Ed. Magazine, Summer 2012

Ed

THE MAGAZINE OF THE HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION SUMMER 2012

No longer waiting for Superman, Geoffrey Canada, Ed.M.’75, continues to fight the good fight for thousands of kids in Harlem through hard work and an intolerance for excuses.

IN THE ZONE

the Ed.L.D. | trusting what you’re told | commencement books

the appian way

February 2012 Oprah Winfrey’s day-long visit to the Harvard campus to help Lady Gaga launch her Born This Way Foundation included an Askwith Forum at the university’s historic Sanders Theatre in Memorial Hall.

Winfrey sat down for an old-fashioned Q&A with Gaga, focusing on bullying and empowering young people — the reason for the event and the foundation. But before the interview, as Winfrey first approached the podium, she said to a screaming, packed audience, “What can I say? I know what I can say: Harvard!”

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HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

ROSE LINCOLN/HARVARD PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND COMMUNICATIONS

Check out additional coverage.

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contents SUMMER 2012

As the program grows, those in the know answer the question: Why the Ed.L.D.?

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Ed.L.D. student Amy Loyd talks frozen eyeballs, quintessential Alaskan footwear, and transformation.

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Three classmates from the 1950s

Hands-on learning is great, but as

reunite on the Ed

Professor Paul Harris says, there are

School’s now very

many things children need to be told.

different campus to share stories.

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Geoffrey Canada, Ed.M.’75, and the Harlem Children’s Zone invest in

A spatula, a violin, and a group

children over time.

of kids ready to perform. That’s

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all Adrian Anantawan, Ed.M.’12, needed this past school year.

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With the help of PBS and Baa Baa Sheep, Sona Chong Jho, Ed.M.’97, teaches nursery rhymes and literacy.

al so o f i nt erest 4 6 40 48 49

Letters Appian Way Alumni News and Notes Recess Investing

Questioning homework can’t be separated from questioning the use of school time. If students are spending six to eight effective hours engaged in academics, then there is probably little need for further homework. Improve classroom instruction, then limit homework.

— ope_b

Debate Goes On From the viewpoint of a seventh-grade junior high student, I think that the idea of no homework (“Are You Down With or Done With Homework?” winter 2012) would be very interesting.

However, I disagree that it would be more constructive than doing [school] work at home. I get the idea that it’s boring, but it prepares us for life later on. I mean, we will all have our own types of homework in jobs later, right? Why wouldn’t homework help?

— Benn As a former math teacher, I am a big supporter of doing homework as a learning tool. As a parent (of two successful adults), I viewed doing homework as a way to learn academics, responsibility, and time-management skills. It is key to have age-appropriate amounts of homework; both of my children managed to do some beginning in second grade, increasing amounts gradually, and still had extracurricular activities. I was dismayed by the implication that we should be cutting back. It is true the Internet did not exist when my children were young, but homework is necessary and important and parents need to allow for it. The day after I read 4

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this article, The New York Times featured a mother in Connecticut who took her 12-year-old into New York after school to learn how to put makeup on properly. Wouldn’t homework be more valuable?

— Joan Meltzer FitzGibbon, M.A.T.’70

Fitz Fits Fitz, Harvard lucked out getting you in 1963, and also in keeping you around all these years. (“One on One,” winter 2012) You are one of the all-time good guys.

— Thatfield Not to be a curmudgeon, but in 32 years of teaching, I sometimes told a student, “You might be better off asking someone else.” Why? Because the student provided me no information about who they were the other 23 hours a day. Because the student asked for the recommendation 48 hours before the deadline. Because I may have encountered information in another school-related role about the student that would adversely affect their admission chances if included in a teacher recommendation. Seems to me that we’re their teachers, not their agents.

— Scott Shiffner, M.A.T.’72

Garbage In, Garbage Out? Thank you for this brief review of the history and future of learning analytics (“Statistical Significance,” winter 2012). I have been teaching physics in a public school in Redwood City, Calif., for 14 years. I am a firm believer in the concept of standardized tests that can drive quality instruction. Unfortunately, NCLB forced states to develop testing systems that are woefully inadequate. This system drives poor practice in the classroom that prevents teachers from developing critical thinking skills and verbal argumentation in their students. It also drives talent out of the profession.

We hire at least 10 Stanford grads every year. Inevitably, most of them leave two or three years later in tears, not because they couldn’t teach well, but because they were forced to teach poorly. Garbage in, garbage out.

— Jack West, Ed.M.’98 While I feel very strongly that you can use data to identify systemic failures and the impact of interventions, you must use data that has validity for the policy you propose. Using data from tests that test what students have learned in a couple of classes does not have external validity to be applied to teachers (for merit pay).

— Ryan Carrington

letters against that perception. Ed. magazine should support them in their efforts.

— Rebecca Schendel, Ed.M.’05

How Brutal

Not Helping I was disappointed to read “Into Africa: Phillip Haynes” in the fall 2011 edition, as I felt the tone of the article reflected poorly on the caliber of this usually excellent publication. I have worked in Rwanda’s education sector for nearly four years, so I commend anybody who is willing to devote their time and resources to increase opportunities for Rwanda’s young people. I have no doubt that Haynes is providing valuable assistance to his host community. However, the article seemed to suggest that, were it not for his arrival, this community might never have built a school or even under-

stood the value of education.

This is an antiquated depiction of Africa that does not reflect Rwanda’s current situation. Rwanda is considered to be a shining example of a “New Africa.” I have never met a Rwandan who didn’t see the importance of education. Families across the country scrimp and save to send their children to school, even if it means going hungry. To depict Rwanda as a backward nation of ignorant people, unaware of the importance of education, perpetuates an oldfashioned view of Africa as a doomed continent in need of Western enlightenment. Every day, Rwandans are fighting

SENIOR WRITER/EDITOR Lory Hough lory_hough@harvard.edu PRODUCTION MANAGER/EDITOR Marin Jorgensen marin_jorgensen@harvard.edu DESIGNER Paula Telch Cooney paula_telch@harvard.edu DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS Michael Rodman michael_rodman@harvard.edu COMMUNICATIONS INTERN Rachael Apfel

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Rachael Apfel Golriz Golkar, Ed.M.’07 Marty Lipp Mark Robertson, Ed.M.’08 COPYEDITOR Abigail Mieko Vargus PHOTOGRAPHERS Jill Anderson Steve Barrett Rose Lincoln John Loomis Michael Rodman Martha Stewart

Given the very wide latitude allowed to modern art and architecture, I still feel that Larsen Hall and the entire British School of brutalist architecture are blots on the landscape and the sooner replaced, the better (“No Dragons Behind the Moat,” fall 2011).

— Richard Simons, M.A.T.’59

ILLUSTRATORS Natalie Kilany Steven Noble Daniel Vasconcellos © 2012 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Ed. magazine is published three times a year. Third-class postage paid at Holliston, Mass. and additional offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Harvard Graduate School of Education Office of Communications 13 Appian Way Cambridge, MA 02138

Clearing Up Matters After our last issue came out, we received a few emails pointing out possible errors, both relating to numbers! (Everyone knows some writers aren’t great at math, right?)

In “Statistical Significance,” following The Associated Press Stylebook, we used the word “data” as both a plural and collective noun, much to the chagrin of some readers.

Also, in the box of alumni statistics on page 46, we noted that our total alumni pool is 24,813 — 21,138 domestic and 1,710 international alumni. Obviously, those numbers don’t add up.

(And we don’t have 2,000 extraterrestrial Ed School alumni out there as Roxanne Cramer, Ed.M.’67, joked.)

We do have 24,813 alumni, all tethered to earth. From that pool, we have mailing addresses for 22,848.

aclickaway HGSE www.gse.harvard.edu events www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/events twitter www.twitter.com/hgse facebook www.facebook.com/harvardeducation youtube www.youtube.com/harvardeducation flickr www.flickr.com/photos/harvardeducation issuu www.issuu.com/harvardeducation foursquare www.foursquare.com/hgse HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

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BRIGET GANSKE

JILL ANDERSON

ELENA GORMLEY

BRIGET GANSKE

appian way lecturehall Lecturer Mandy Savitz-Romer

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hen it comes to helping young people get to college, practitioners are often left scratching their heads, wondering what went wrong when matriculation doesn’t happen. All too often, these same practitioners don’t look beyond the traditional areas of college planning: academic prep, information sharing, and financial support. Although these areas are important, writes Mandy Savitz-Romer in her new book, Ready, Willing, and Able, there’s a critical element that has largely been missing in college prep: adolescent development. By not taking this into account, she writes with Ed School researcher Suzanne Bouffard, “the most vulnerable young people don’t just miss the boat; they aren’t even on the deck.” In January, Savitz-Romer, director of the Prevention Science and Practice Program and a former school counselor, spoke to Ed. about adolescent development, college days, and the challenge of writing a book.

What got you thinking about this issue?

Having been an urban high school counselor for several years, I often think about those students who didn’t seem ready for any of the supports that were in place, or the ones who never came to see themselves as future college-goers.

When I think of the ones who, despite so many risk factors, made their way to and through college, I wonder about the role their own resiliency and developmental maturity played. I was aware, even at the time, that most college preparation programs focused almost exclusively on those students who already possessed the personal resources and capacities that were necessary to chart a college-going path. Many others were, and still are, left behind.

The goal of the book is . . .

To show how an understanding of development in relation to college readiness can help make sense of what happens when best efforts don’t seem to work. It is not as if practitioners don’t know how to work with their students, and for many in this field, they already have a deep knowledge of development. However, the links between future planning and adolescent development have not been made clear.

So it’s not just that kids lack information or the desire to go to college?

A common presumption has been that low-income, first-generation students

don’t possess college-going aspirations, or that they lack information about what is required and necessary.

Yet, if you look around, there are so many programs designed to promote higher aspirations and disseminate information.

More information isn’t the answer?

Too many youth hear that information but do not take it in, or they fail to act on it. We need an approach that addresses the foundation — the core of youth and who they are — before the informational campaigns and college application programs can really benefit.

How is adolescent development actually connected to going to college?

The book focuses on four developmental processes: identity, motivation, self-regulation, and relationship formation and management. For example, students need to be able to picture themselves as college students in order to form a college-going identity. This requires an understanding of what goes into forming one’s self-concept and identity.

Can school counselors take on more and do everything for students?

That would be a tall order, wouldn’t it? Having done this work, I know firsthand that there is little time for more, but that there is absolutely room for how.

What do you mean?

I hope that what practitioners take from this book is that they can continue to focus on academic skill building, information sharing, aspiration forming, and financial literacy using developmental principles. It is not in addition to, but rather by way of.

Give me an example.

The growing trend in schools to have “college days” in which faculty and staff wear college sweatshirts and homerooms are named after colleges.

For a young person who thinks, “I’m not college material,” or whose selfdescription doesn’t include “college student,” seeing others with college sweatshirts will not do much to make them believe they could or should go to college. But when these strategies are paired with other efforts that provide students with the support to reflect on multiple aspects of their identities, they are likely to be meaningful to more students.

In one sentence: hardest part about writing a book.

It is the same challenge as answering this question — figuring out what to include and what to leave out.

— Lory Hough

HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

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Your Turn

Why did you get interested in education?

We want to know. So tell us, in writing. Send your firstperson A to B stories (600 words max!) to lory_hough@ harvard.edu. And remember: This isn’t an exercise in how to write a timeline. Tell us a compelling story.

