The Muscogee Educational Excellence Foundation (MEEF) sent 11 Muscogee County School District (MCSD) Teachers to the prestigious Harvard University Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero Classroom over the summer. The Harvard Fellows spent a week with world-renowned scholars and innovative teachers from around the world. This year’s class - the largest MEEF has sent – joined 27 other Harvard Fellows creating a critical mass of teachers steadily building around a body of research from Project Zero to help transform MCSD into a school system of unparalleled excellence.  

Started in 1967, Project Zero is built on years of research to help create communities of reflective, independent learners; to enhance understanding among different disciplines; and to promote critical and creative thinking. Its work includes research into the nature of intelligence, understanding, thinking, creativity, ethics and other essential aspects of human learning.  

MEEF’s Harvard Fellows learned thinking skills that improve students’ reasoning, problem-solving skills and creativity, in part by having them question old ways of thinking and be actively engaged in the learning process. David Perkins of the Harvard Graduate School of Education told the Harvard Gazette that his researchers discovered that the biggest problem that stood in the way of thinking was not IQ but alertness. “Things just pass people by,” he said. “They didn’t notice the little anomalies. They didn’t notice that the other side of the case was missing.”

The Harvard Fellows program has proven to be transformational for MCSD teachers with direct, practical and powerful application in their classrooms, and it has not gone unnoticed. MCSD superintendent, David Lewis regularly meets with the group as an informal advisory committee to share ideas and talk about best practices. Those meetings have evolved into the Fellows conducting model classrooms, where other teachers observe them demonstrating new instructional strategies and techniques.

Harvard Fellow Oliver Ellis, Fort Middle Magnet Academy, captured the sentiment of the entire group noting, "Now, more than ever, we're equipped, excited and engaged to find new ways to deepen student understanding and learning." Karen McDavid, Midland Elementary Academy, said, "This opportunity has transformed my teaching. I can't wait to transform my classroom ... and share what I learned with my MCSD colleagues."  

The Harvard Fellows Program is synergistic with MEEF's mission of rewarding and recognizing excellent teachers but it goes beyond that to maximizing MEEF's investment in these teachers. “Our Harvard Fellows increase the capacity to improve learning for all children by bringing back what they learn at Harvard and sharing it with other teachers, impacting the entire district.” MEEF Chair, Janet Davis said “We need to teach children not just to know things but teach them how to think critically, creatively and connectively. "  

2016 Harvard Fellows are Marlene Culpepper of Clubview Elementary School, Oliver Ellis of Fort Middle School, Stephanie Fuerte of Aaron Cohn Middle School, Sheryl Green of Jordan Vocational High School, Isiah Harper of Northside High School, Robert Harris of Jordan Vocational High School. Karen McDavid of Midland Academy, Amanda Reynolds of Aaron Cohn Middle School, Ebony Robinson of North Columbus Elementary School, Brandy Sipling of Midland Academy and Aleatha Thrush of Britt David Magnet Academy.

The Top Ten honorees from each of the past ten years in the Teacher of the Year program, which MEEF runs for MCSD, are eligible to apply to become Harvard Fellows. The Muscogee Educational Excellence Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting educational excellence by recognizing and rewarding outstanding teachers in the Muscogee County School District. The Foundation has awarded over $2 million to innovative teachers through the TOTY program, the MEEF Grant program, the STEM T3 program and the MEEF Endowment Fund.