UCET Podcast - Cultivating Teacher Leaders with the Utah Teacher Fellows

Daily Resource / January 3rd, 2022

One of the consistent things that I have learned and continue learning about Utah education is that there are a lot of incredibly dedicated and hopeful individuals working within the system for teachers and students. Funnily enough, a good chunk of those individuals in the last few years have been connected to the Utah Teacher Fellows. In 2018, I was in a podcasting meetup at SXSWEDU and met the national leaders in the Hope Street Group. They wanted to start a podcast, I was there working on my podcast (my dormant project Edtrex Rewind with Quin Henderson) and we shared ideas and outlooks. Their leadership told me to check out the Utah Teacher Fellows program. Next week, I was at my first UCET and I walked up to Tabitha Pacheco, Utah Teacher Fellows’ leader, and introduced myself. From there, Quin and I interviewed many teacher fellows and to this day many of the great people I meet in Utah education have a connection or directly collaborate with the Utah Teacher Fellows.

This interview was a pleasure to record and engineer. Tabitha, Stephan, and Kiera all have great energies and projects within Utah education. I pulled and placed my favorite moment from the interview at the beginning; Stephan extolls the virtues of professionalizing education and giving teachers voices within the larger educational system. It is well worth the listen to not only learn more about what makes Utah education an incredible place, but also to learn more about systems for engaging teacher leadership. Enjoy the episode to the right.