This blog post about building a Teacher Village was written by Kylie Altier – because we are stronger together!
For 8 years, I was the teacher who was the first one in the parking lot in the morning and the last to leave at night. Teaching was my entire identity, and while I had lots of success doing this, I remember vividly saying to myself at night, “I love my kids (students), but this job is really hard.”
When I became a mum, I thought I would have to take what felt like a huge step back from being an effective educator, but little did I know this step back would make space for my community to take a huge step forward.
Everyone kept telling me I needed a village to raise my own children. With less time than ever, I applied this same mantra in my classroom. When I learned how to ask for help, I built a teacher village and now thanks to them when I lay my head down at night I say with conviction, “I love my kids, and this is the best job in the world.”
Thanks to my teacher village, I found a work life balance that has not only allowed me the space to be a present mum, but actually made me a more effective teacher than ever before.
In the year of my career that I worked the least amount of hours than ever, I was named Teacher of the Year for the entire state of Louisiana. I feel this honour isn’t mine at all, but a symbol of what happens when teachers are not alone. So I’d love to share a few tips so you can start building or expanding your village!
It take a Village: How to Create Your Own Teacher Village
Ask for help….all the help….all the time!
This may seem really obvious, but I never realised how powerful it is to simply ask for help.
I think oftentimes as a teacher I felt like I had to handle everything on my own or look for help within my school, but when I just started asking people all around me, I was shocked by the amount of people saying yes!
There are so many people who WANT to help our children and teachers, they just don’t know how. One thing I ask for help all the time is content based learning. I used to spend hours researching topics, finding videos, making slideshows, and designing demonstrations in hopes of giving my students real experiences. Now my planning consists of sending a few quick emails to experts in those topics asking for their help.
A story from my village:
A local meteorologist jumped right from our TV screens to our classroom two years in a row with the coolest rainbow and lightning facts to share.
After two members of an Entomology club came with hissing cockroaches in hand and spoke to my class about bugs, they spread the word and now each semester club members visit our garden. They even gave us our own specimen tray filled with insects except for a blank spot where my future entomologists can collect their own samples.
A local fashion writer brought sunglasses she had designed and made every child in my class feel like a celebrity when they tried them on.
Did you know here in Louisiana we have a herpetologist who discovered a lizard with green blood and the world’s smallest vertebrate? He has come to teach my class two years in a row, and this past year right before arriving he sent me an email that read, “is it okay if I bring my pet tortoise with me?” When asked to give a little, the people of Louisiana showed up ten-fold and have made a lifelong impact on my students.
The point of me saying this isn’t to brag about all the different speakers that came to my class, but it’s to say that they took work off my plate as they delivered a lesson far superior to what I could teach.
Look near and far for villagers
I happen to live in a big college town, so there are a lot of awesome villagers locally for me! Villagers nearby, I typically just find by searching a job title and the name of my city (for example, I searched geologist in Baton Rouge) or through word of mouth.
However, even in this big city, I found sometimes I had to expand my search to find a perfect fit for a villager. A lot of times, I just think of a topic I need help teaching and type that word into Instagram and find users utilising that hashtag. When I find people that look like a good fit, I do my background research, and then I send desperate DMs asking them if they’d be willing to help some adorable 6 year olds learn! (Still waiting on Simone Biles to message me back, but you do have to be comfortable with shooting your shot and missing every now and then).
A story from my village:
When a little one in my class wanted to learn more about dinosaurs, I could find no local palaeontologists, so I took to Instagram.
I searched for #palaeontologist and Elaine Howard was flooding the feed with amazing pictures! I then googled her name and found her website Passion in the Bones and it turns out she is a lawyer who found palaeontology later in life and it has sparked such an intense passion for her that she wrote a book!
So I sent her a 2 sentence message asking if she’d be willing to Zoom with my class and to my surprise she said YES! The next week we got to see all her amazing replicas and actual fossils, hear tales from her adventures, and my students got all of their dinosaur questions answered.
The most beautiful thing is, now 3 years in a row, she has inspired my students. I am pretty sure I can always count on first graders to love dinosaurs, and I know I can always count on her to fuel their fire.
Find the UNO Games for Maths here.
Vary Requests to create your Teacher Village
I ask for lots of different types of help, because while I have found so many humans want to help, they all have different strengths, availability, and resources.
The most common thing I ask for is the gift of time. I ask people who are experts in a subject matter we are learning about or that my students want to learn about if they will give us 10 minutes of their time to answer questions crafted by first graders.
By starting small, with no prep work required, it makes it really easy for people to say yes! This 10 minutes often turns into more, but even just the 10 minutes makes a huge impact!
Another easy ask of someone is story time! Having a story time reader has been surprisingly transformational for me as a teacher. In the simple act of reading a story to my class she gives us all a literal and metaphorical big hug.
