focused on a lot. This year is reading. Obviously it's foundational to all other learning more than 20 years ago, afts zeroed in on the need for educators, whatever their subject or grade level was to know more about research based literacy we shared. The church we train thousands of teachers. We help produce a publication called Teaching. Reading is rocket science by Louisa Moats and that has been come over the last two decades. A staple of reading programs across the country. By the way, Louisa updated her reading is teaching. Reading is rocket science in an American teacher publication about a year ago. Now today. We know more about how the science of reading works and how much it matters. And before the pandemic under resourced schools were struggling to provide high quality reading instruction and needed academic supports because there's a niche Max, sometimes between what we know and the resources that are made available to all of you. Students who had already been marginalized have to have this kind of strong basis in in, in, in reading. In waiting in literacy. So instead of just complaining about it or pointing fingers to others. We are redoubling our efforts to support literacy with a program we call. Reading opens the world. And in addition to supporting educators and families and doing more professional development and making it easier for you to see it at your fingertips, in addition to just Louise emotes revising her Seminole work, the AFT is distributing 1,000,000. 1,000,000 to say it again, we're distributing 1,000,000 free books to kids all across the country. Our bookmobile is crisscrossing the country and just this Saturday. I was in New York City's Chinatown with the UFT. And our community partners distributing 11,000 books at PS1. I think we have a videotape. Hey rob. We're giving out a million books. I can't even count to 1,000,000. The second piece of this program takes a science of reading and puts it into usable resources to help students read and read well. So this is all part of. Who we are and what we do. We fight for a better life for all. We want the next generation to do even better, and frankly, in a time when other things seem to be going in the wrong direction, we bend the arc towards justice. We fight for good jobs in the right to a Union, high quality and well resourced health care, high quality and well resourced public schools and higher education and public services. And we press back against discrimination. We reach out to heal divisions. We stand up for the right to vote. The integrity of election. And the view of our imperiled democracy, and I, I say this because we're at a really different time in America. When I talked last year to all of you, we were talking about the recovery and getting schools back and really trying to do that. But part of that recovery you know has to deal with what's going on both here and abroad. The January 6th insurrection at the Capitol or Putin's ruthless assault on the Ukrainian people's freedom of democracy freedom is really important to all of us. And much of the world is in turmoil from COVID-19 to climate catastrophes, to humanitarian crises, to violence and discrimination. And I think that makes it even harder your job, because helping our kids understand what's going on in the world is really hard right now. And that brings me to the issue of social media. Young people are seeing these things. It's on their phones, many of them get their news from tick Tock. A lot of it is scary. Kids may worry whether we're on the verge of World War three or nuclear destruction. Now, well, a lot of what is on social media. Is disinformation lot of is not true and we have a new program called News Guard to help discern what's true and what's not true. Look, you are helping them deal with their emotions in their fears. You are helping them discern fact from falsehood and we have to deal with the fact that social media companies are making money off of this anxiety off of this trauma off of the anger that they cause. And This is why we as a Union will are starting to take on these tech companies. These companies have to help solve the mental health crisis not exacerbated. And that brings me to the cultural wars that you're seeing in schools. They're real, the fights over a mask over banning books over bullying and stuff. Answering teachers talking about something that others may think is divisive and we know may be really real. It's putting all of us all of you on edge. We've been through two years of this disruption, and these fights just like. The social media companies aim at exploring the anger and the anxiety. And we're trying to do something different. We're trying to be about welcoming and safe environments. It's really hard. And this is the only place that I'm going to be political. Because it's also intentional, as Jill Lepore noted in her piece, the fight on. Critical race theory. The fight on teaching honest history, just like the fight before an evolution of biology. It isn't really about history, it's about political power, and there are ideologues and extremists waging this on the other side, people like Betsy DeVos because they think that they can win elections this way, and it's a big campaign against public education. And unfortunately you become a piece of it because they have to go after you. To get to their goals, think about it. If we are successful at our job of helping students and communities recover socially, emotionally, academically, how can this other side then wedge or create tension between educators and families? How can they undermine public schools or promote these alternatives like vouchers or monetized education? If people are satisfied or feel like we're doing the best we can do to lift up and recover and help kids recover. You were the agents of the common good, and they know it. Your work creates opportunity and joy and frankly, opportunity and joy and stability and safety and welcoming and safe environments. It overcomes anger and fear. And just like I said before, even though sometimes when you watch TV or hear a school board meeting, you don't always think this way. People are with us. Just look at what happened in New Hampshire just this month I think. Just two weeks ago where the debates over CRT and face masks roiled local politics, we brought a lawsuit because teachers had no idea what they're supposed to teach now because there's no duties on teachers, and there's, you know, a very broad law on on not being able to teach that they called divisive concepts. Even though it's in the curriculum. So after all of this, just this month, I think as I said, just last week, March 15th there were school board elections throughout the state of New Hampshire 30 school board. Candidates or 30 school board elections. 