It is a mild September day. I am still adjusting to my new school, new profession, new city. My students are kind, but I never feel I am reaching them. My confidence is waning terribly.

“Golriz? This is for you.”

I’m gently startled by a voice from the playground. It is Joana, one of my third-graders.

She is a softspoken child whose baby face defies her serious demeanor in class. She hands me a folded piece of paper.

“Just something I made for you,” she says.

She skips off. It is a drawing of a flower with the message, “I think you are a great English teatcher (sic).” I tear up and look for her, but I can’t see where she has gone.

Later that day, I introduce the class to the work of Pablo Picasso. I explain how geometric parts are used in the cubist style.

“What does ‘geometric’ mean?” one student asks.

I rotate slowly, asking if they can see both my eyes at once when I am standing in profile.

Silence. I draw my version of Picasso’s Portrait of Dora Maar on the whiteboard. The children begin making silly faces. I have humored them, but I am not convinced I have made my point.

The next morning, Joana approaches me.

She hands me another piece of paper and skips off again. She has created my portrait. One eye up to the left. Lips down to the right. Broken, yet whole, as in cubism.

I am speechless.

When I find her at recess, I give her a hug.

She looks down at the ground, her rosy cheeks now deeply flushed.

A new school year has begun, and Joana is my student again.

“Golriz, I need a good topic!” she exclaims in my afterschool poetry class.

Two third-graders begin talking loudly.

“Young children, do not disturb her royal highness,” Joana says, giving them a menacing look, “or you shall be chased away with my royal pen!”

“Royal pen!” I respond. “There’s your topic!”

Joana begins writing the first of many “regal” poems. My English classroom transforms into a kingdom, as Joana writes about my stool (the throne) and our textbook (the

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DANIEL VASCONCELLOS

atob Golriz Golkar Is Part of the Whole

Holy Book). I laugh each time I hear this and marvel at how much I am starting to believe it.

When June arrives, I congratulate her on another wonderful year.

“You know, you still owe me a prize for being class helper,” she says quietly.

I had almost forgotten. I hand her a pen and notebook. She steps forward as if to give me a hug. Instead, she lingers for a moment and waves as she rushes off.

The scent of jasmine from the playground reaches me as I gaze out the window of my classroom. This fragrance will forever be linked in my memory to the beginning of a new school year. This year is particularly new for me, as I am now teaching second grade.

For my poetry unit, I ask Joana to recite her odes to my new students. She looks down at the floor and clears her throat. Before long, a soft voice delights us with verses on cheese and life in France. We thank her with a hearty round of applause. The next morning, my students hang up their coats and wrap me in a tight hug. It is always hard to tell apart the little hands. But this morning, two hands are bigger than the others. Joana lets go and begins to walks away. She pauses and smiles at me in a way I have never seen before. There is a glow in her eyes, and we wave like two old friends who have always been. ­— Golriz Golkar, Ed.M.’07, teaches second-grade English at the Lycée Français La Pérouse in San Francisco. She and Joana, now in sixth grade, remain friends who discuss poetry.

appian way High Hand What would Kenny Rogers do if he were in charge of a school district budget? He’d know when to fold ’em, certainly when to walk away. But what if he had to cut his budget — again — by 5 percent? He could do the usual: print out last year’s budget and broadly cut everything.

Or he could play a card game called Budget Hold’em.

Recently released by Education Resource Strategies (ERS), a nonprofit that works with large, urban school districts to rethink how best to use resources, Budget Hold’em can be played online for free or with a special deck of paper cards. The game allows users to make cuts and add resources in an effort to create an ideal “hand” — that is, a balanced budget that doesn’t gut student learning. The idea behind the game is for users to think hard about choices and trade-offs — two concepts, says ERS founder Karen Hawley Miles, Ed.M.’91, Ed.D.’97, that are generally new in education.

After users pick their overall budget target — saving 2 percent, for example — they flip over cards from two columns: investments and savings. Each flip calculates about how much the move would increase or decrease a budget.

For instance, flipping a card that introduced a principal residency program to build leadership capacity would increase a budget by about 0.1 percent. Leasing unused space to

community groups could save about 0.2 percent. Each card also provides an explanation. As users try out different hands, cards can be unplayed. Some cards also offer ways to invest without adding or saving money, such as encouraging the strongest principals to move to the lowest-performing schools.

One of the best outcomes from playing the game, says Hawley Miles, is when a school district begins to think differently from how they had in the past, which is what happened in Memphis, Tenn., one of the first districts to test the game.

“They feel like they came up with a budget that’s very different than they would have otherwise,” Hawley Miles says. In addition, by the time the process was over — and the budget balanced — everyone felt ownership in the decisions that were made.

The game also allows users to try scenarios without feeling stuck with a decision, says ERS communications manager Allison Daskal Hausman, Ed.M.’93. “Approaching the budget in our alternative way lets people suspend reality and feel freer” about their options, she says.

The game was worked on by several other Ed School graduates, including cocreator Betty Hsu, Ed.M.’08, online manager Kristan Singleton, Ed.M.’06, and scriptwriter Anna Sommers, Ed.M.’91. — Lory Hough

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homeroom Special Collections It’s another one of those tucked-away, hidden gems on campus, a bibliophile’s dream. The special collections room on the lower level of the Gutman Library contains, among other materials, about 50,000 volumes of historical elementary and secondary textbooks. Most of the materials range in date from the very old (1800) to the slightly retro (1985), but there are also a few antiquated items from the 1700s, including the library’s oldest American schoolbook, The Schoolmaster’s Assistant: Being a Compendium of Arithmetic, Both Practical and Theoretical, from 1784.

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The first thing visitors notice is this huge

collection of 19th-century arithmetic textbooks once used in elementary and secondary schools. The yellow bookmarks sticking out of

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some are actually thick strips of acid-free paper used for preservation reasons (rather than using the typical adhesive strip on the spine) to indicate a book’s call number.

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Ed Copenhagen has been overseeing the

collection since June 2006. The best part of his job? Meeting the many scholars who visit the noncirculating collection for their research,

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as well as arranging, cataloging, and describing the historical material.

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Copenhagen is holding a copy of The sci-

entific class-book, or A familiar introduction to the principles of physical science, for the use of schools and academies, on the basis of J.M. Moffat. Part 1 (1836) by Walter Johnson, a

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professor of mechanics and natural philosophy at the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania.

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The collection includes a number of

Mother Goose nursery rhyme books, including Mother Goose Book: A Work and Play Book for Silent Reading, written in 1929 by a former teacher, Emma Miller Bolenius.

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The collection doesn’t only include books.

These shelves, tucked within the moveable MARTHA STEWART

stacks, house public school reports dating from the 1830s to the 1940s. Visible here are published annual reports from school superintendents from the state of Ohio.

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studybreak

Amy Loyd, Ed.L.D. candidate

Program:

Leadership

Doctor of Educa

Tool for Cha n

tion

state level

ge: Refo

rm at the

Hometown:

Albuquerque an d Santa Fe, New Mexico

MARTHA STEWART

A

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my Loyd loved her job. As director of education for a tribal nonprofit organization in Anchorage, Ala., where she oversaw teachers, counselors, and family advocates who served more than 1,100 Native American K–12 students, Loyd felt challenged and rewarded every day. And she came to love her adopted state — the people, the beauty, and XTRATUF boots, what she calls “quintessential Alaskan footwear.” She wasn’t looking to leave, especially after adopting her daughter, at least not to start a regular graduate degree program. But Loyd also realized there were limitations to her learning and leading.

“I kept hitting walls that I knew I could tear down or climb over, if only I had the right tools in my toolbox,” she says. “I just didn’t have the right tools yet.”

And then one day, as she was scanning an e-newsletter from the Harvard Native American Program that she regularly received, she saw her tool: the Ed.L.D. Program. “I immediately knew I wanted — and needed — to be a part of it, so that I could become a more effective leader into the future.”

In July 2010, she and her husband sold their house and most of their belongings, packed the Honda CR-V, and with their five-year-old daughter and two elderly dogs, drove 5,000 miles towards that future.

You ended up in Alaska because . . .

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I’d always wanted to see moose and the northern lights, and I was curious to learn more about Alaska Native cultures.

Better sport during the very long road trip to Cambridge:

Biggest adventure:

She saw the adventure and beauty in each day.

I grumbled about my sciatica and sleeplessness.

Backcountry hut-to-hut ski trip in February, the coldest month in Alaska. We had to breathe on one another’s eyes to defrost them.

You speak:

You worked this summer at the Department of

English and Spanish; ancient Greek and French in their written form; a few German phrases (my husband is German). I wish I spoke my native language, Zuñi, or my daughter’s native languages, Yup’ik, Iñupiaq, and Gwich’in Athabascan.

Education as part of the Ed.L.D. Program. Two

r You

r 3 Your five-year-old daughter

differences between Alaska and Washington, D.C.: 1. D.C.’s

oppressively hot summer climate.

2. Direct service work versus policy-based work.

Frances Perkins Why? Devoted to social justice, Perkins tackled the most daunting problems of her time and radically restructured society through the New Deal to solve them.

Favorite Leader: Biggest misconception about Alaska: r It’s always cold and snowy r The capital is Anchorage r It’s totally dark for most of the year r 3 Other: Igloos.

We don’t live in them, though hunters sometimes build them as temporary shelters.

River guide. Growing up in the high desert alongside the Rio Grande, I have a deep reverence for water and a particular love for rivers.

Little-known talent:

My year-three residency and my interests are now at the state level in education reform.

Why? We’re asking states to do more with less. I see a lot of room for possibility and growth in states’ capacities for leading transformation in the sector.

States are where the action is, the greatest lever for moving the sector.

What’s next?

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The Trill of it All As he says in the documentary that came out in 2008 about his life, “When you see a one-handed violinist play the Tchaikovsky violin concerto, you can always say, there’s a story behind the notes.”

For Adrian Anantawan, Ed.M.’12, that story began in Toronto in 1983 when he was born without a right hand and some of his forearm. By the time he was 10, his parents wanted to make sure he wasn’t left out of playing an instrument. He and his classmates were learning the recorder, but he was struggling to hold it with only one hand. His 14

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parents decided the violin might work. With the help of a team of biomedical engineers at the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto, a custom-made adaptive device called a “spatula” was designed just for him. The piece attaches just below the elbow, allowing Anantawan to clip on the bow. He fingers the strings with his left hand.

Although the learning curve was steep at first, Anantawan quickly fell in love with his violin, in time establishing himself as a “rising star in classical music,” as The Globe and Mail once wrote. He attended the Curtis

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Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the music school at Yale, studied under Itzhak Perlman, played for President George W. Bush and Pope John Paul II, and performed at the Kennedy Center and with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

And since last September, he has spent every Thursday, all day, with his violin at the William H. Henderson Inclusion Elementary School in Boston, where disabled students

study alongside nondisabled students.

Working primarily with the school’s music program, Anantawan got the job through the Ed School’s Field Experience Program.

It was a huge commitment for a full-time student, but right away, Anantawan knew he had to work at the Henderson.

“The first time there, I was floored by the commitment that the teachers make,” Anantawan says. “The way they put together lesson plans, the way they work with kids in the classroom. And the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) model is great for different ways of engaging different learners.”

An incident in March reminded him of why he’s so committed to working at the intersection of education, special needs, and music. As the kids were rehearsing a play for black history month, he and the staff brainstormed ways to include a girl with cerebral palsy. They realized they should let her do what she loved best: clapping with the portable communicator she uses.

