Our Fifteenth Annual Teacher Leadership Institute: Elevating Student Voice through Teacher Leadership is an event that you won’t want to miss! For over a decade and a half, this event has supported educators across Arizona, ensuring their voice is heard on behalf of the students they serve. This year’s event will focus on how we can leverage our leadership skills to heighten and provide a platform for student voice, identity, and perspectives. We fully believe students come to us with their own voice, and, when we provide them space and time, powerful things can result from it. Teacher leaders and school teams can look forward to amazing general session speakers, the vast talent of the Arizona TeacherSolutions® Team, and connecting with other teacher leaders from across our state. 

Due to the overwhelming positive feedback around last year’s general session facilitator, Cornelius Minor will be joining us again this year! Minor works with teachers, school leaders, and leaders of community-based organizations to support equitable literacy reform in cities (and sometimes villages) across the globe. His latest book, We Got This, explores how the work of creating more equitable school spaces is embedded in our everyday choices — specifically in the choice to really listen to kids.

Along with Minor, we will be welcoming two new speakers: Cinnamon Kills First and Kass Minor.  

Cinnamon Kills First is from the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. She infuses Native American studies, creative writing, and her own wisdom traditions. Kills First is a cross-cultural communicator who believes that writing fosters healing and is committed to facing hard truths in order to bring about change. Kills First’s beadwork, writing, and documentary films combat harmful stereotypes and cultural appropriation by offering honest, self-representation on behalf of herself and her people.

Kass Minor is an inclusive educator who is deeply involved in local, inquiry-based teacher research, and school community development. Her work is inspired by the communities that surround her and motivated by the idea that every adult can teach and every student can learn. She facilitates critical conversations that lead to improved, engaged, and more powerful teaching practices, allowing loveful pedagogies to persist in the realm of teaching and learning. She has contributed content to Heinemann Education Blog, inclusiveclassrooms.org, and has been featured in Teaching Tolerance Magazine.

Check out this season of 3Ps in a Pod where we will be hosting all three of these speakers to learn more about each of them, their work, and to preview of the learning ahead this summer. 

Did you attend last year? If so, we would love for you to take a few minutes to complete a follow-up survey. Please click here to help us gain insight as we continue to reflect and plan with Cornelius, Cinnamon, Kass, and the TeacherSoulutions® Team.