Leadership development is a critical component of a learning institution.  At Salem Public Schools we provide a variety of opportunities for educators to develop their leadership skills whether their goal is to lead from the classroom or move to a more formal leadership position.

Teachers as Scholars

Program Purpose:

After the year schools have been through, Teachers as Scholars’ mission to rejuvenate and inspire K-12
teachers is more urgent than ever.

Program Summary:

Teachers as Scholars (TAS) brings together university faculty and K-12 teachers in college-level
seminars. TAS provides intellectual renewal for teachers and addresses the need to retain and nurture
good teachers in the teaching profession. TAS buttresses the confidence of new teachers by deepening
their content knowledge, and energizes mid- and late-career teachers who, often through years of
teaching essentially the same material, may have lost the passion needed for good teaching.

Through TAS, K-12 teachers participate in small, two-day seminars led by university faculty in the
Humanities, Arts, Math, and Sciences, and are reconnected to the world of ideas – the reason many of
them became teachers in the first place. Renewed, teachers take back to their students what they learned
in TAS, ready to infuse their curriculum with the latest scholarship, new resources, and fresh
pedagogical strategies. As one teacher commented:

TAS has reminded me of why I am a teacher. I go back to my classroom with new
thoughts, new approaches, but most importantly, with new energy to bring what I
have learned to my students. It (TAS) is like a huge gulp of oxygen in my teaching
life. Thank you.

TAS serves 34 public and private schools in the greater Boston area. Approximately 400 teachers
participate in the program each program year. Teachers receive 10 PDPs for each seminar.

Program Format:

TAS holds two-day seminars from November-May during the school week from 9:30 am -3:00 pm.
Although the majority of the seminars are held at Harvard Hillel in Harvard Square, TAS has offered
seminars at the Museum of Fine Arts, the Huntington Theater, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the
Arnold Arboretum, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Boston Public Library. TAS also
offers summer courses and study trips. Our 2021 summer program can be found here.

Program Faculty:

TAS faculty are drawn from Tufts, MIT, Wellesley, Boston University, Northeastern, Boston
College, Harvard, Brandeis, and from other educational institutions in the area. The faculty has
included MacArthur Award winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the Poet Laureate of the United
States, and faculty receiving distinguished teaching awards from their universities.

Program Governance:

Teachers as Scholars Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3) governed by a Board of Directors and Advisory
Board. Henry Bolter, Founder of Teachers as Scholars in 1995, is Director. Mary Burchenal is
TAS’s Program Assistant.


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