“Every time I see her, she’s trying to bring my hands together, in hopes that I’ll start clapping,” Anantawan says. “Very much like a musician, she enjoys recognition.”

With the help of a paraprofessional, the girl learned the rhythm and tempo of the songs.

“If you could measure engagement based on someone’s face,” he says, “this girl had it.”

With graduation around the corner, Anantawan now hopes to design a UDL curriculum for teachers, especially music teachers, to use in public schools. He’d also like to see the music program at the Henderson — as developed as it is — expand even more.

“I’d love to create an instrumental afterschool program,” he says. One that combines traditional instruments like — what else? — the violin with adaptive music technologies.

“I really want to create not only a meaningful music program,” Watch clips from Anantawan says, “but the documentary, also one that is accesThe Story Behind sible for students from the Notes, and the margins.” a recent Harvard Gazette video.

— Lory Hough

Overheard “You’re playing too loud.

You’re playing too loud.

You’re playing too loud.”

— Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, speaking to a crowd in Askwith Hall in February as part of his two-year lecture series at Harvard. To illustrate a point about educators needing to better collaborate and trust one another, Marsalis told a story about how, when he was in his mid-20s, he toured with a bunch of former members of Duke Ellington’s band. The men, in their 70s and 80s, constantly told the younger musicians to turn it down and play softer. It was the only way, they said, that people could really hear one another.

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Snooze or Lose

Big News In March, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences unanimously approved the creation of a new interfaculty Ph.D. in education. The new degree, which will start in fall 2014, will be offered by the Ed School and Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Read more about the big news.

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Their message to kids was clear: Get some sleep.

When students in Lecturer Rick Weissbourd’s January term module were asked to create an intervention for at-risk children, one team knew it had to be something that was doable — not just for themselves ISTOCKPHOTO.COM (J-term classes last just two weeks), but also for the already-burdened Boston Public Schools they were targeting. And they knew that for anyone to be interested, their project had to address a real problem. So they proposed a comprehensive yet straightforward campaign that encourages elementary students to turn off the televisions, put down the caffeinated sodas, and get to bed.

As Bethanne Bower, Ed.M.’12, says, “Sleep deprivation is a problem everyone can relate to.”

For students, it’s especially problematic. One study of elementary-aged students reported that three-quarters watch television as part of their bedtime routines. Another study of fourth- and fifth-graders showed that after decreasing sleep by one hour a night from the recommended 10, test scores dropped. Sleepdeprived students struggle to pay attention, focus, and be creative. Sleep deprivation can also lead to behavioral and emotional problems and, in some cases, health issues.

So Bower, along with Kennedy School students Cris Garza and Erin Wang, created a campaign using the slogan, “Snooze or Lose: It’s 8 p.m.! Let’s jump in bed with a book!”

The plan included working with three groups: families, schools, and cities. With families, they would provide basic information about the importance of sleep and recommendations for helping elementary-aged children sleep better, such as practicing relaxation techniques and removing “sleep stealers” from bedrooms — televisions, computers, and game systems. They would promote consistent bedtime routines that include reading and keeping a sleep log.

With schools, the idea was to form a partnership to help educate parents and students, as well as develop a sleep curriculum tailored toward each grade.

With city officials, they would create a public service campaign to raise awareness of the issue within the broader community. Each of these groups would be linked.

“All three of these components must collaborate with each other, so that students get the sleep they need to be successful in school,” says Garza, who remembers teaching days when his exciting and wellprepared lesson plans were no match for the fourth-graders who came to class exhausted.

“This project gave me a chance to work on the institutional and behavioral roots of the issue.”

The students are also hoping to recruit community partners like ReadBoston or Children’s Hospital Boston to help spread the word, as well as local celebrities and sports players who would be on billboards and in ads.

And it may just happen. Just as the J-term was ending, all of the students in Weissbourd’s module presented their projects to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, superintendents from Boston and Cambridge, and leaders from local nonprofits. City officials were very positive about the interventions, says Weissbourd, Ed.D.’87, and have followed up with him on several, including Snooze or Lose.

Garza says that as they were giving their presentation, he, Bower, and Wang sensed interest.

“Given that the public officials and other leaders in the room are hardworking people and most likely sleep deprived, they were still engaged throughout the presentation,” he says.

“We knew they were interested in Snooze or Lose when we completed the presentation and, rather than ask us questions, they proceeded to debate amongst themselves the merits of a campaign, what a potential campaign could look like, and how to handle related issues, such as nutrition.” — Lory Hough

onmybookshelf

Lecturer Josephine Kim

Currently reading: A literature book from my high school days that I found while visiting my parents. It’s titled Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense.

Reading ritual: One of my favorite flowers is the daisy, and I have a habit of drawing little daisies in the margin by my favorite lines.

The thing that drew you to it: I wanted to be reminded of my teen years and to take a glimpse into my cognitions then.

The notes I left in the margins allowed me to gauge how my perceptions have changed with the years.

Noneducation genre of choice: Since childhood, I’ve always enjoyed reading about fascinating people and personal accounts of their lives. I especially enjoy narratives from those who have withstood and overcome personal hardships.

Book you’ve read over and over: The Bridge by Heinz Janisch and Helga Bansch. It’s a children’s book I’ve been reading repeatedly to my baby son, Evan. It’s never too early to teach about collaboration, and The Bridge teaches a valuable lesson on yielding and coexisting peacefully.

How do you find the time: I read while I’m commuting, whether that’s on the T or a plane. I also find myself reading while on foot, but this isn’t always a good idea. I’ve bumped into more than a few trees and poles!

Next up: Get to know Steve Jobs and Tim Tebow.

— Marin Jorgensen

STEVE BARRETT

Favorite spot to curl up with a good book: The rocking chair in Evan’s nursery. I can keep an eye on my son as he sleeps while I enjoy some “me time” with a good book.

HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

17

No Citizen Left Behind

Integrating Schools in a Changing Society

By Meira Levinson

By Erica Frankenberg and Elizabeth Debray

N

a Changing Society. Over the course of the past two decades,

W

a series of court cases — including a 2007 Supreme Court

Associate Professor Meira Levinson taught for several years. And in

decision that struck down voluntary integration policies in

her latest book, No Citizen Left Behind, Levinson argues that these

Seattle and Louisville, Ky. — have created tough barriers for

students are not alone. As the number of schools serving poor,

public schools attempting to pursue integration. In their book,

urban, de facto segregated populations is steadily increasing, more

Erica Frankenberg, Ed.M.’02, Ed.D.’08, and Elizabeth Debray,

and more students are deprived of exposure to “mainstream” or

Ed.M.’92, Ed.D.’01, share concern for this steady drift toward

“dominant” cultural capital.

early 58 years after Brown v. Board of Education, desegregation policies seem to be moving in the wrong direction, write the authors of Integrating Schools in

“resegregation” and the implications it may hold for the American education system.

Bringing together the voices of leading scholars in education

lead singer of the band Nirvana or five-time winner of Wimbledon? Easy, right? Not for the students of Walden

Middle School, an all-black, low-income, urban public school where

According to Levinson, it is this kind of knowledge that is empowering, especially given the unequal distribution of economic, political, and cultural power in the United States. But it goes deeper than

policy and related fields, this comprehensive volume comprises

that. When it comes to school reform, a current wave of rhetoric and

18 essays that offer thoughts about the dangers of the steady

recent changes in federal education policy, including the No Child

rise in segregation, how current policies are fundamentally

Left Behind Act, have put the spotlight on the academic achieve-

mistaken, how resegregated schools are failing, and what

ment gap. However, Levinson warns, the civic empowerment gap

alternatives American educators, policymakers, and advocates

is equally important. The failure of schools to prepare students to

should consider. Divided into four parts, the book assesses the

exercise basic rights as citizens is depriving them of the knowledge

current climate in light of the past, reinforces the key benefits

and skills to redefine power relations through public, political, and

of racially integrated schools, examines strategies that help to

civic action.

pursue multiracial integration and equity within schools, and discusses a variety of case examples.

Together, the essays in Integrating Schools highlight new ways

Drawing on her experiences as a political theorist, an urban middle school teacher, and an education scholar, Levinson investigates the widening civic empowerment gap and offers ideas on

for the American public education system to counter persistent

how to close it. Each chapter begins with a short anecdote from her

racial and socioeconomic inequality and reverse the course

personal experiences in the classroom, followed by relevant com-

policies have taken since the decisions of Brown. The compi-

mentary, ideas, and suggestions. Not only does this place concrete

lation represents an effort to propel the discussion forward,

examples within a larger context, but it also provides readers with

allowing policymakers to become aware of potential options.

valuable lessons and tangible insight that sketch a blueprint for an

“This book was designed to show what new evidence exists about integrated education and its relationship to equality

ideal civic education.

In No Citizen Left Behind, Levinson argues that a truly egalitarian

of educational opportunity; what the political prospects are;

society starts with civic empowerment both in and out of the class-

what we know about new policy alternatives, including using

room. More than just tweaking the curriculum, schools should seek

socioeconomic status; and what the federal role could be in

to exemplify the democratic process that most inner-city children

encouraging such options,” write Frankenberg and Debray.

rarely have the opportunity to witness firsthand.

“We strongly believe that, at the beginning of the 21st century,

18

hich of the following best identifies Kurt Cobain:

“Democratic governance relies on participatory citizens,” Levinson

schools remain a powerful tool for attaining individual opportu-

writes. “Therefore, the civic empowerment gap harms all Americans

nity and a thriving multiracial democratic society.”

because it weakens the quality and integrity of our democracy.”

ED.

• SUMMER 2012

appian way

S

The Power of Teacher Teams

HARVARD EDUCATION PRESS

By Vivian Troen and Katherine Boles

Adolescent Literacy Jacy Ippolito, Ed.M.’01, Ed.D.’09; Jennifer Steele, Ed.M.’04, Ed.D.’08; and Jennifer Samson, Ed.D.’05, Ed.D.’09; 2012

chools are often associated with a number of different teams: football, debate, chess, quiz bowl, and the list goes on. But teacher teams? As a relatively new concept

in the realm of education, the idea of teacher teams may be

Carrots, Sticks, and the Bully Pulpit Fredrick Hess, Ed.M.’90, and Andrew Kelly; 2012

Ready, Willing, and Able: A Developmental Approach to College Access and Success Lecturer Mandy Savitz-Romer and Suzanne Bouffard; 2012 (see page 6)

unfamiliar. However, Vivian Troen and Senior Lecturer Katherine Boles, Ed.D.’91, argue that teacher teams may be the most crucial team a school can have. In their latest book, The Power of Teacher Teams, the pair draws attention to this invaluable network of educators, professionals, and administrators, claiming that, when executed correctly, teacher teams may hold the

OTHER BOOKS

power to transform schools in such a way that they can offer a

Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy’s Daughter Sara Mansfield Taber, Ed.D.’87; 2012

more successful and effective learning experience.

Divided into two parts, the book begins by laying the foundation with a succession of six chapters that outline the unique nature of teamwork within an educational setting. Then, shifting gears, the remaining eight chapters engage readers with eight different case studies that offer real-life examples of how teacher teams actually function, what is successful, and what problems can be expected to arise as teams develop.

Allowing readers to reflect on the experiences of others, these cases represent the heart of the book, raising penetrating questions while simultaneously offering comprehensive insight and valuable lessons that teachers, administrators, and other educational leaders may take with them and apply in their own professional development.

