May 26, 2025
By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President
Listen to this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast to hear Susan Coti, longtime Inspired Teacher and the mother of a fallen Marine, share how she keeps her son’s legacy alive through education in Myanmar.
Happy Memorial Day!
It’s finally here, the (unofficial, but still lovely) first day of summer! We wait for months to enjoy Memorial Day with the promise of summer just around the corner. But in addition to the barbecues and pool parties—and the long weekend—Memorial Day is also an important opportunity for reflection.
In that spirit of reflection, this week’s issue offers a story of remembrance and music— and how teaching and learning can serve as a beautiful tribute to a loved one who served our country.
Susan Coti is a longtime friend of Inspired Teaching, a former teacher at John Eaton Elementary School in Washington, DC, and the mother of Niall Coti-Sears, a Marine who was killed in 2012 while serving in Afghanistan.
I first met Niall when he was young. He tagged along with Susan when she participated in the Inspired Teaching summer Institute in the late 1990s, and he would often join the teachers for activities that called for singing. Niall was a musician; he mastered numerous instruments in his childhood and composed songs throughout his life. Despite earlier challenges in traditional classrooms, Niall thrived in the Marines. He led training for his peers in Japan and Korea and discovered Buddhism as he traveled the world.
In the face of her monumental loss, and to honor Niall’s legacy, Susan created the Niall Coti-Sears Memorial Music Program in Myanmar, a majority Buddhist country. With support from the Travis Manion Foundation, which provided a grant that covered the cost of instruments, travel, and two years of teacher salary, the program is still thriving today. It provides piano and violin scholarships and has auxiliary programs in a displaced persons camp in rural Myanmar where young children and teens learn the guitar, flute, recorder, and drums.
Myanmar or Burma? Learn more about the history and distinction between the two in this article from the Associated Press.
Susan’s leadership of the music program she co-founded with Kit Young in Niall’s honor ultimately led her to become executive director of Gift of Education (GOE), an English-language teaching program in Myanmar. GOE is a 501c3 nonprofit that employs two instructors and five teaching assistants in Myanmar; all US-based instructors serve on a volunteer basis. Undeterred by the pandemic, which was followed closely by a military coup in early 2021, both GOE and the Niall Coti-Sears Memorial Music program continue to reach students, and teachers, across the country every day.
Inspired Teaching had the opportunity to train GOE’s resilient teachers in a virtual Institute in 2023, and it is a gift to share Susan and Niall’s story today. Listen to our conversation on this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast.
Amid the cookouts and family gatherings, I encourage you to find a moment to reflect–on the many people who sacrificed their lives in service to our country and the many ways we continue to learn from them.
For additional insights, resources, and information on Inspired Teaching teacher and youth programming, subscribe to the Hooray For Monday newsletter!
Hooray For Monday is an award-winning weekly publication of Center for Inspired Teaching, a social change nonprofit organization that champions the power of curiosity and is dedicated to transforming the school experience from compliance-based to engagement-based. Inspired Teaching provides transformative, improvisation-based professional learning for teachers that is 100% engaging – intellectually, emotionally, and physically.
