July 21, 2025
By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President
Listen to this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast for the audio version of this issue.
30 years ago this summer, I raised $700 to pay for a van to bring students back-and-forth from For Love of Children (FLOC), a social services organization that supports children and families, to American University, where I was a professor in the School of Education. Classroom Management was the first class I was assigned to teach and I wanted my preservice teachers to have the experience of learning with real children, as opposed to the two-dimensional children described in the textbook.
My graduate and undergraduate students designed engaging lessons for the elementary and middle school students from FLOC. The lessons took us to Great Falls to study environmental science, and around the AU campus to study geometry by taking measurements of the dimensions of classrooms and the campus green.
A year later, in addition to teaching AU students, I was teaching DCPS teachers through the first Inspired Teaching Institute. Inspired Teaching was registered with the IRS as a 501(c) nonprofit corporation, I had assembled my first board of directors, and I’d secured our first real grant: $1500 from the Gannett Foundation!
Inspired Teaching has evolved in the 30 years since I raised my first $700 (and the $1500 a year later). But one thing remains the same:
Inspired Teaching invests in teachers because we know that in order for children to thrive, their teachers must thrive.
Every child in every community spends a vast portion of their childhood in the company of teachers. If we want our society to be strong, we need strong teachers.
Last week, we unveiled the 30 Years of Curiosity page on our website. If you haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, check it out now. It contains an exciting overview of the past 30 years (along with some fabulous vintage photos and videos) and inspiration for the next 30 years.
When I began Inspired Teaching three decades ago, it was because I believed the challenges we faced in society were surmountable if teachers were given the tools, and trust, to instead authentically engage their students, to create classrooms where young people were taught how to think.
Today we face new, and perhaps more dire challenges. But the solution remains the same: Invest in our young people by investing in our teachers.
I’m looking forward to charting the next 30 years of Inspired Teaching.
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.
