Why we're bringing Teachable Moments back
11/19/2012
Teachable Moments began as a project of the Philanthropic Initiative of The Community Foundation in Jacksonville and ran during the 2011-2012 school year. It featured interviews with Teachers of the Year from Duval and surrounding counties to share profiles of the best educators in the region with the community. The Philanthropic Initiative is a program for young adults with knowledge, resources and skills that will enable them to work to build a better community through philanthropy and help build a strong philanthropic network in Northeast Florida. The 2010 group chose education as a focus and Teachable Moments was their brainchild.
As the project concluded in the summer of 2012, the community had responded to the articles and on-air stories in a big way. And here at the Jacksonville Public Education Fund, it became clear that raising public awareness of what great teaching looks like was a priority. A recurring theme in the ONE by ONE conversations we had been conducting all over town was a desire among participants to raise the level of respect afforded to educators in our community.
What better way than to continue Teachable Moments this year?
So the project will re-start in the fall with stories every Sunday in the Times-Union, starting Nov. 25. WJCT stories will begin airing in January. One of the most exciting parts of the relaunch is that stories will now be written and produced by students at the University of North Florida. Thanks to Journalism Instructor Paula Horvath-Niemeyer, students in the Applied Journalism course will get real-life experience. We'd call that a win-win for education!
We'll be posting all of the stories here at jaxpef.org. And we hope you'll nominate an exceptional teacher you know! E-mail nominations to deirdre@jaxpef.org.