Space Camp inspires 2020 Alaska Teacher of the Year to prioritize joy in learning

Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama has inspired thousands of students – both school age and adults – and is one of the mainstays of CCSSO’s professional learning and development experiences for State Teachers of the Year. However, since COVID-19 canceled travel plans and in-person gatherings, Alaska’s 2020 Teacher of the Year and her cohort of State Teachers of the Year thought they were going to miss out on the experience.

In February of 2020 Amy Gallaway, a civics teacher at West Valley High School in Fairbanks, traveled to San Francisco for the Induction Program at Google headquarters. The novel coronavirus was just beginning to take root in the United States at that time, but after the Induction Program, all other scheduled Teacher of the Year activities were either cancelled, postponed, or transitioned to a virtual setting. Last week’s Space Camp was the first time Gallaway and her cohort were together in 17 months.

“After last year, we thought we wouldn’t get to do anything. I was just so excited to be with them in person again,” Gallaway said.

At Space Camp the educators went through all the programming that other campers do such as simulated missions to Mars and building and launching rockets, but with a few more lectures throughout the week.

“They treated us like kids and it was so wonderful because I got to remember what it was like to be a student, and that’s really where the joy came in. They made learning really fun,” Gallaway said. “We learned a lot about what’s going on with NASA and what’s going on in space. One of the most important things I learned is that our students – my students – are the Mars generation. NASA plans on going to Mars. They said to us ‘We need you to prepare your students because we need them to get us to Mars.’ That’s not science fiction.”

Even with exciting activities, Gallaway says the most valuable part of the experience has been collaborating with other teachers.

“There is a professional collegiality and collaboration that happens at a time when we’re not having to do other things. The mind doesn’t multitask well. We know this, yet as teachers we’re constantly tasked with multitasking,” Gallaway said. “This teacher of the year cohort is a chance to really focus on teacher collaboration and teacher excellence, and then learn from my other colleagues.”

Gallaway says the combination of collaboration and having an amplified voice as Teacher of the Year has helped her keep teaching fresh and exciting. One example is finding a way to include Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy” in her classes. She learned how the Teacher of the Year in Utah was using “Just Mercy” in her classroom and worked with the Fairbanks Education Association to secure grant funding to get restorative justice and discipline into the FNSBSD.

Looking to next year, Gallaway’s teaching will look different because of her experiences as Teacher of the Year, and she looks to sharing what she’s learned with other educators.

“The number one reason I’m in the classroom and the number one reason we all teach is student learning. So we have to center student learning, student voice and student empowerment,” Gallaway said. “We always, even with all the noise that is going on out there, we have to keep out ‘why’ constantly in the front. And our ‘why’ is engaged, empowered, and effective students who can go out and choose to live the life they want, not settle for a life they feel comfortable with or have to.”

One of the highlights from Space Camp was a talk from astronaut Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger that reminded Gallaway of how to inspire students. Metcalf-Lindenburger told the group how during a science project in middle school her teacher saw her not just as a student, but as a scientist.

“She said it was the first time any adult in her life saw her as a scientist, and that inspired her to really keep going. And she talked about curiosity, hard work and joy, and those three things being the cornerstone of a quality teaching and learning experience,” Gallaway said. “I would tell all the teachers we have to remember: How do we created engaged, effective, and empowered citizens? We cultivate curiosity. We find and ensure that students can do hard work. We help them believe in themselves to do hard work. We don’t make it easier, we just scaffold so they can do hard work. And then we make learning joyful. We make it fun. We make it exciting.”

Gallaway says that after her experience she is going to restructure her classes to where students are working in teams. While she will continue to work to improve student learning in her classroom, she says there’s a need to teacher voices to be heard and valued beyond just their classroom.

“We really need to encourage and amplify teacher voices in policy making and in our community from our school boards to our legislature to DEED. I know that teachers are experts and we need teachers as experts not just being celebrated like ‘You’re doing great,’” Gallaway said. “We need to put them in positions where their hands are on the levers of power and policy making and we need to put them in situations where they get to work with people from around the nation and around the state so that we can continue to collaborate so that every Alaskan student is reading where they need to be, writing where they need to be, getting jobs they want to have and living the life that they choose – the life that they want so that our communities are strong.”

(All photos courtesy Amy Gallaway)