About Us
Center for Inspired Teaching is 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.
Our Vision
Create a future in which every person is prepared to thrive in and contribute to our complex and rapidly changing world, through an education that teaches students how to think, not what to think.
Our Mission
Create radical change in the school experience — away from compliance and toward authentic engagement.
Learn about the education leaders who inspire us here.
Aleta Margolis, Founder & President
As a classroom teacher myself I saw the amazing changes that happened when students were asked to think for themselves instead of sitting passively while their teacher ‘delivered’ instruction. I knew teachers were the key to building a better school experience for students. So I started Center for Inspired Teaching in 1995 to invest in teachers and help them re-think the way they do their jobs.
During her time as a teacher in the 1990s, Aleta had a realization: The education system was failing to prepare students to face the challenges of our complex and rapidly changing world. The system did not value creativity, academic exploration, or even engagement in the learning process; rather, it prioritized order, self-control, and compliance.
After graduating college, Aleta taught high school students in the juvenile justice system. Her students had few chances to talk about the problems that plagued their city: The drug epidemic, gun violence, and gang violence. In her classroom, her court-involved students examined the system that disadvantaged them, and together they wrote, produced, and performed a powerful play that offered concrete solutions to the issues they faced.
Aleta knew the same systematic educational inequities that disadvantaged her own students, affected students nationwide. She saw first-hand that teachers have the power to construct classrooms systems in which each student is an expert and has a voice. Aleta wanted to make this a reality for every child’s school experience in the entire education system. As a teacher, Aleta recognized that teachers are the key to ensuring schools actively and authentically engage young people so they are able to thrive. This prompted her to shift her own focus from teaching students to teaching teachers.
Learn more about Aleta and the rest of the Inspired Teaching team here.
Inspired Teaching Residency has very clear expectations for our role as residents and for us as lead teachers next year. They have given us many helpful tools and feedback to improve our
instruction in the classroom. I feel supported by my residency program. They are very willing to listen to our feedback and work with us so that we have the best experience possible.
