Teacher Appreciation Week | Dr. Biden Talks TEACH...

For those of you that don't know today is the first day of Teacher Appreciation Week, which was started back in 1984 by the National PTA to "honor the men and women who lend their passion and skills to educating children and celebrate the outstanding contributions those teachers make." So I'm sure you'll end up seeing lots of stuff about teacher throughout the course of the week on various news programs, talk shows, blog posts, etc. And why not start here...

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week I was asked if I could share some information about the TEACH Campaign and the upcoming short film featuring Second Lady Jill Biden called Dr. Biden Talks TEACH.



May 4, 2015 (Los Angeles, CA) – As part of the ongoing campaign to recruit the next great generation of teachers, Participant Media and its TEACH Campaign, inspired by the Davis Guggenheim documentary, will launch a multi-pronged, nationwide initiative to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week (May 4-9).     

Dr. Jill Biden kicks off the week with a special short film, Dr. Biden talks TEACH, where she discusses her inspiration to become an educator. “Once I started my first year of college, and I had an inspirational English Teacher, I just knew that English was the career for me,” states Dr. Biden. “It’s all about giving them confidence in themselves, to know that they can succeed.”      

Additionally, #TEACHNow, a PSA directed by Lesley Chilcott who produced the Oscar Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, will run in movie theaters across the country.  #TEACHNow serves as a call to action to encourage passionate young people to make a commitment to join the teaching profession.     

“My goal with #TEACHNow is to visually illustrate that teaching is so important that it deserves its own recruitment piece featuring teachers as the heroic, life-changing, amazing people they are,” said director Lesley Chilcott. “We need to show our most talented youth that teaching is an incredible career choice.”      

“We feel extremely lucky to be working with Dr. Jill Biden, whose unwavering commitment to teaching has inspired students and teachers across the nation, and Lesley Chilcott, whose powerful short has helped reshape the way young people view the art of teaching,” said Chad Boettcher, EVP of Social Action for Participant Media.  “These two talented and dedicated women have been instrumental in drawing young people into the classroom and shaping future leaders for years to come.”      

Lastly, the TEACH campaign will host screenings of TEACH, The Road to TEACH and #TEACHNow until the end of the school year at high schools and colleges across the country. The Road to TEACH is a one-hour documentary produced in collaboration with Roadtrip Nation spotlighting inspiring individuals working to change the face of education.  This is part of the campaign’s ongoing effort to create awareness across the nation that creative, innovative, passionate people should consider the profession of teaching.


If you want to know more about the TEACH Campaign you can check out their website, and if you wanna know more aboout Teacher Appreciation Week you can check out the National PTA's website.