In light of recent research indicating that very few teacher teams are actually effective, this book seeks to reverse the trend. By developing a framework for effective teacher teams that includes five criteria — leadership, task focus, collaborative climate, structure and process, and personal accountability — Troen and Boles provide school leaders with the tools needed to navigate this relatively new terrain and to make effective teacher teams a reality. Filled with advice and practical methods for rethinking the practice of teaching, The Power of Teacher Teams highlights teacher collaboration that can help transform the culture of schools into communities of learning that foster and value teacher leadership.

— Briefs written by Rachael Apfel

Collaborative School Improvement: Eight Practices for District-School Partnerships to Transform Teaching and Learning Trent Kaufman, Ed.M.’06, Ed.D.’09; Emily Dolci Grimm; and Allison Miller, Ed.M.’08; foreword by Lecturer Kathryn Parker Boudett; 2012

Building Good Schools: Tools for Principals Silvina Gvirtz and Ivana Zacarias, Ed.M.’09; 2012 Common Sense: The Missing Link in Education Reform Paul Hoss, C.A.S.’83; 2012

A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform Associate Professor Mark Warren and Lecturer Karen Mapp, Ed.M.’93, Ed.D.’99; 2011 Paradise Redefined: Transnational Chinese Students and the Quest for Flexible Citizenship in the Developed World Associate Professor Vanessa Fong; 2011

Developing Essential Understanding of Expressions, Equations, and Functions for Teaching Mathematics in Grades 6–8 Gwendolyn Lloyd, Beth Herbel-Eisenmann, and Associate Professor Jon Star, Ed.M.’93; 2011

Teaching and Its Predicaments Visiting Professor David Cohen; 2011

From Classroom to White House: The Presidents and First Ladies as Students and Teachers James McMurtry Longo, C.A.S.’90, Ed.D.’94; 2011

Trusting What You’re Told: How Children Learn from Others Professor Paul Harris; 2012 (see page 36)

Making Assessment Matter: Using Test Results to Differentiate Reading Instruction Associate Professor Nonie Lesaux and Sky Marietta, Ed.M.’08, Ed.D.’12; 2012

Trust Me! I Can Read: Building from Strengths in the High School English Classroom Sally Lamping and Ed.L.D. candidate Dean Woodring Blase; 2012

Writing Immigration: Scholars and Journalists in Dialogue Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, Associate Professor Vivian Louie, and Roberto Suro; 2011

HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

19

Answering the Question:

Why Ed.L. the

Why a new degree focused on education leadership? When the Ed School initially started talking about the possibility of adding a new degree, they knew it was time. Major changes had been happening in the education world during the past few decades. As Professor Robert Schwartz, C.A.S.’68, noted, “Old boundaries and definitions of the school district are changing.” And so the Ed School would change, too. A second doctorate would be added. But this one would be different, the-first-of-its-kind-in-the-nation kind of different.

Now in its second year, this new degree, the Doctor of Education Leadership, or Ed.L.D., is steeped in practice like a J.D. or M.D. It includes a brand new, innovative curriculum that is grounded in education, but also includes much-needed policy and management training. During their third and final year, students are in a residency onsite with partner organizations pushing the boundary in education reform. This twoway pipeline culminates not in a formal dissertation, but in the creation of a professional reform project for the partner (see sidebar, page 29).

20

ED.

• SUMMER 2012

And the main idea behind the degree? Long before the first cohort of 25 students left their full-time jobs and arrived on campus, the idea was ambitious and clear: The Ed School was not going to develop leaders for the education system as it currently exists. It was going to develop leaders who will define the education system of the future.

“Throughout the years, our goal at the Harvard Graduate School of Education has been to prepare leaders with the skill sets, habits of mind, and dispositions to act in order to transform the education sector,” says Dean Kathleen McCartney. “With the introduction of the Ed.L.D. to our suite of degree programs, we are now poised to do much more. Transforming the sector is an ambitious goal, but through the work of our alumni, as well as our partners, we will succeed.”

To make this happen, those involved in the planning of the degree knew that the entire program needed to be different, that they had to think outside the box when it came to what was taught, who was accepted, and how it would be funded

.D.

BY LORY HOUGH ILLUSTRATIONS BY STEVEN NOBLE

(the program is 100 percent free for accepted students). For starters, a critical and intentional decision was made to connect the rigorous academics that you would expect from a doctoral program to the world of practice — not something previously integrated into a program at this level. As a result, the curriculum is concentrated in three basic areas: leadership and management (focused on real behavior that goes on in organizations), teaching and learning (focused on how successful learning and teaching happens and how to recreate it), and understanding and transforming the sector (focused on the history and politics that surround the sector). A fourth area, called Workplace Lab, includes personal executive-coaching sessions for students and intensive, team-based projects using case studies, simulations, and field-based work.

One of the most innovative pieces of the program is the interdisciplinary teaching model. However, “interdisciplinary” in the Ed.L.D. Program doesn’t mean students simply take courses at other schools. Instead, recognizing that education leaders can’t limit their expertise to just education, the

Ed.L.D. fully incorporates faculty from the Business School and the Kennedy School in the first-year core curriculum.

Early on, these faculty also helped develop the curriculum and continue to collaboratively teach classes.

The students, who all come with amazing credentials (see sidebar, page 24), also get that this new program is, first and foremost, a human capital initiative. That’s why when they arrive on campus, they are energized, ready to push themselves. They come willing to question assumptions — their own, each other’s, and the sector’s — as Executive Director Liz City, Ed.M.’04. Ed.D.’07, points out. The hope is that the students, clustered in small groups of only 25 each year, will build a cohort for life, a close network of leaders who are ready and equipped to transform the education sector as superintendents, chief academic officers, chiefs of staff, commissioners, executive directors, and more.

So why a new degree focused intensely on leadership? We asked a small handful of the many people involved with the program to help fill in the answer.

HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

21

What is the most innovative component of the curriculum and why?

We start from what leaders in education need to know, not what we know how to teach. That’s unusual in higher education. Typically, faculty have the set things they’re expert in and the set ways they teach those things, and they start from there in constructing a course. We have a draft set of competencies, and we design learning experiences to help students develop those ways of knowing, doing, and being. We’re always in improving mode. We made some adjustments to the curriculum midway through the first year, more at the end of the first year, more midway through the second year, and we’re already working on refinements for the third year.

Dean McCartney tells a story about when the faculty were developing the curriculum before the first cohort of students arrived. She periodically asked us how things were going, and one day we said to her, “Going great. We’re not going to have courses.” “No courses?” she said, in an inquiring way. “No!” we said. “We’re going to have curricular units of all different shapes and sizes and not be constrained by a four-course-per-semester model.” “Okay,” she said. It seemed so natural to us, but in hindsight I realize just how much she trusted us.

Within the core curriculum, one of the most innovative components is personal leadership development. Students tell us that it’s also one of the most powerful parts of the curriculum. The first thing students do before they arrive on campus to begin the program is a series of leadership assessments, including 360-degree feedback from their most recent job. When they arrive, each of them is assigned an executive coach. The coach reviews the assessment results with them, and the student sets leadership development

FALL 2005

Much time and planning went into the new Ed.L.D. Program.

Here’s a brief look at how it all progressed.

The seed is planted.

Acting dean Kathleen McCartney and her senior team begin conversations about leadership in education and the possibility of starting a new degree.

22

ED.

• SUMMER 2012

Liz City Ed.M.’04, Ed.D’07

Lecturer, executive director of Ed.L.D. Program goals. The coach and student meet periodically throughout the year to work on those goals and to help students become even more effective leaders.

We also provide opportunities for students to practice leadership. They are in assigned five-person teams for the year. One of the competencies in the program is leading and being a member of an effective team. We put the teams in high-pressure situations with performance tasks.

Each student leads the team for one of those tasks in a unit we call Workplace Lab. The idea is that students need an opportunity to integrate and apply what they’re learning in the core curriculum combined with their prior experience.

In the Ed.L.D. Program, we say that if you want to transform the sector, you have to transform yourself first. That’s what the personal leadership development work is about.

SPRING 2006

MAY 2006 McCartney submits academic plan to Harvard President Larry Summers.

McCartney recruits Professor Robert Schwartz to be her academic dean.

Plan includes proposal for a new degree and argues that top education leaders need a unique interdisciplinary skill set that integrates instructional leadership, management, and policy.

Schwartz is charged with spearheading the planning for the new degree program.

Academic plan is approved.

Wheels are in motion for Ed.L.D.

McCartney is named dean.

An anonymous donor endows the Herbert A. Simon Professorship in Education, Management, and Organizational Behavior at HGSE, which is later given to Professor Mark Moore in 2009.

What impact will this degree program have on entrepreneurship in the sector?

To a large extent, the work of improving educasystematically about their work in a way tion right now is redesigning classrooms, that fosters new approaches, thoughtful schools, processes, tools, and incentives so initiatives, and gives them the ability that learning can be responsive to the to engage and manage entrepreindividual needs of all students. This neurs in their work. kind of design work is a contact sport Second, Ed.L.D. students — it demands intensive collaboration who wish to pursue an entrebetween educators, administrators, preneurial career, whether nonprofits, funders, and curriculum nonprofit or for-profit, by proand tool developers. viding important tools and serIt is challenging work for people in vices to schools and districts, these different areas to develop a comwill develop a much deeper mon language and to find each other’s understanding of the systems common goals and values; too often, and processes that exist in K–12 promising projects crumble in the face education that they want to imof mutual distrust and misunderstanding. prove or replace, and are better Since the Ed.L.D. Program brings stuat finding points of leverage that dents with ambitions in all of these areas, will make a big difference for my great hope is that the interactions educators and students. within our cohorts help model this proThird, Ed.L.D. students who Lecturer, cofounder of Wireless Generation cess, and create tight, trusting networks wish to build and operate new of professionals in all of these areas who schools will have a richer tool set can work together to improve the K–12 experience. for designing highly effective educational environments and In addition to this bonding between different types of will able to take advantage of the best techniques that are educational innovators, there are a few specific things that being developed in the field.rough all of these efforts, I’m the Ed.L.D. Program has the opportunity to accomplish in confident that the Ed.L.D. Program — and more importhe near term: tantly, its graduating cohorts — can help turn entrepreFirst, Ed.L.D. students who intend to pursue manageneurship in this sector into a powerful, integrated force that rial leadership of districts, state education departments, or makes concrete, steady progress in improving the learning policymaking agencies will be able to think more boldly and experiences of children everywhere.

Gregory Gunn

SPRING 2007

FALL 2006

Three schools meet.

Faculty from the Ed School, Kennedy School, and Business School explore potential degree program elements.

Leadership Degree Work Group begins to plan degree.

Chaired by Schwartz; other faculty members include Robert Kegan, Richard Elmore, Jerry Murphy, Richard Chait, Monica Higgins, Robert Peterkin, and Janice Jackson.

Market research begins with Boston-based Parthenon Group.

An anonymous donor endows the Henry Wyman Holmes Professorship of Education Leadership at HGSE.

FALL 2007

Administrative groups at the school begin logistical planning.

Teams from the offices of admissions, the registrar, finance, student affairs, and development begin planning for the launch of the new program.

Leadership Degree Work Group expanded to include HBS, HKS. Renamed Exploratory Committee. Kegan becomes the chair. New faculty members include Stacey Childress (HBS), Mark Moore (HKS), and the Ed School’s Nonie Lesaux, Thomas Payzant, Harry Spence, and Lee Teitel.

HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

23

Why is it important for faculty from other

Impressive Credentials

Harvard schools to participate in

A sampling of jobs held by current students prior to starting the Ed.L.D. Program:

manager executive recruitment and talent development, D.C. Public Schools

director special

projects, Chicago New Teacher Center

headmaster Urban Science Academy director school redesign, Detroit Public Schools lead classroom teacher Southwest Baltimore Charter School

managing director new site development, Teach For

engagement manager Boston Strategic Partners principal River America

East Elementary School, East Harlem,

instructional coach Southwest Early N.Y.

College Campus, Kansas City, Mo.

venture capitalist New Enterprise Associates senior consultant Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning

JANUARY 2008

this program?

I’m not sure I can speak for all faculty in other parts of Harvard, but for me, personally, making a substantial commitment to work with this program has been a very important professional experience — comparable in many ways to the early days of creating the Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.

What attracted me was the idea that a group of faculty members would join together to invent an integrated curriculum and pedagogy that would prepare talented, committed individuals to become effective public leaders. Of particular interest to those interested in professional education was the decision to require a one-year residency doing the work of making an important change in some educational enterprise. Only the Harvard Medical School had made a larger commitment to learning on the job through doing, and it was exciting to me to see how that could be supported intellectually, and what the effects were on the students and the organizations. The fact

SPRING 2008

Senior faculty approve full proposal.

Parthenon submits final report.

They find that the field is ripe for a new leadership degree program that combines selective recruitment; education, management, and policy content; robust internships; and in-field support.

24

ED.

• SUMMER 2012

HBS and HKS leadership agree to faculty collaboration.

Mark Moore

Professor, HGSE and Kennedy School, Ed.L.D. faculty that this would be done for the K–12 education sector at a time when that system was being severely challenged, and when new opportunities for leadership were opening up, was also exciting.

There was a real chance to make a difference in an important social sector.

Finally, the aim of the program to create leaders who could help promote a large change in the sector raised a host of interesting intellectual questions about how innovation and social change occur in social sectors, and what role social innovators and entrepreneurs could play in that process.

SEPTEMBER 2008

MAY 2009 Harvard Corporation votes to approve the Ed.L.D., a new credential within higher education.

Leadership Program Design Committee begins.

Chaired by Spence. New faculty involved include Deborah Jewell-Sherman, Karen Mapp, and David Perkins.

A month later, Harvard Board of Overseers also approves the degree.

Why are skilled leaders so critical to the success of education reform?

Today there are vast challenges facing those willing to assume the mantle of leadership and bring about the much-needed transformation of the public education sector. At the federal, state, and local levels, there is growing recognition that instructional inputs and students’ outputs, as measured by what students know and can do, are the primary means by which everyone in the educational enterprise is being judged.

Simultaneously, there are multiple and competing demands placed on schools; there is a misalignment between the central mission of schooling and the policies, practices, and structures that are supposed to undergird the work; and there is growing dissatisfaction with and a lack of belief in the efficacy of our public schools and in their leaders’ ability to educate all students. What is needed at every level of the sector are individuals of courage, vision, skill, and innovation who are willing to be bold, risk-taking, and accountable for the education and success of the students under their watch and care.

Without question, knowledge about content and pedagogy remain critical; however, today’s educational leaders also have to be agile thinkers and skilled at adaptive leadership. It is imperative that today’s leaders signify by word and deed their belief that demographic data like zip codes, parents’ education, economic status, primary language, gender, and/or ethnicity will not determine the destiny of the students under their collective watch. These skilled leaders will be called upon to focus like a laser on the core mission of teaching and learning, to galvanize the teaching core and community to be open to new ideas, and to marshal the political and social capital needed to disrupt those instructional practices that aren’t benefiting students.

Political leaders and corporate entities have joined with parents and other stakeholders in demanding far more from

JUNE 2009

Deborah Jewell-Sherman, Ed.M.’92, Ed.D.’95 Senior lecturer, HGSE, Ed.L.D. faculty

their public schools. The reality, as author Jamie Vollmer stresses, is that “public schools cannot do the work alone.”

Therefore, today’s leaders must continuously build bridges with the larger communities and be willing to collaborate with service providers in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors to insure that the teaching, learning, and care of the “whole child” is at the center of the educational enterprise.

Today’s skilled leaders must insure that all staff are able to see a clear connection between their work and teaching and learning. If the case cannot be made, the function is extraneous and should be eliminated.

Skilled leaders are needed most because the work of transforming America’s public sector is not for the faint of heart. There are those contemplating such leadership for whom the challenges of change, new learning, and heightened accountability will prove to be just too difficult, and I encourage them to pursue a different field like rocket science. It is easier.

DECEMBER 2009

SEPTEMBER 2009

Student recruitment begins.

More than 1,000 applications pour in for 25 slots.

Wallace Foundation pledges $10 million dollars for Ed.L.D. fellowships.

Ed.L.D. Program is officially announced.

The announcement is covered by the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the CBS Evening News, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. The AP story is picked up by more than 220 news organizations.

New Ed.L.D. Work Group, chaired by Elmore and Spence, begins.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes about the degree.

Two weeks later, the Times writes a second story about the program.

HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

25

Why did you leave your

impressive career to enroll in this program?

In my prior work as a mentor for new teachers in a highneeds school district, I was often amazed and humbled by the impact that the creativity of passionate teachers, when combined with thoughtful planning and reflection on their practice, had on the students they served.

My work with these brilliant and dedicated teachers proved to me beyond a doubt that high student achievement, even in the face of daunting economic, organizational, and social obstacles, is not unattainable, nor are the obstacles facing schools and teachers intractable. The success that my colleagues and mentees achieved provided me a window into what is possible when the behavioral patterns, systemic dysfunctions, and entrenched ideologies that impede progress are faced with a creative, solutions-oriented mindset and a shared vision about teaching and learning.

However, I witnessed firsthand the limitations imposed upon the creativity, energy, and professionalism of individuals when I was working across schools within a system.

Comments from the central office administrator such as, “If you want to be a creative teacher, you need to go teach in another district,” typified the limited nature of the organizational approach to solving problems of practice. This problematic reality gave me a new appreciation for the role that leadership plays in either transcending or exacerbating the behaviors, dysfunctions, and ideologies that dampen student achievement.

It is within the immense possibility of transcending these impediments to progress on a large scale that I found my inspiration to apply for the Ed.L.D. Program. Transforming the impediments to progress in urban education is both the opportunity and challenge of our lifetimes. I was, and

FEBRUARY 2010

CBS News coverage.

CBS story says that if the new program is successful, “school systems will end up with better leaders who hire better teachers, and American students may finally make the grade.”

26

ED.

• SUMMER 2012

Ryan Stewart

Current Ed.L.D. student, cohort 2, former lead mentor, New Teacher Center continue to be, excited to explore the frontier of possibility that exists when the brilliance and creative energy of a dedicated teaching force is met with an organizational leadership willing and able to harness and expand, rather than constrain and curtail, its desire to work with students and communities to maximize the potential of every child.

I came to this program to learn from a diverse group of experts to develop the skill set necessary to be the kind of leader able to empower collaboration, productive conflict, and shared purpose. I believe that Harvard’s comprehensive approach toward educational leadership affords a unique opportunity to integrate the most current scholarship and practices from education, business, and policy in order to develop as both an educational and an organizational leader.

AUGUST 2010

First cohort arrives in Cambridge for orientation.

35% male, 65% female, average age 33, average work experience 10 years.

SEPTEMBER 2010

Harvard President Drew Faust praises the new students and the degree.

“I love the Ed.L.D….because it’s about building human capital to build human capital. It’s about that line of inheritance where we bring together…extraordinary individuals. … And we say we’re going to invest in them because they are going to invest in others.”

OCTOBER 2010

Students visit three schools in Brockton, Mass.

Students also visit the Met School in Providence, R.I., and Philips Exeter Academy to learn how high-performing schools operate.

What are the most important skills that the Ed.L.D. students will need to be successful education leaders?

Andrés Alonso, Ed.M.’99, Ed.D.’06 CEO, Baltimore City Public Schools

One thing that I have thought about is how much the skills to lead have, in some ways, remained the same over time and how they cut across different sectors. Regardless of where students end up in the field of education, leaders need to be able to understand people and how to get others to focus on a mission. They need to be able to communicate those things so that others understand the larger vision and the mission in relationship to particular aspects of the work. Those things are constant across many different areas of leadership.

Of course, with changes in the field — the opening up of education to other sectors, for example — some of the skills are beginning to change. There is increasingly a need for education leaders to be ahead, to serve almost in a kind of “scanning” capacity in order to be able to anticipate

NOVEMBER 2010

and move people to where they need to be. Leaders also need to be aware of how political the work becomes the higher you move in an organization. What was political at a micro-political level when I was a classroom teacher or a person working in a central office expanded tremendously when I became chief of staff in New York and then deputy chancellor. This really prepared me for what it meant to be a superintendent in Baltimore. The scale of the work, the intensity of the gaze, the scrutiny, the need to constantly serve and respond, and to think through how things connect — it magnified enormously when I became a district superintendent. My sense is there’s an enormous need to prepare people for what that means once you’re in the arena.

Of course, underlying everything, there’s always a need for a leader to understand him or herself. There are nonnegotiables, there are triggers. You need to understand the triggers, the areas of weakness, and understand how those elements are significant at every single moment, but also how they can either help or hinder the work in relationship to a community. Leadership, at some level, is always a process of managing oneself in relationship to others. That’s an enormous aspect of the work since the personal authority of the leader is always the most important currency.

Personal authority becomes a tool for building a team, for making others serve the mission of the institution. That’s the key to the work. Last, I’ve been lucky in my career in having great mentors. There’s a need to connect with people who have the experience and the goodwill to support one in the work. The Ed.L.D. Program has thought through this. It asks: How do these leaders-in-training benefit from the many, many people who are really rooting for effective leadership in education?

JANUARY 2011

Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of D.C. schools, meets with Ed.L.D. students.

FEBRUARY 2011

As part of data curriculum, students consult with real-world education organizations to help them make strategic decisions with data.

Other visitors include Joel Klein, former chancellor of New York City schools, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Foregoing long breaks, students spend their J-term touring effective schools systems around the world.

MARCH 2011

Cohort 2 is selected.

Organizations include district teams from San Antonio, Texas, and Evansville, Ind., as well as teams from SchoolNet and the Massachusetts Department of Education.

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Why did you choose to invest in the Ed.L.D. Program?

Linda Hammett Ory, Ed.M.’93 Cosponsor with Andrew Ory, Endeavor Foundation fellowship

As an alumna of the Ed School’s Technology in Education Program, I have had a long-standing interest in educating children through nontraditional methods. There are so many ways to spark children’s interest in learning, both inside and outside the classroom, and I’ve come to believe a one-sizefits-all approach doesn’t work. That’s why we need education entrepreneurs, leaders who can forge new and meaningful pathways to learning for all children. When my husband, Andy, and I first learned about the new Doctor of Education Leadership Program, we were inspired to support it through our foundation because of three primary features: 1. The Ed.L.D. Program wants education leaders who can think big and outside the box. Most of the degree candidates already have impressive education experience. By training in interdisciplinary approaches from the Ed School, the Business School, Harvard Kennedy School, and other Harvard schools, Ed.L.D. graduates will be better equipped to develop and implement innovative education solutions.

APRIL 2011

SUMMER 2011

Harvard Graduate School of Design collaboration.

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AUGUST 2011

DECEMBER 2011

Cohort 2 arrives on campus.

Cohort 1 students work at high-level education summer jobs.

