We teach — and our students live and learn — in a world of rapid change, with new technological tools for navigating that world at our fingertips. For academic high school educators, it’s an exciting and challenging time. Do we have a role in creating innovative teaching environments for our students and professional learning settings for ourselves? I say yes.

UFT members met at the Staten Island borough office on Feb. 6 to design T-shirts celebrating the 100th day of the school year on Feb. 14.

Members collect free books for their classrooms and their homes at a First Book event on Feb. 1 at the UFT’s Staten Island borough office.

Aamir Griffin, a 14-year-old freshman, was doing what he loved most — practicing on a court near his home in Jamaica — when he was killed by a stray bullet in October.

Dozens of Brooklyn educators, parents and community members came to the UFT’s Brooklyn borough office on three consecutive Saturdays in January to learn the steps to create a grassroots organizing campaign at a school.

Newtown HS sophomore Supriya Singh wants to own a business someday, and she very much looked the part of a young CEO when she welcomed parents and community members to an after-school resume-writing workshop in January.

For one volunteer, the annual UFT-Coalition for the Homeless Christmas party in December at union headquarters in Manhattan was a chance to remember — and pay it forward.

The UFT's Middle Schools Division, in partnership with the city Department of Education, hosted a Thanksgiving Luncheon for 200 students who live in transitional housing on Nov. 23 at UFT headquarters in Manhattan.
 

“It has always been my firm belief that little hands can make a big difference in the world,” says Nicholas Taranto, the media teacher at PS/IS 235 in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

MS 57 Chapter Leader Nicole Smith’s idea to help 47 young Bahamian college students, driven from their homes by Hurricane Dorian in September, quickly morphed into a community effort.