29 of the 30 of them were won by Pro Public Education candidates. I don't know if they were Republican or Democrat or independent. What they labeled themselves as was pro public education helping our kids, investing in public schools, teaching honest history, not banning books. And although people want to ban books, although the ones that want to ban them are awfully loud and awfully. Agitated a CBS News poll just two or three weeks ago, said that 80% of people, when they were asked about this, said they want books in schools that discuss race. They believe that this should be taught. The other good news is that there are places that are really valuing educators and public education. I was with the governor in New Mexico a few weeks ago. They just passed legislation that has a huge impact on public education and on on dealing with the shortages, they lifted PSRP support personnel's salaries to $15.00 an hour. It was about a 30% increase in some cases. And then there were bills that other bills that Governor Wuhan Grisham signed that increased teacher pay that created more paid residencies and that ease vacancies plaguing schools. So there's some good news, but still, I know the bottom line is that your jobs have gotten really hard, but. We know and there's a saying in the FT. That together we can accomplish things that would be impossible to do on our own, and that's what we're trying to do. We know that between. Aspiration of anger between hope and fear ways of creating a better life when you ask our Members when you ask the public which road do they want, where the aspiration agents? So what? What do we do? How do we turn this page? It starts with engagements. It starts with building relationships. It starts with enlarging the tent. Build relationships with each other with families with communities. Once we come out of this disruption as we take our mask off, see each other, seeing our faces, seeing our smiles, families and educators are natural partners united in our hopes for our kids. Every moment in history every election, every crossroad can be viewed through this lens of hope or fear, aspiration or anger and today. Even though the United States is dangerously divided, aren't divides are not unbridgeable. People can disagree and still see each other's humanity. We all lose when we demonize or other. Wrong. Lies hope over fear. When we seek the well being, not just of ourselves and the people we love. But if everyone in this country we love remember the Pledge of Allegiance ends with liberty and justice for all. I know we got a lot of work to do, and of course elections matter from school boards to statehouses to the White House, but it is what they do when they get they the people we elect. The people we are with, the people in our communities, the people we work with. How do we change the landscape? How do we help every school be a place where parents were going to say? And their kids were children thrive. Will win I really believe this if we enlarge the tent. We'll be successful if we engage communities will win these fights when we meet people where they are. When we acknowledge their pain and their fear and we work together to show something that we. By for something better, your aspiration over anger, bringing communities together, embracing our lived, expand our diversity and of course fighting for the resources. Fighting to end. The shortage is fighting for what we need so that we can teach and kids can learn. So I want to end where I started, just with a big thank you. I know these have been hard days, hard weeks and hard months, but you are the beating heart of this hope filled profession. You help our kids not just recover but thrive to be prepared for college and career and civics to have a life of empathy and understanding. Equipped with a critical thinking and the problem solving skills they need, you teach the future caretakers of our environment, the sparks who ignite our innovation, the tenders of our global relationships, the healers of our sick, the creators. And the teachers who will follow us. I hope you know this. I hope you know what you have done and what we will do. It's essential. Thank you so much. You may briefly remove your face covering. Thank you so much Randy that was that was fantastic. I wanna encourage folks while we still have Randy and before we have to park shortly last night. Kind of representatives perfectly questions you might have in the box. You first second, so it sounds like there's a some background in the people are saying I'll take you off mute in just one second, but I'll just point out a couple of polls that I put up while you were talking and just said, you know, how concerned are you about the impact of social media for your students? And overwhelmingly the response. The response was very concerned too. Concerned 18% concern 76%. Zarn and I know you're gonna be doing some more work in this area that will be working with both you and then share my lesson and stuff. So stay tuned. 