Students from cohort 1 collaborate with GSD students to create proposals for ideal school buildings and learning environments for the 21st century.

2. The Ed.L.D. Program is committed to giving its graduates real-word experience during their degree program, so theory and practice can come to agreement. Too often there is a divide between the ivory tower and the trenches. Ed.L.D. students will test ambitious ideas on the job in their third-year residencies, while still connected to the think tank of their student/professor cohort. They are aiming for real-world success, and this part of their studies will significantly boost their chances.

3. The Ed.L.D. degree candidates are fully funded. Like many of your readers, I was divided in my focus during my Ed School studies between getting the best education I could and figuring out how to pay for it. With the stress of tuition removed (as it is for most students in Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), Ed.L.D. students are free to concentrate on finding solutions to one of the most difficult challenges of our era — providing quality education for all.

The Ed.L.D. Program is still in its infancy, but I can’t wait to see what comes from it. I have learned from Emma Heeschen, a cohort 2 student whom the Endeavor Foundation is sponsoring, that they are already offering innovative ideas to solve education conundrums. For example, this year’s first-year students are helping the Education Achievement Authority of Michigan implement a studentcentered instructional model as a means of improving achievement in some of Detroit’s lowest-performing schools.

This is just the beginning. Imagine what kind of impact Ed.L.D. students will have within 10 short years! Andy and I are delighted to have the Endeavor Foundation help launch these soon-to-be doctors of education leadership, and we are committed to the school’s mission to let them focus on their degree program without the burden of tuition.

Range of job sites include state and federal departments of education, school systems, and nonprofits. They open new schools, craft policy and curriculum, and shadow superintendents.

32% men, 68% women, average age 32, average work experience 10 years.

Cohort 2 students create reform plans for New Orleans.

Proposals address school effectiveness, teacher quality, fiscal accountability, and community involvement.

Why did Teach For America choose to partner with the Ed.L.D. Program?

Through shaping the thinking and action of high-potential education leaders, the Ed.L.D. Program will help ensure that many more of our nation’s children have the educational opportunity they deserve. In our experience, wherever we see truly meaningful change in education — whether in the classroom, at the school or district level, or in the policy arena — we see transformational leaders, and Harvard’s program is helping to develop just that.

Our partnership with the Ed.L.D. Program includes both recruiting Teach For America alumni into the program and hosting a resident on our staff. Teach For America alumna Lizette Suxo, Ed.L.D. cohort 1, for example, is leveraging the program to build on her experiences as a kindergarten teacher in the South Bronx, N.Y., and as the founding principal of Bushwick Charter School, which is part of the Achievement First Network. One of Lizette’s favorite parts of the program is the coaching around

JANUARY 2012

Third-year Residencies A few of the partners that students in the first-year cohort will work with during their upcoming residencies:

Big Picture Learning Chicago Public Schools Denver Public Schools Iowa Department of Education Khan Academy

Wendy Kopp

Founder, Teach For America leadership style. She says, “Coaching has offered us an incredible opportunity to learn more about ourselves, our leadership styles, and our patterns.”

People like Lizette, who have the conviction, insight, experience, and determination required to make change happen, are pursuing the Ed.L.D. to become even stronger leaders on behalf of the kids we serve. We are pleased to partner with Harvard to support the development of the transformational educational leadership we need. Ed.

MARCH 2012

Los Angeles Unified School District National Board for Professional Teaching Standards New York City Department of Education Touchstone Education

APRIL 2012

Cohort 3 is selected.

Students from cohort 2 do field work in Detroit.

As part of their Workplace Lab core course, students collaborate with Detroit’s Education Achievement Authority to help underperforming schools.

Teach For America

Placements for cohort 1’s third-year residencies, which begin in July, are announced.

During their third and final year, students will return to Harvard periodically for intensive workshops.

Prizes and awards start coming in.

Students from cohort 1 and 2 are starting to be recognized for their Ed.L.D.-connected work, including a first-place award from the Yale Business Plan Competition and a $50,000 grant from the Harvard Initiative on Learning and Teaching.

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BY MARTY LIPP PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN LOOMIS

An insider’s take on the secret behind the Harlem Children’s Zone’s determined success.

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(L) A student gets free dental care.

(R) Promoting the healthy kitchen and farmer’s market.

t’s not the first question visitors ask, but you can see it in the darting eyes as folks walk through the halls teeming with students and staff. “What’s the secret?” they want to know. “How can Harlem Children’s Zone (HZC) get thousands of poor children to succeed academically where hundreds of programs and billions of dollars have failed?”

Visitors want to see “the curriculum,” the lesson plans, the data. They wonder if anyone can replicate HCZ’s work without our charismatic CEO Geoffrey Canada, Ed.M.’75.

And, of course, a few folks are just plain suspicious and wait with knife and fork in hand for any morsel of bad news to satisfy their insatiable cynicism.

Well, there is a secret (spoiler alert): it’s hard work over the long haul.

The Harlem Children’s Zone Project targets a 97-blockarea of Central Harlem with an interlocking network of education, social service, and community-building programs for children, from birth through college, and the adults around them. As the communications director of the agency for the past eight years, my favorite description of the agency is from a friend: “They do everything but come and wake you up in the morning.” The truth is, I learned, that the staff would to that, too, if that’s what was necessary.

At HCZ we talk about a “pipeline” of services, but it is actually two parallel pipelines: One for children who go to our K–12 charter schools; the other for children who live in the neighborhood and go to traditional public schools. Both start with our early education programs. We have outreach workers scouring the neighborhood, looking for pregnant women and parents of young children for The Baby College, a nine-week series of workshops that teach a range of parenting skills. It’s a great program, but the outreach workers use all sorts of enticements — free childcare, a weekly raffle, free diapers — to get parents in because we want all of them, the good and particularly the bad. Then we have our hooks in them — and them in our database — hopefully for the next 20 years or so.

Whatever It Takes is the title of Paul Tough’s excellent account of the organization’s work, and it has become the informal motto of the staff, who say it with a smile and a roll

of the eyes as they dive into the latest crisis. And the crises come with stunning regularity since we work with more than 11,000 children, many of whom face daily drama that would make grand opera seem drab by comparison.

“We’re trying to create a community where children are our permanent interest,” says Canada, “and a child who has struggled is connected to a series of adults who stay with the child over long periods of time. This idea that we’re investing in children as a team over time is central to our work.”

At HCZ, we just shake our heads when people criticize Head Start, for example, by saying it doesn’t make a difference for children ultimately. What do people expect when ontrack four-year-olds are tossed into substandard schools for the rest of their academic career, and with a battery of other disadvantages, including the ever-present threat of violence?

Although HCZ has been fortunate to receive glowing press attention, the coverage has sometimes highlighted our charter schools and obscured our work with children in traditional public schools. In fact, the original business plan of the HCZ Project did not include charter schools. When the opportunity arose, Canada, who had watched public schools fail for decades, jumped at the opportunity to deliver a great school to large numbers of poor children. The result was Promise Academy I, which opened in 2004, and Promise Academy II, which opened in 2005.

“We make the same guarantee to children in traditional public schools,” he says. “If you stick with us, you will get into and through college.”

Today, HCZ works with all seven of the traditional public elementary schools in the Zone, serving more than 2,400 students. We also work with more than 900 middle school students who don’t attend our charter school and 1,080 Harlem high schoolers. More than 700 students from these afterschool programs are now in college.

While some have painted Canada with a broad brush as “anti-union,” he is simply opposed to anyone and anything that does not put children first. That commitment defines him in the fields of politics and policy, but also makes him a relentless, no-excuses manager.

“If my mother worked here and she messed up,” Canada once told a staffer, “I’d fire her.”

This year marks a milestone for the Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academy I charter school: It graduates its first class of high-school seniors — and all of them will be going to college in the fall.

Recently I sat down with Principal Marquitta Speller in her office, which typically clatters with the daily drama and comedy of teenagers, and we looked through a list of her seniors. I asked what would have happened if these kids had not won the school admission lottery six years ago.

“We have 62 seniors,” she says, ruefully shaking her head.

“You would have maybe five that on their own would say, ‘OK, I’m doing this, I’m going to college.’

“I don’t have a crystal ball,” she continues, “but if they didn’t have these services, they would not have made it. A few would have become pregnant. …Some A Baby College session. boys would have been locked up.”

The school runs a longer school day and year, but that is just the beginning of the difference from a traditional school.

There is an onsite health center that offers students free medical, dental, and mental-health services. There is a social work team, a comprehensive afterschool program, freshly made healthy breakfasts and lunches, a range of incentives to reward good efforts. But what it took to get some of this first graduating cohort to cap and gown illustrates why HCZ’s “wraparound” services, applied over the long term, were essential.

There’s Tameka, a special education student who was shot in the face while walking home through a playground in seventh grade. She and other students received counseling after the shooting, and staff made sure she stayed in school to get the academic help she needed despite the stigma of being left back due to the weeks she missed. As a senior, Speller says, “she jumped 320 points on her SAT because she had developed this determination.”

When Tyler arrived at the Promise Academy in sixth grade, he was a pudgy class clown who was at the bottom academically of a cohort that was 75 percent below grade level in English and 60 percent below grade level in math.

While the staff immediately knew Tyler as a student who was more dedicated to getting attention for bad behavior than applying himself, they soon learned the reason: his “home life,” which in his case was a euphemism. His mother vacillated about keeping him in her home and so he bounced among family members, including his dad, who was struggling with drug addiction.

Tyler had an epiphany during an extended stay with family outside New York City. He said that seeing his family that summer — mired in a desolate world of crime, drugs, and unemployment — made him realize “the type of life that I want isn’t one spent in the basement of my mother’s house with kids I can’t support and an education that would leave me unqualified to even be a manager at McDonald’s.”

The lightbulb that went on was powered by the repeated messages he got from the staff, particularly one teacher who became a father figure to him. Tyler said the teacher joked with him but made clear there was also a time to buckle down and work toward his dreams.

He returned an earnest, hard-working student, looking to change the people and the world around him. As he tries

to make up for lost time, he says, “I wish we had more time here. I wish there were a 13th grade.”

The lightbulb moment came even later for Crystal, another senior whose mom has struggled with crack addiction since before Crystal was born.

Crystal arrived at the school behind academically, struggled with low self-esteem and hopelessness, and had a penchant for being involved in every “beef ” that erupted among her classmates. But staff stayed with her through every crisis.

A turning point, Speller says, was when Crystal was selected for a trip to Boston in 11th grade.

“She was fantastic,” Speller says. “That may have been one of the first times she heard something positive associated with her name.” On the trip, she visited a college campus for the first time. Suddenly, all the admonitions to get on track coalesced in her mind, and she realized there was an achievable and worthy goal within her reach.

“She’s going to struggle in college. I already know it,” Speller says. “In all honesty, she’s a student who will be in my life for the rest of my life.” Fortunately for Crystal, HCZ has a College Success Office (CSO), which continues our support of students when they go to college. The CSO became part of the pipeline when staff realized that our “successes” were sometimes dropping out in college; it helps students with everything from time management to getting internships.

Speller compares her time in Harlem with her prior school experience in Brooklyn. “Same kids, same issues,” she says. “But different resources make a huge difference, including staff with a genuine interest and love and passion for the kids and community. …If I had this in Bedford-Stuyvesant, I’d have the same results.”

People from outside the community may think that the only difference between a middle-class child and a poor one is money, but life in a devastated community is a minefield of potential setbacks for children. There is a toxic “gangsta wannabe” street — and popular — culture that encourages behavior that is ultimately self-destructive. There are ill-prepared schools, the threat of violence, inadequate health care, lack of resources for out-of-school time. Sometimes there are parents who are the very opposite of nurturing.