While some people may not have time, a lot of people are willing to donate supplies or fund specific projects. It may feel scary to ask, but don’t ever say no for other people! The gift of giving can be even greater than being on the receiving end. You are offering just as much as you are requesting.
From Amazon wishlists, to crowdfunding sites, to asking specific organisations like banks to fund larger projects, to writing grants, there is a wide array of opportunities for you to get resources for your classroom and your school. Just speak from the heart, tell the story of your class, and be okay no matter the outcome. Villagers that have contributed in monetary ways have helped me get basic supplies, VR headsets, a school garden, add to my classroom library, and even an outdoor classroom!
A story from my village:
I sent an email to a local architecture professor asking if she would be willing to give us 10 minutes of her time to answer a few questions from my class. She responded asking if it would be okay if she taught an entire lesson, read an architecture children’s book, and even walked the students through a STEM lesson where they would build their own truss bridge models and learn why they are so sturdy.
All I asked for was 10 minutes and she delivered so much more! She even showed up with swag bags for each of them and needless to say, when she showed up at my doorstep I was flooded with grateful tears!
Be an open door
This piece of advice in many ways isn’t tangible at all and one might just think I have gotten really lucky in the past few years, and while I am sure luck plays a role, there is no way this much good fortune would have found me with my door shut.
My classroom has become a place everyone is welcome. Do you need a space to run your after school club? Sure, you can use my classroom! Maybe it’s a little messy in the morning, but that’s okay! Do you want to come observe? Come on in!
I have also had over 50 villagers I have invited in myself in the last 3 years walk through the doors. I think when lots of people walk in and out of your room, they can’t help but feel the love and want to be a part of it!
All the help I have asked for only seems to multiply. Again, there is no concrete step for you to take here, just have a deep belief that when you are doing your best to do good in the world, that good comes back…except no one can see the good if your door is shut!
A story from my village:
An after school club was looking for a place to do a STEM lesson and I volunteered my class. I really had no idea what it would entail, I wasn’t there when it happened, because I left right after dismissal to have a full afternoon with my babies at home, but while I was doing absolutely nothing related to work, I gained a villager.
Turns out this lesson was run by an engineer who runs a nonprofit organisation with the goal of sparking an interest in STEM for young learners. While he was in my class, he saw I had a pet guinea pig. The next day, he stopped by my classroom and casually asked “Would you like some chickens?” GUYS, I have wanted to be the teacher that hatches chickens my entire career, but never knew how, and here he was just giving it to me!
Now, my students are raising chickens and my entire garden club will get hands-on experience in agriculture. All I did was say yes.
Express Gratitude
It doesn’t have to be extravagant or cost any money, but letting villagers know how much you appreciate them and tell them about their impact makes them villagers for life.
I often print out a cheesy certificate on a piece of colored paper and sign my name at the bottom, ready to hand it to them and take a cute class photo on the way out of the classroom. I’ve seen this same sheet of paper hanging in offices next to diplomas and awards.
I have also sent follow up emails to show the work my students were able to produce thanks to their help or even just written a one or two line thank you note and dropped it in the mail.
When I won teacher of the year, that very same night, I went home and emailed my villagers that WE won, because I wouldn’t be here without them. They have become such a huge part of who I am and it has been so fun to share in the success together.
A story from my village:
When one of my students had a particular interest in owls, I reached out to the curator of birds at a natural science museum.
Dr. James Van Remsen Jr. zoomed in one afternoon and let her ask him a list of over 27 questions. He knew every answer immediately and my student lit up with joy at every response.
My student went on to use all the knowledge she gained to write a nonfiction book. It was simple, just one sentence on each page, but she worked so hard on it for weeks. When she finished, I sent him pictures of the book. He was so impressed he asked if she would like a private tour of the museum.
I was able to connect him with her family and on a Saturday, they got to walk through and learn everything first hand. When I saw the pictures, I was shocked to see her holding owl “specimens” AKA dead birds and was nervous she would have been scared, but instead the next Monday she came bounding in the room exclaiming “I want to be a curator of my own museum when I grow up!” – What 6 year old even knows that word?!
In my act of genuine gratitude, my student gained a once in a lifetime experience.
In closing….
They say it takes a village to raise a child, and in this same way, I believe it takes a village to educate a child.
These experiences are so much exponentially greater than what I could have given them by myself as just their teacher.
Some moments were big and some were small, but each one gave me hope. I used to wonder how I could ever sustain this work long term, but with a village alongside of me, I know I don’t ever have to do it alone and neither do you.
With love,
Kylie Altier
P.S. I’d love to be a part of your village, @Mrs.Altiersvillage on Instagram
What to read next:
Ways to save your teacher voice
5 things to avoid as a beginning teacher
Podcast episode: Help your students learn their times tables once and for all