'cause we've got some more exciting things to share with you guys coming up soon. And the other thing we asked, I just asked who you know whether you agreed or disagreed. Educated educators are agents of the common good, and you know. What do you guys think? Ask. Any ideas? I lost you, but you know, Randy, I'll, I'll say this like I really appreciate you know the conversation you've had about you. Can you hear me? Yeah, now I can. Can you hear me? Yeah, no, I can fortunate freeze for a second. So you know, I know, appreciate the comments about appealing to humanity and in sometimes you know, I know, I know. You certainly had, you know, focus of people going after on social media or a lot of negativity. But you're also very intentional of having meetings with people that disagree with you. Can you share a little bit about why you why you do that? Look, I really do believe that we have to enlarge the tent I mean and and maybe it's maybe it's this. We're in a people business. I don't even think we're in a business. We're in a people. We work with. People we we want. To educate all kids to be the best they can be. People come to us with different views with different beliefs. But I believe that there are so much when you're in education, there's so much more in common than what divides us. But if you allow the divisions to polarize, then you can't move our kids forward and and frankly, you know Hamilton. And sorry I am a social service teacher. Hamilton and and and Madison. In The Federalist Papers talked about what they were really concerned about, they were really concerned about factionalism. Democracy is very, very hard to do, and factionalism and fear and that fear becoming hate and that hate coming, sometimes incitement, genocide forbid. It creates it separates sleep. How in a way that they never then see each other's basic humanity. And if we do that, how do we not? Move a country forward. How do we not move our kids forward? How do we not change public opinion? To be more open and embrace if of diversity? How do we move the Ark forward in terms of justice and liberty for all? How do we see differences as things that are something to applaud and to embrace rather than something that we fear? If you don't actually talk to each other, you never get to a conversation about any of those kinds of things. And so, and maybe it's. You know, as I I said earlier, you know I'm a gay educator. I remember when I started. I was very, very closeted. So we're. Many of my colleagues. How is it that now I get to marry? It's because public opinion has changed. People have talked to each other. People have seen the basic humanity of of of people who are different than them. And those are the kinds of things that we need to do to bring people forward. Look at what's happening in terms of Ukraine. Look at the misinformation, look at what's happening? Djibouti brutality feels that's happening to those children. We need to find ways of of of of creating peace and creating dialogue in a way where we embrace basic humanity and that starts with talking. Each other it's the way in which people have agency. It's the way in which people feel empowered. It's the way in which people kind of lift each others boats. Now doesn't mean that we shouldn't fight for the things we believe in. We believe in decent wages. We believe in health care for all we believe in lower class sizes and having the guidance counselors and having the the the kind of latitude to teach it doesn't mean that we're not fierce about what we believe in. But fierce about what we believe in is different. Then then, then, then, then attacking others. That's that's great, Randy. And I know we only have you for probably like one or two more minutes, so I'll just I'll end with a a fun one. And I I appreciate that response so much because you know, it's being on the school board working at the FT. You share my lesson, you know it's so so incredibly important that we can agree to disagree on policy. And that's really where our conversations can need to be. So you know you went to you've gone to 100 schools as part of the Afts back to school campaign. Can you share any favorite moment with students that you had in some of the schools that you visited? Well, I love watching. I love watching teachers teach and also have loved. Actually, we've been. We've been surprising some Members with fulfilling their DonorsChoose request for people look. People take money out of their pockets all the time for supplies, and one of the things we tried to do as a union was we took all the different supply requests on March 4th that had mass plus other things and we found a way to fulfill every single one of them on donors, shoes and and one day I went to a bus depot and one of the bus drivers had asked for books as well as other cleaning supplies and masks and things like that so that. Kids had books on on the bus as she was driving as she was driving the bus. Sometimes you know it's an hour that that a child will be on the bus, so we surprised her with those books and then she showed us all the different ways in which she had decorated her bus for Christmas. For other things it was just the bus became a home and you know these are the kinds of stories that you hear from kids all over the. The kids just this past Saturday and and I saw this in Columbus, OH. 2 in terms of reading opens the world coming into in in Columbus. It was a big gymnasium full of 40,000 books. In this Saturday it was a a cafeteria in where where books of different grade levels or you know where at different age levels were on different tables and watching families and kids wide eyed about the. Books and looking the parents that say can I really have that one? And people are like yeah, of course you can and you can have more than that and just the joy about reading the sense of that. Our future is in front of us and that kind of joy overcoming the anxiety and the trauma and seeing smiles and and just that joy. Those are the things that I love. That's great and Randy, I'm gonna really quick. I'm so glad you brought up DonorsChoose because I'm gonna share a quick video from all the work that you've been doing with DonorsChoose, which is just such a it's it gives. It gives me chills when I listen to it and see it. Books for the bus. We're about to surprise flow locals. We don't think she knows that the soul part of what the FT is doing with DonorsChoose. We wanted to do a little bit of joy in this beginning of March to actually get supplies to people who ask for them for their kids. This is. You're welcome, thank you, thank you. So we won't take it. DonorsChoose proposals that teachers and support staff had asked for on March 4th. These are going to be fulfilled through DonorsChoose. I just love that video. So fantastic. I just put a quick. I just made a quick poll question 'cause I think some folks are still waiting to get finished their pulls up to also get their professional development certificate, but have