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A Promise Academy class.

“I think we are gathering a body of evidence that suggests the impact of really negative parenting is extremely damaging to a child’s learning capacity, emotional stability, and cognitive development,” says Canada. But, he adds, HCZ has the responsibility to educate children, no matter what kind of parents they have.

One of the saddest examples is Javier, currently a seventh grader at Promise Academy II. Javier started at the school in first grade and was already “really way below” grade level, according to Principal Kathleen Fernald, but each year seemed to reveal a new problem.

At the end of third grade, because his mother could not adequately care for him, he was placed with foster families around the city. But the school officials fought to have him placed with his mother again so that he would have the consistency of the Promise Academy.

“He needed us desperately,” Fernald says.

One teacher took his uniforms home and washed them since his mother was not doing so. At one point, when asked about his weight loss, he said he was often walking to school because no one was waking him up in time to get the bus. At another point, a fire in his building forced his family into a homeless shelter.

Despite it all, Javier began to slowly make progress academically and began to improve his social skills. In sixth grade, he told Fernald that he had just seen his father for the first time in years; He had been released from prison.

“He’s a survivor,” Fernald says.

Last August, Fernald recalls, she was looking at the grades for the statewide math exams that had just come in and she stopped when she saw Javier’s. Though it was late at night, she called Javier’s teacher, tears welling in her eyes, to give him the news: Javier had earned a 4, designating him “highly proficient.”

“This child will still struggle,” Fernald says, getting teary again. “But if he continues to perform at this level, college will be a reality. …The whole cycle of poverty for this family will change.”

HCZ’s work with traditional public schools does not have the same number of hours each day as our work with 34

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our charter school kids, but the dedication is the same. Last year, more than 95 percent of the seniors in HCZ’s four high-school afterschool programs were accepted into college, helped with everything from SAT preparation courses to tutoring to counseling.

We track retention rates to make sure that children move from program to program through college. We have a database with basic information on every participant. And our academic case management system assigns a staffer to every HCZ student from fifth grade up to not just solve problems but prevent them; to make sure they get what they need, whether it’s grief counseling, chess lessons, or a weight-loss regimen — a Zone defense, so to speak.

Denise enrolled in a karate class at an HCZ middle-school program as an overweight fifth-grader who was having trouble at her school socially. “I was an insecure child,” recalls Denise, who is now 17, chatty, and obviously very comfortable in her own skin. “I couldn’t relate to anyone.”

She lost 20 pounds, but, more importantly, learned she had allies to push her to improve academically, socially, and to widen her world view.

Gradually, she says, “I realized that there’s not that much difference between me and the next person, and we just have to help each other out.”

Matriculating to the Zone’s TRUCE Arts program for high school students, Denise learned how to express herself in several creative disciplines. “I see things differently,” she says.

“After taking photography here, I see things…” She holds up a small pad of paper and turns it slowly in front of her. “It’s all about light. So I see light in everything. When students don’t have that experience, they don’t see light in everything.”

The longterm relationship and trust that Denise had developed with HCZ staff over the years was key when her family split due, in part, to domestic violence.

“They encouraged me to make a change, not just dwell on it,” she says, noting she went on to make an award-winning public-service announcement on domestic violence.

Although the Harlem Children’s Zone Project is too new to have produced adults who have come through the pipeline, there are young people who grew up within the organization, stretching back to the time it was called Rheedlen.

James Washington, who is now 30, has spent 15 years in the agency. Although he was a “respectful” boy, he was an indifferent student and drifted into an ad-hoc apprenticeship in the neighborhood drug trade.

A neighbor told Washington about a job at the agency. In those days, young go-fers were taken under the wing of the older staff around them. They were employees, but they also were youths who needed to be saved from the street. They were regularly quizzed on school, their plans for life, and were given the loving kick in the metaphorical butt when necessary.

At one point, Washington recalls, he decided to take a year off before going to college. When Canada found out, he delayed a Board of Trustees meeting just to talk to the teen.

“He let me have it,” Washington says. He recalls saying to himself later: “They really care about what I do with my future. Maybe I need to start caring about my future.”

Washington went on to college and worked as a teacher’s assistant through HCZ. Seeing how the children took to him, Washington says, “I found the thing that I wanted to get up in the morning and do every day.” When he didn’t have a computer, a program director let him use hers after hours. When he had a crisis, he had HCZ elders with whom he could talk.

Now an assistant director, Washington has become a mentor to several tough cases himself.

“All I needed was someone extra to care about me,” Washington says. “[Kids are] reaching out to folks to put effort into them — and they may be making it more difficult by being disrespectful or doing all types of crazy things — but they just want someone to make the effort.

“At the end of the day, it’s just about really hard work and making sure every child gets the attention they need,” Washington continues. “I tell my staff all the time: ‘The most dangerous thing in the world is a bored child.’”

“To be very successful in this work you have to be on a mission, and part of that mission is that you have to be deeply concerned and care for young people,” Canada says. “But the care can’t be the evaluative tool that you use to determine whether or not your strategy is successful.

“We are determined to have hard evidence that this care and this love are being translated into significant growth in measurable ways in our children,” Canada says.

As the agency grew, he says, it had to be “fierce in the pursuit of the truth,” which sometimes meant telling staff a shiny new strategy was actually not working. Today, HCZ has a six-person evaluation department that creates, monitors, and evaluates criteria for each program.

“The data feedback loop became a monster,” Canada said recently at a meeting of HCZ’s senior managers. He acknowledged that trying to put order into the chaos of poor children’s lives is difficult at best. But acknowledging the difficulties does not mean accepting them. “The thing about a wake-up call,” he said, “is you have to wake up.”

The unforgiving evaluations, the intolerance for excuses, the talk of saving lives: These are the ever-present reminders that Canada and the staff are a band of rebels fighting against the corrosive culture of poverty laying siege to the families just outside our four walls. It’s as if Canada has lashed together anyone and anything in the neighborhood willing to fight the good fight, pulled in resources from outside to stop the gaps, then began ushering children in to the safety within and the hopes of a brighter future.

Canada reminds his managers that the agency, as it breaks new ground in the field, will always struggle with breakdowns.

“We have to fix the bike while riding it,” he jokes, then adds with a laugh that doesn’t diminish the timbre of determination in his voice, “We’ll get there on a wobbly bike.”

f the secret to the Harlem Children’s Zone’s success is hard work over the long haul, the same can be said about the success of its leader, Geoffrey Canada. Born in the South Bronx in 1952, Canada grew up in poverty with a single mother, three brothers, and a father he saw maybe once a year. His block was ruled by tough kids known as the Young Disciplines who taught Canada how to fight. At one point, he carried a knife and a gun.

He had his first child when he was only a sophomore in college.

Money was always an issue.

But as Paul Tough writes in his book, Whatever It Takes, about Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone, Canada had something growing up that a lot of other kids in the neighborhood didn’t: a mother with a couple years of college under her belt who realized that education doesn’t only happen in school. As a result, she “bombarded her sons with books and educational experiences before they could even walk.” Eventually, Canada realized he wanted to be an educator, especially for poor kids. After four years at Bowdoin College and a year at the Ed School, Canada taught in a Boston public school. He moved back to New York in the early 1980s to run the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families, which focused on truancy prevention and antiviolence training courses for young people.

Rheedlen eventually became the Harlem Children’s Zone.

These days, the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone goes hand-in-hand with Canada’s success, which, for a guy running an education nonprofit, has come in some surprising places. A starring role in an American Express commercial and the documentary hit, Waiting for “Superman.” Interviews with Charlie Rose, Jimmy Fallon, Anderson Cooper, Tavis Smiley, Oprah Winfrey, and Stephen Colbert (twice). Segments about him on NPR’s This American Life and, more recently, Saturday Night Live. A Richard Avedon portrait in the New Yorker. A Time magazine honor: one of the 100 most influential people in 2011.

Still, Canada remains grounded. He also hasn’t strayed from his original goal to help kids in every aspect of their lives, from the way their families raise them to the way they are taught in school. As he told an audience at the Ed School in March when he came to accept the school’s highest honor, the Medal for Education Impact, “People wonder why I supply all these supports to these kids. I found out early on in my career that this

— Marty Lipp has been the communications director at HCZ for eight years. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Star-Ledger, and the Huffington Post. Ed.

other stuff is important as human beings. It’s important to all of us,” he said. “Why would it not be more important to these kids who are growing up with nothing?” — LH HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY NATALIE KILANY

Professor Paul Harris’ new book looks at how children learn, who they trust, and why even a beloved wizard seems too magical to be real.

Why do kids believe in God but not

BY LORY HOUGH

Harry Potter?

A

re children more Marie Curie or Margaret Mead when it comes to learning? Are they little scientists who learn best by experimenting and figuring things out for themselves, or little anthropologists who need to listen, observe, and rely on what others tell them?

Progressive educators who emphasize learning by doing would likely say Marie Curie.

Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, in writing about education and children in Emile, said, “Let him know things not because you have told him, but rather because he has understood it for himself. Let him not learn science; let him invent it.” Italian educator Maria Montessori, whose child-centered learning theories are used around the world, once said that when it comes to educating children, the teacher, or “directress” as she

was called, should give “a hint, a touch” — just enough to get the child started. “The rest develops of itself.”

Or does it? After years of research, Professor Paul Harris argues that children need more than just a hint or a touch in order to learn about many things. As he writes in his new book, Trusting What We’re Told: How Children Learn from Others, “There is a profound limit to the role that first-hand experience can play in cognitive development.”

For example, how would a child know about a city or country never seen or visited if someone hadn’t told him or her about it? Or have an understanding of the past — that dinosaurs once roamed the world! — or the fact that Harry Potter isn’t real? How would he or she grasp that germs exist, or the tooth fairy or Santa Claus, for that matter?

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“Children learn all sorts of things that are opaque to them” by being little Margaret Meads, Harris says, by listening to what others tells them — what he calls “testimony.”

“A dominant metaphor for young children’s cognitive development is that the child is a scientist who does handson experiments, such as with things that float versus sink, and revises his or her ideas about the world like a scientist,” Harris says. “By contrast, anthropologists don’t do experiments, certainly not on the culture they are studying; rather they master the language, observe carefully, and engage in long conversations with trusted informants, especially when they are puzzled. Children, like anthropologists, are trying to make sense of the culture they live in, including its beliefs and values.”

And it basically starts, he says, once they are able to combine their understanding of language with their powerful imagination.

“Once you put these two things together, you have a child who can listen to a scene he or she has never seen and build it in their minds,” Harris says. They can imagine unobserved things. “No other species is capable of this, as far as we know.”

For example, by 13 or 14 months, children show clear signs of being able to understand references to an absent object or person and are willing to alter their ideas based on what someone tells them.

In this way, Harris says, “children accept information that runs counter to their own ideas.”

He describes a scene where a toddler is told that a toy left behind is no longer in the original place. Without actually seeing the toy being moved, the little girl nevertheless looks for it in a new spot. She understands that what she thought about the toy isn’t necessarily true — another person’s testimony could provide an update. In another example, Harris talks about a 22-month-old girl who asks one night where the moon is. She is told that the moon is asleep; it isn’t out. A month later, when the adult asks the girl where the moon is, the girl replies, “Moon sleeping.” She hasn’t seen for herself that the moon is actually asleep; she learned and accepted this “fact” from another person’s testimony.

