April 22, 2016
(Photographer: Dennis Kan)
On April 21, the Inspired Teaching community came together at the 2016 Chocolate Inspiration gala, celebrating 20 years of Inspired Teaching, honoring author and activist Jonathan Kozol, and sampling inspired chocolate creations from some of the finest DC-area chefs.
Inspired Teaching’s Aleta Margolis and Jane Dimyan-Ehrenfeld addressed the audience and introduced Jonathan Kozol, the inaugural recipient of the Inspired Teaching Changemaker Award.
What if we go even further and base our schools on the belief that young people can come up with ideas that can actually transform communities? What if we viewed students not as empty vessels, or empty heads to fill up, but as the owners of powerful minds who come to school excited to learn how to use those minds well? This is the work of Inspired Teaching. This is why we’re here tonight. This is why you’re here tonight.
– Aleta Margolis
Mr. Kozol also spoke to the audience after accepting the award.
I’d like to accept this award in the name of all those unnoticed but gloriously inspiring and contagiously exhilarating teachers who find me everywhere I go. . . . I’d like to take this opportunity tonight to celebrate Center for Inspired Teaching for bringing dignity to teachers; joy and justice to their students; and a badly needed rebirth of jubilant vitality, healthy spontaneity, creativity, and sheer humanity and love back into our nation’s public schools.
– Jonathan Kozol
Click here for full versions of Aleta and Jane’s remarks, as well as those of Mr. Kozol.
Below are a few images from last night’s event:
Inspired Teaching staff and Inspired Teachers
(L to R) Inspired Teaching board chair Shelley Fidler, Lois Berkowitz, DC State Board of Education member-at-large Mary Lord, Aleta Margolis
(L to R) OSSE Director of STEM Maya Garcia, Mary Lord, NPR Education Correspondent Claudio Sanchez, Maria Teresa Alvarez Sanchez
(L to R) Rae Pica, Inspired Teacher Vilona Nicks, Inspired Teaching’s Sammy Magnuson
(L to R) Inspired Teacher Jan Schuettpelz, Inspired Teaching’s Jane Ehrenfeld, Jonathan Kozol, Inspired Teaching’s Sarah Hughes
(L to R) Deborah Dantzler Williams, Jenna Fournel, Kaneia Mayo, Kate Keplinger, Aleta Margolis, Monisha Karnani; current and former staff members at Inspired Teaching and the Inspired Teaching Demonstration School
Inspired chocolate creations
Aleta Margolis addresses the audience
Aleta Margolis presents Jonathan Kozol with the inaugural Inspired Teaching Changemaker Award
Jonathan Kozol addresses the audience
Jonathan Kozol with Dr. Janet Stocks, Trinity Washington University
Inspired Teaching’s Jane Ehrenfeld with her mentor, Jonathan Kozol