Meet Ashley Platé. She’s a high school English teacher hailing from Clermont, FL. She attended the Fourth Estate Leadership Summit in 2011 and hasn’t been the same since. We recently caught up with her to find out what changed after attending the Summit.
Why is attending the Fourth Estate Summit valuable for educators?
You can’t effectively empower students until you have been empowered as a teacher. The 2011 Fourth Estate Summit gave me so much knowledge, so many ideas and so much insight into the world of global activism and advocacy, and I was able to bring that back to the classroom.
How did attending the 2011 Fourth Estate Summit develop you as leader in education?
Attending the Fourth Estate made me aware of new ways of teaching. We all know that we live in a global society, but until the Fourth Estate, I wasn’t sure how to bring that into my four classroom walls. Now, I have taken the lead not only in my school, but in my church and community as a whole, on getting our youth involved in global issues. It’s catching – more and more students want to be a part of what’s going on, and that spark was ignited at the Fourth Estate.
How have you seen your classroom change by what you experienced at the 2011 Fourth Estate Summit?
My classroom changed because I changed as a person. My expanded global and social consciousness, coupled with my renewed excitement about advocacy and activism, was sort of contagious. My classroom became more of an action center than anything else – we were so charged by what was learned at the Fourth Estate that there wasn’t a day when we weren’t working on some project or other relating to social justice. It was electric.
What was your favorite moment at the 2011 Fourth Estate Summit?
All of it. I know that’s a cop-out answer, but that’s actually how I feel. The entire experience as a whole changed me on a very deep level. I am who I am today in part because of the Fourth Estate.
If you’d like to take an important step towards social justice and human rights, and learn how to empower your students to do the same, join us for the Fourth Estate Leadership Summit, August 8-11 in Los Angeles. The deadline to apply is May 15th.
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