June 30, 2025
By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President
Listen to this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast for the audio version of this newsletter.
30 years ago this month I founded Center for Inspired Teaching after several years as a public school teacher, and a year teaching high school students in the juvenile justice system in Washington, DC. When I started Inspired Teaching, I was on the faculty at American University in the School of Education.
I loved being a teacher. I loved teaching teachers. And I recognized the power teachers have to be changemakers, in school and in society.
But back in 1995 society certainly was not looking to teachers to make change. We were expected to maintain the status quo, to keep students in line, both literally and figuratively, to make sure they “got through” the curriculum, scored well enough on the test, and generally kept out of adults’ hair.
And so, I found myself eager to teach teachers to rethink their roles, to be changemakers, to be Instigators of Thought. I wanted to make sure that school fuels— and does not extinguish—curiosity, critical thinking, and kindness.
When Center for Inspired Teaching launched our first teaching Institute (covered in The Washington Post as The Revolution in the Classroom), we did something wild: we taught teachers to think and behave like improvisational actors. Like skilled improvisers, skilled teachers set clear goals and stay laser focused on achieving them, while simultaneously incorporating the unexpected (i.e. an off the wall question or comment from a student; a snow flurry outside the window; a pandemic-inspired Zoom room instead of a classroom…).
Years later we codified this aspect of our work into the 5 Rules of Inspired Teaching Improv. When we named JOY as one of our 5 Core Elements of excellent classroom instruction in 2012, we were among the first to insist that children needed joy in school just as much as they needed to learn to read and write and do math. In 2015, we revised our mission, stating we’re shifting the school experience for students from compliance-based to engagement-based. We were among the first to uplift engagement as an academic and social justice imperative. On January 21 of this year, we launched Inspired Teaching’s yearlong Curiosity Challenge to make curiosity the 2025 Word of the Year, and to fuel curiosity in schools and in society.
Inspired Teaching’s Chief Curiosity Officer, and my dear friend Jenna Fournel, who has been a part of Inspired Teaching’s leadership for over 20 years, writes in her professional bio that her goal is to make the world a kinder place. It is a bold and audacious goal. And now in 2025, nothing could be more important.
Much has changed in 30 years. But much has remained the same. There are still too many schools and classrooms where kids are praised for staying in line and teachers are praised for keeping them there.
But today there are thousands and thousands of Inspired Teachers who are driving change.
Last week we launched the 30th annual Inspired Teaching Institute, with our summer intensive for teachers in Washington, DC.
These newly minted Inspired Teachers are building curiosity, kindness, and critical thinking in themselves, so they can do the same for their students. Starting this fall, they will train their teaching colleagues in the Inspired Teaching Approach, thus creating exponential change.
A few weeks ago, I attended my daughter Mira’s college graduation. At the ceremony, nearly every speaker described the urgent need for curiosity and critical thinking—for schools and for society. The commencement speaker was the indomitable Steve Carrell. He spoke about kindness as the single most important quality young people must take with them into the world.
Mr. Carrell is definitely onto something.
Thank you to the Inspired Teachers, past, present, and future, who prioritize curiosity, kindness, and critical thinking.
Here’s to the next 30 years of continuing to make school good for kids!
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.