you made a request choose before and in the chat box? Let us know what type of request you've made so Randy, I know we need to let you go. I want to take one moment just to highlight some of the webinars that we have for the rest of our conference this week. I know you talked, you touched on banning books. We have a banning book session with common sense media that we're doing. Part of this week great. We have three more keynotes that Randy's gonna be joining us tomorrow and Wednesday for what's the word teaching literacy, the demco way? For those of you who know hip hop legend Demco from run DMC, he's a lot of fun and I'm gonna show you a quick promo video from him right now. Yo what's up y'all? Team seeing the place to be and I know a lot about places to be. March 22nd please join me for my keynote. What's the word? Teaching literacy? The DPMC? Wait for the American Federation of Teachers Conference is going to be rocking and rolling and hipping and hopping March 22nd BMC in the place to be the keynote of all keynotes. The AF T&TMC be there or be square. I love it. I love it here. Tomorrow night it's gonna be a lot of fun. I'm I'm told they'll be some wrapping as part of that, so I hope that in some rhyming's. I hope that folks can join us. 'cause that is really continuing on with the conversation of the reading opens a world initiative from the FT with our literacy focus and then we have our AFP members and really good friends of ours that have United 3 incredible teachers who've come together to create the teachers unified to end gun violence. And they will be our keynote on March 23rd. You'll be joining us for that one and then finally, as Randy talked about in her opening the, you know, talking about being able to teach honestly, being able to teach truthfully, we will be tackling that with US. Representative Johanna Hayes, Fed Ingram. Who's our AFP vice president. And you know, several others so I'm super excited for those and then a number of other webinars and I hope you join us. Randy, I'm going to let you say any final words to you can hang up and then I will take care of the housekeeping. Boring stuff. OK, I just. Thank you all and thank you Kelly and look we're just this is about. Teachers or aspiration agents. Paris bus drivers. We are the ones who help make sure that the future happens and I just can't thank you enough for everything that you've done in a really, really, really tough few years. Thank you everybody and we're in it together. We got each others back and we're going to do whatever we can to make sure that you recover and thrive and our kids recover and thrive in our society. Covers and try. Thank you and God bless you. Thank you so much Randy, really appreciate being here. Safe travels to you and Andrew. I know that it's back to the East Coast. Yep, and so I can close out a couple things. Thank you, Randy. A couple things I've put up on the screen we have. In addition to this virtual conference, we've got a lot of other professional development opportunities that we offer throughout the year, so hopefully in addition to the Literacies Webinar series that we're doing this week, we have a whole webinar series around. The reading opens the World World Initiative, so feel free to join those RAFT for members. American Federation of Teachers Summer Educator Academy is coming up this July. We will be doing summer of learning webinars through share my lesson. And of course, we'll be back in 2023 for a virtual conference, which I know will probably be here before we know it. I think our entire team is like how is it already here already, but we're excited to be here. So with that I'm going to closeout with a final video. This should be a time that you should be able to access that PDF certificate, and I'm going to show you how you can do that. And then when the video concludes, we will end this webinar. So thanks everybody. I hope you will be joining us at some of the other sessions that we have coming up this week. Thank you. Hi everyone, Kelly booze rejoining you again. I hope you enjoyed today's webinar as much as I did. I want to go over a couple reminders and I have one big favor to ask of you. First, you should now be able to download that PDF certificate for your participation. Today you can access that PDF certificate using one of the widgets, the one with the checkbox. From here you should be able to open up that PDF certificate and download it. The certificate will be saved to your name for up to a year. Now you are required to have answered at least 2 poll questions and met the criteria for watching the minimum amount of time when you open up that PDF certificate, it will be populated with your name, the date, and the title of the webinar. Second, when we closeout this webinar, you will get access to an evaluation for today's webinar. We really appreciate. Any feedback that you can provide to us into your presenters today? Your feedback and written comments help us continue to provide excellent webinars year round. Now I have a request for you. You know at the end of podcasts or at the end of YouTube videos you get those you know. Give me a thumbs up rate and review. While we're asking you to do the same thing on share my lesson to help us continue to grow our community. And here's how. Log in to share my lesson. And when you're logged in and you go back to the webinar page, you can Scroll down to the webinar and you'll see a section that says reviews. If you click rate and review, you can give it as many stars as you want. In this case, I'm going to give it five stars. There was an excellent keynote last year and it was really inspiring and then let others share my lesson. Members know how you use this resource? This webinar, how it was helpful for you. And finally, keep this great dialogue going with your fellow participants and your share my lesson team and join our Virtual conference webinar community. Sharemylesson.com/VC 2022 will continue to highlight great content, great webinars that are happening year round, including our summer of Learning Webinar series. Reading opens the World Literacy Series and so many great Wellness series that we're doing throughout the year. In addition to other great exciting stuff coming your way. _1713278859007

