A roomful of teachers breathes in rhythm, eyes closed, to the sound of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 - one of many music-based mindfulness techniques learned in a MindUp for Music workshop at UFT headquarters on May 16.

“You have to go through to get to,” Darryl McDaniels of the iconic hip-hop group Run-DMC told more than 350 students in the Bronx, speaking about the adversity they may face on their path to greatness during the UFT’s third annual Let’s Talk About It event.

District 12’s Scholarship Breakfast, which has grown in size every year since its 2018 inception, brought nearly 500 attendees to Villa Barone Manor in the Bronx on June 3.

The 17th annual Better Speech and Hearing Month Celebration at UFT headquarters on May 25 recognized 29 members for creative projects that highlighted the diversity of speech teachers' work.

Successfully fighting off a charter school co-location. Reviving a program that teaches high school students how to swim. Creating a WhatsApp chat to connect librarians around the city. These are just a few of the achievements of the exemplary educators, union activists and unified school communities recognized at the awards ceremony.

The Labor Seder celebrated by the UFT Jewish Heritage Committee and the Jewish Labor Committee Educators’ Chapter on March 30 connected the themes of liberation and redemption in the Passover story of the exodus from Egypt with the struggles of the modern-day labor movement.