Last week, over 60 participants from Canada and the United States descended
Last week, over 60 participants from Canada and the United States descended

TfT Bulletin #14  |  March 12, 2025
Last week, over 60 participants from Canada and the United States descended on Southwest Christian High School and Avail Academy for the annual Teaching for Transformation (TfT) Site Seminar.
The purpose of the site seminar is to provide an opportunity for participants to explore the TfT core and essential practices within the specific context of a school’s mission and vision. Participants ranged from schools thinking about a TfT implementation journey to those in year 9 of TfT!
While the core and essential practices are universal through all CACE TfT schools, each practice is intended to take on a contextualized flavor to a school’s mission/vision, geographical location, and community served. This contextualized flavor was on full display as participants had the opportunity to visit two separate high schools and two different elementary campuses. The diversity of and within practices was evident.
There is a vulnerability that accompanies hosting a TfT site seminar. Essentially, you open your school (the teachers, the students, the teaching and learning) wide open to a group of learners (mostly strangers) and say, “Come on in—we are glad you are here. Don’t leave a rock unturned as you explore our embodiment of the TfT practices.” I am so grateful to the hosts for the trust and courage they showed as they welcomed the learners, and to the learners for the way they embodied the learning habits of curiosity, graciousness, and joy. 
Predictably, as a TfT learning event, storytelling was a significant piece of the experience. Stories were shared individually by teachers and students, covering practices such as FLEx, Throughlines, Storylines, and graduate portfolios.
If you ask any of the guests to identify their favorite part of the site seminar, most would identify the teacher and student panels. It is an opportunity for the guests to dig deep into the lived experience of both teachers and students. These panels are deeply convicting as both teachers and students share the impact of the TfT practices on their faith and their learning.
The learning walks provide an opportunity to get a sense of the TfT journeys within the classrooms. This is the opportunity to investigate how individual teacher’s Deep Hopes and Storylines connect both the learning and learners to God’s Story. (Check out the compiled lists of teacher Deep Hopes and Storylines from both Avail and Southwest.) Of course, Storyboards are incredibly helpful in sharing the learning journeys. At these schools, the rich creativity and diversity of the teachers were on full display.
Finally, it wouldn’t be a TfT site seminar without an intentional opportunity to reflect on the experience before heading back to the hectic pace of our classrooms and schools. During the closing circle, participants were invited to respond to the prompt, “I used to think/feel... but, now I think/feel...” Below are example responses that reflect the richness of the TfT Site Seminar. 
  • I used to think TfT implementation is primarily about methodology. But now I think that TfT implementation is first and foremost about personal, spiritual transformation that fuels transformative teaching.
  • I used to think that Deep Hope was only to serve as a guide to my teaching. But now I think it is more than that—it is also a tool that can explicitly demonstrate to my students my care and love of them.
  • I used to feel uneasy about TfT. But now I feel excited about TfT. In these last few days, my questions were answered.
  • I used to think I didn’t understand TfT and thought it was one more thing. But now I feel like it can be used to live out our school’s mission.
  • I used to think I didn’t understand how to lead our team with TfT moving forward. But now I have a vision for where we are going and the beginning of a map to get there. 
I am extremely grateful to the schools that provided the opportunity for their teachers and leaders to attend this learning experience. As you can gather from the above reflections, the Site Seminar deepens both individual and institutional TfT implementation journeys.  
No matter where you are in your journey, I invite you to consider attending next year’s site seminar.
As the Seminar was hosted in Minnesota in March, it made all the sense in the world to have the facilitator debrief session out on a frozen lake gathered around a few holes in the ice. Dare I say that the debrief and the fishing was as successful as the Site Seminar.

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