 

Join AFT President Randi Weingarten and Share My Lesson for an important update on the state of public education in this special welcome session to kick off the Virtual Conference 2022!

Teachers, school staff and parents have continued to face unprecedented challenges in the 2021-22 school year, and we know more are ahead. Educators are working with families to help students not only to recover but to thrive in college, career, civic participation and life, with the empathy, understanding, critical thinking and other life skills necessary for their success and our country’s future. Educators must be respected and supported, especially now as their work is harder than ever, with increased stress, staff shortages, and political interference and attacks.

Hear from Weingarten on what the AFT is doing to support our members and their work. One cornerstone is a renewed commitment to literacy with the Reading Opens the World campaign. This new multiyear literacy campaign will help support students, educators and families foster an ongoing love of reading via everything from book giveaway events to professional development for teachers to downloadable resources for parents. You'll also hear why we must continue to prioritize social emotional learning as well as counter misinformation, and strengthen our schools’ foundation of restorative, anti-racist and culturally responsive practices. Learn about success stories in community schools for addressing issues like these and creating resilient school communities in which all members can thrive. Educators and families want what students need, and together, we can support our schools and help our kids.

Don't miss this important kick off session and get a preview of the for-credit sessions offered in the week ahead. Plus, March 21 is your last chance to enter the Virtual Conference sweepstakes!

Available for one-hour of PD credit.*

*You will be eligible to receive one-hour of professional development recertification credit for participation in this webinar if you complete all the poll questions, survey, and actively watch the webinar. At the conclusion of the webinar, you will be able to download a certificate that verifies you completed the webinar. Check with your school district in advance of the webinar to ensure that the PD recertification credit is accepted.

You must be a Share My Lesson member to participate in this webinar. By registering for this webinar, you consent to getting a free account on Share My Lesson if you are not a current member.

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