Hooray for Monday is a weekly blog filled with questions, ideas, reflections, and actions we can all take to remodel the school experience for students. Prefer audio? Listen to the Hooray For Monday podcast! Available on your favorite platforms here.
December 25, 2023
By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President
I love engaging with you — the teachers, school leaders, parents, and other amazing people who read and listen to Hooray For Monday every week.
Thank you for being part of our learning community. This last week of 2023, we’re sharing our most popular issues from the past 12 months. I hope you enjoy reflecting on this year, and our whole team looks forward to continuing to engage with you in 2024!
The Urgent Need to Increase School Connectedness
Following the release of the CDC report on teen mental health and well-being, Inspired Teaching began an ongoing, in-depth exploration of School Connectedness. This issue of Hooray For Monday offered a look into these worrying trends – and Inspired Teaching’s approach for reversing them.
Curiosity and School Connectedness
Curiosity underpins everything we do at Inspired Teaching; it is the solution to much of the divisiveness and isolation affecting society today. In this Hooray For Monday, Aleta describes how curiosity – using seven simple prompts – can help teachers create connection in their classrooms.
Create Connection by Sharing Student Expertise
Each of the nearly 200 issues of Hooray For Monday has been informed by Inspired Teaching’s connection to teachers and students. In this issue, Jenna’s experience speaking with students in Inspired Teaching’s Real World History and Speak Truth programs, as well as those at the Inspired Teaching Demonstration school, offers concrete strategies for teachers to create school connection.
Don’t Know How? Your Students Might!
Inspiration often comes when we least expect it – including this anecdote from Jenna! After jamming a copier and being rescued by the calm expertise of a group of high school students, she was struck by the role young people can and should play in ensuring our school communities work.
To, Not, For, With
This issue offers a deeper, compelling look at a model of discipline that goes beyond getting students to follow the rules, and focuses on helping students thrive.
Learning History from Those Who Lived it
Inspired Teaching’s mission is to create radical change in the school experience, away from compliance and toward authentic engagement. We achieve this primarily by teaching school leaders and teachers, but we also know “proof of concept” makes a strong case for the Inspired Teaching Approach. Our social studies course for DC-area high school students, Real World History, does just that!
Rules of Inspired Teaching Improv
Research shows that teachers trained in the skills of improvisation are well-equipped to handle the rapidly changing nature of what’s happening in schools. Better yet, classrooms steeped in an improvisational mindset foster the kinds of engagement and feelings of belonging essential to school connectedness. The 5 Rules of Inspired Teaching Improv are a teacher’s guide for building a community full of play, creativity, and authentic learning.
Fireflies and Mathematical Models
Hooray For Monday’s primary audience is preK-12 educators who seek fun and practical advice they can use to build classroom and school communities where everyone thrives. And sometimes, the lessons we learn each week come from unexpected sources – like professors of applied mathematics and statistics!
Know Your Goal
What’s that saying about the best-laid plans!? This Hooray For Monday offers an exploration of the Inspired Teaching Rule of Improv Know Your Goal, and shows how common the art of improvisation is in our everyday lives.
The Hooray For Monday podcast began in 2022 as an additional channel for receiving Hooray For Monday’s insights and resources. In 2023, it continued to evolve. A wonderful tool for those who prefer to listen while they learn, the Hooray For Monday podcast has become a source for original interviews and deeper storytelling.
Subscribe (rate and review!) to the podcast on your favorite listening platform and be sure to check out the below episodes — some of our most-listened-to of 2023!
The Urgent Need to Increase School Connectedness
We Find Connection in the Process
Reflections from a First-Year Inspired Teacher
Learning History from Those Who Lived it
For additional insights, resources, and information on Inspired Teaching teacher and youth programming, subscribe to the Hooray For Monday newsletter!