Summary
Organization name
The Center for Teacher Growth and Renewal
2022
Tax id (EIN)
88-3876909
Category
Education
Organization Size
Small Organization
Address
6867 S ELIZABETH STCENTENNIAL, CO 80122
Denver, CO, US
The Center for Teacher Growth and Renewal
A nonprofit organization
1
match
Live
$1,208 raised by 10 donors
OUR ORGANIZATION
The Center for Teacher Growth and Renewal creates workshops and retreats for teachers to engage in authentic conversation, inspired exploration, and sustained action toward the aim of meaningful educational experiences for themselves, for their students, and for their communities.
OUR COMMUNITY
The community created by the teachers who attend and teach at The Center is a wise and powerful force for educational equity, justice, and meaning. Grounded in experience and research, The Center offers workshops that align with these qualities and meet the needs of teachers where they are. From curriculum design to cultural and ecological sustainability to managing the daily stressors of being in the field, workshops provide lively and reflective experiences that support teachers’ growth and renewal in ways that they choose for themselves in the seasons of their work and lives.
WHO WE ARE
Our nonprofit organization is led by educators, thought leaders, business partners, and community members who are dedicated to educator wellness; we work to care for those who care for our children and youth. We are motivated by our mission, committed to diverse perspectives and backgrounds, and open to new ideas that will unleash unprecedented support for educators. We value creativity, collaboration, and passion, and strive to be compassionate bridge builders who can bring together diverse stakeholders to support the work. We value peace and justice while remaining steadfast in our determination to improve the lives of teachers. Through various avenues, including educator retreats, our nonprofit organization seeks to foster the well-being of our teachers while seeking to help lift the profile of the teaching profession, the noblest of callings.
Mission
OUR MISSION: CREATE SPACES FOR TEACHERS TO FLOURISH
The Center for Teacher Growth and Renewal creates spaces for teachers to engage in authentic conversation, inspired exploration, and sustained action toward the aim of meaningful educational experiences for themselves, for their students, and for their communities.
OUR VISION: FOCUS ON TEACHERS, NOT TECHNIQUE
Through workshops offered by teachers for teachers, educators explore the relationship between who they are and how they teach. The confluence of these identities is where powerful and transformational teaching resides. But to get there, to find this nexus, teachers must have opportunities to learn about and express their beliefs about the world, about education, and about their passions and purposes therein. Through this wisdom of connection, teachers create a wholeness of practice that aligns their beliefs and actions in the thoughtful service of students and themselves.
Background Statement
WHY NOW: REINVIGORATING THE CALL TO TEACH
This work is imperative now, in this moment, because the profession and its constituents are in crisis. The demands of this work are driving many away from the classroom, and fewer new teachers are entering the profession. The work of teachers can be exhausting physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and more than half of them are considering leaving the profession. This is a crisis for our students, as well as for our teachers. Certainly, education has always been political, but more recently it has become the place where politics collide, the place of heroes and villains, where teachers are simultaneously said to be saving and destroying our children and their futures.
Even before the pandemic, the Economic Policy Institute declared that the “teacher shortage is real, large, growing, and worse than we thought….and high poverty schools are suffering the most.” They note three main causes: low pay, challenging school environments, and weak professional development support and recognition. The latter fuels The Center.
Not only is the state of the profession dire, but efforts to “fix” teachers are often top down and externally sourced; professional development is done to teachers rather than with or for them. The Center addresses this crisis by working directly with teachers to develop deep skills in perceptive teaching and meaningful curriculum design as well as to provide opportunities to share wisdom with others through reciprocal and on-going workshops. We aim to reinvigorate the call to teach, to deepen the commitment to the Work.
Organization Data
CENTENNIAL, CO 80122