Harris’ initial interest in this work grew out of his earlier research on imagination. He found that in using their imaginations, children not only think through and act out fantastical possibilities they have never experienced — being a pirate looking for buried treasure or an alien flying through space — but they also, surprisingly, use their imaginations to think about real events and things that are not visible, like death or germs.

In a series of experiments with 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds, Harris and his team of Ed School research students asked children about familiar things, such as tigers and wolves.

They were also asked about made-up creatures no one had ever seen, such as flying pigs. The children all agreed that

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tigers and wolves exist. No one believed there are flying pigs. The children were then asked about scientific things most had never seen, even in pictures, like germs. Based on the flying pig responses — we don’t believe what we don’t see — children should have said germs also don’t exist.

However, since children do learn from what others tell them, from testimony, all of the children said that everybody believes in germs. At some point, the children had been told about germs — “germs exist” or “wash the germs off of your hands!” and had trusted the person who supplied the information. Another way to think about this, Harris says, is to think about the history of medicine. During the 1800s, microbiologist Louis Pasteur’s claims about the harm of germs were contested, particularly by doctors, and so the general public didn’t think much about the role germs played in the transmission of diseases like cholera. Today, the role of germs in spreading illness is widely accepted by doctors and parents and so, Harris says, “assertions made by other people are children’s main guarantee that germs really do exist.”

This cognitive leap that children make helps them understand that other people are an important source of information, Harris says. They understand that they need other people to make sense of the world. Once that leap is made, they then realize it’s worth asking questions, often an endless stream of questions. Questions, of course, have been controversial when it comes to learning. In Trusting What You’re Told, Harris tells a story about developmental psychologist Jean Piaget’s response to his daughter, who, after twirling around and around and feeling dizzy, asked her father if his world was turning around, too. “What do you think?” Piaget replied. His daughter, frustrated, shouted back, “You always ask me that!”

Piaget clearly wanted his daughter to figure it out for herself. He feared, as others often do, “that when children ask questions, they will unthinkingly defer to adult authority,” Harris writes. “They will not check or test the answers they receive.”

However, this strikes Harris as simplistic.

“If a young child is puzzled about why it gets dark at night,” he says, “it’s not as if they are going to start figuring out the rotation of the earth.”

Plus, as Harris discovered, children don’t blindly defer to adults. Often, they think about what they have been told and then ask more questions. This is especially true when, in response to an original question, children are given an adequate explanation, such as “birds can fly because they have wings” (when the child asks how birds can stay in the air), as opposed to a vague answer like “I don’t know.”

Harris found that trust is not automatic for children.

They not only “monitor the messenger,” starting when they are babies, but as they get older, they also often question the content.

In a series of experiments with 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds, Harris and his team of Ed School research students asked children about familiar things, such as tigers and wolves. They were also asked about made-up creatures no one had ever seen, such as flying pigs. The children all agreed that tigers and wolves exist. No one believed there are flying pigs.

In several experiments, teachers gave 3- to 5-year-olds information about an unfamiliar object from a hardware store. Both teachers — one known well by the students, the other not known well — made up names and information about the objects. All age groups equally showed a strong preference for the answers given by the familiar teacher.

“This type of early selectivity is all but universal among children growing up under normal rearing conditions,” Harris writes. This early “profiling” of people — reliable, not reliable — “means that caregivers offer much more than a secure base for autonomous exploration,” Harris writes. “What they say about the world may or may not be internalized and become part of the child’s conception of the way things are.”

What happens when the person providing the information is harder to gauge? Kathleen Corriveau, Ed.M.’03, Ed.D.’10, an assistant professor at Boston University’s School of Education, worked with Harris on several studies, including one that looked at this question.

“We found that under these circumstances, 3- and 4-yearolds look to other people’s reactions for guidance,” she says.

“They are more likely to accept an informant’s claim if it is endorsed by other people,” even when those other people leave. As children got older, researchers found that the track record of the person providing the information started to take on more importance. The more often they were accurate, the more they were trusted.

When using stories to figure out how children differentiate real from fiction, Harris found that by the age of 5 or 6, children believe the protagonist of a story is not real if the story includes magic or fantasy. Despite actor Daniel Radcliffe being human, most children understand that the character Harry Potter isn’t. If a story doesn’t contain magical or fantastical elements, however, children generally have no trouble believing a protagonist is real.

“This helps children sort out information about people they have never met,” Harris says.

How, then, to explain religious stories which often include things that don’t ever happen in real life, such as the parting of the sea? Harris assumed that children’s “magic detector” would go off, indicating that this kind of event couldn’t really happen. Instead, he found that children are often willing to accept the miracles or the extraordinary powers of God, perhaps because religious stories are often presented as real, especially in religious households.

“So, we end up with a paradox,” Harris writes. “On the one hand, young children have their feet on the ground —

they spot the magic in a fairy story and classify it as fiction.

Yet they spot the miraculous in religious claims and accept it as fact.”

In this sense, children do sometimes defer to others, even when it conflicts with the information they have gathered for themselves and even when it may not be in their best interest.

“In the third part of my book, and perhaps the most controversial, I argue that children’s willingness to listen to other people and trust them makes them susceptible to all kinds of things,” Harris says. “They are creatures of their culture.

They’ll swallow, for better or for worse, the assumptions of the culture.”

With this in mind, Harris says he didn’t write his new book to revamp early education in the United States.

“I wrote it, I suppose, more because there are longerterm issues at stake. My hope is that the impact will be on my colleagues interested in early childhood development. I hope that researchers will increasingly see young children as capable of learning as much via dialogue as from hands-on or discovery learning.”

Corriveau also sees practical implications for educators. For example, the findings on children being more trusting of information supplied by someone they know could improve hiring practices and policies in preschools and elementary schools.

“In particular, given the high rate of teacher turnover,” she says, the information shows that “children might be at a disadvantage when learning from a relative stranger.”

In addition, teachers can learn things they should and shouldn’t do in the classroom, she says.

“One is easy. When teachers say something incorrect, young children view them as inaccurate,” she says, “so even joking errors should be avoided.”

Harris says he hopes the book will be helpful for teachers and parents, too, “by calling attention to the critical importance of sustained dialogue in nurturing children’s curiosity and in encouraging them to ask questions.”

And he stresses that his research isn’t either/or. He’s not saying the Montessori way is wrong or that you shouldn’t encourage children to explore and learn for themselves. And just as children should be encouraged to question their own firsthand knowledge, they should also be encouraged to question the knowledge they gain from others.

Still, he says, it’s important to recognize that for our little anthropologists, “the testimony of other people is likely to be just as important as firsthand experience for setting such reflection in motion.” Ed.

HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

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oneonone Ellen Gordon Reeves

E

JILL ANDERSON

llen Gordon Reeves, Ed.M.’86, didn’t set out to become a career and workplace expert. She never expected she would be consulting to individuals and institutions across the globe. But today, as a writer, consultant, and frequent guest on national television and radio shows, Reeves finds that her advice is often in high demand. A former member of the famed Hasty Pudding Theatricals, she has also dabbled since her undergraduate days in the entertainment industry, creating and performing in TALK SHOW, a series of live, improvised performances in New York. To top it off, she is the outgoing president of the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA), a title that came after volunteering for the HAA for nearly 30 years and chairing almost every HAA and parallel Radcliffe College Alumni Association committee since she graduated from Harvard College in 1983.

40

ED.

• SUMMER 2012

Was writing always a focus for you?

My mother began her career as a magazine editor and both my parents were wonderful writers and editors. They helped me write my first resume and were always willing to sit with me and my two younger sisters to talk about ideas and then edit whatever we wrote, so I began to help classmates in secondary school with any kinds of writing they had to do. Even in elementary school, I volunteered to help nursery and kindergarten students with reading and writing. I loved teaching.

So you came to the Ed School.

Harriet Hoffheinz, then at Radcliffe Career Services, the greatest career counselor one could hope to have and now a friend, recommended that I start by taking a course at the Ed School when I told her I wanted to help people one-on-one with their writing. I was hooked; I registered for the master’s program after that. I worked in the Irony and Sarcasm Group with [Professor] Howard Gardner and Ellen Winner at Project Zero. No kidding.

Are you a natural on camera?

Before my book, Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview?, came out in 2008, I had never been on TV. Then, suddenly I was on all the time, making guest appearances on shows such as The CBS Early Show, CNN’s Your Money, EXTRA, and ABC’s Money Matters, and I discovered a real affinity for the medium.

It’s not a surprise then that you were involved with the Hasty Pudding Theatricals.

Best memory?

STEPHANIE MITCHELL/HARVARD UNIVERSITY NEWS OFFICE

alumni ne ws and notes

One of my favorite Hasty Pudding memories was when Ella Fitzgerald was named Woman of the Year in 1982. She sang a few songs including “A Train” for us — just the cast and crew and the Krokodiloes in the upstairs bar of the old Hasty Pudding Theater — and I remember thinking, this lady is really good. Then I realized I had heard her sing before, and suddenly I thought, wow, I know who this is: It’s the lady from the Memorex commercial. All I can say is, my musical knowledge has certainly evolved since.

How does your education background fit in with your creative side?

Teaching is performing. I never understood how much of what I loved about teaching came from the performance aspect. I took a course with Vernon Howard on art and education, but until I studied at Second City and until I began doing television and finally created my own live show, I hadn’t made the connection. My desire is not only to perform and have an audience, but also to teach people things about themselves and the world around them that they didn’t know they knew. As a teacher, my goal is to find the adult in the child and the child in the adult, and I think that’s also the essence of performance and play.

Why go to all of your class reunions?

I love connecting people and meeting people. I always say: If there are two alums in a room, it’s a reunion, even a virtual one. If I could meet and talk to every single person in the world, and hear what they’re looking for or hoping for in life and introduce them to the

people who could make that happen, that would be the greatest thing. Being involved with the Harvard Alumni Association lets me try to do that in a tiny way. As the old Radcliffe College commemorative litany so aptly expressed, “to be even so small a part of so great a thing is greatness itself,” and that’s how I feel about Harvard.

What is your best advice to job seekers?

The mantra of my book, which is the essence of my role as a teacher and as this year’s president of the HAA, is: Stop looking for a job (or whatever you’re looking for) and start looking for a person. The right person will lead you to the right job or opportunity.

Everything we need is usually right under our noses and in our own communities, but we need to reach out, and we need to learn how to reach out in the right way.

Have you ever given advice that you later regretted?

Sure. But I don’t want to regret putting it in print now, so my advice about bad advice is: forget about it and move on.

— Rachael Apfel

HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

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Rhythm and Rhyme: Sona Chong Jho

S

ona Chong Jho, Ed.M.’97, still considers herself an educator first. Although she left classroom teaching long ago in favor of television and video production, she is firmly

focused on the medium’s potential to inspire learning. In fact, it was her interest in the marriage of education and media that led her to the Ed School.

“I came to the Ed School because the idea of educational television originated with researchers like [the late Professor] Gerry Lesser who imagined in the ’60s that the medium could be a force for learning,” Jho says. “My goal was to explore how television and new media could be used to engage and inspire children to learn.”

— from video to print to new media — that is both educational and entertaining. One result is the Mother Goose Club, a series

SOCKEYE MEDIA

Now, as owner of Sockeye Media, the company she founded in 2001, Jho works to produce high-quality content across platforms

of one-minute videos aimed at preschoolers in which six colorful characters, including Little Bo Peep and Jack B. Nimble, promote

and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.) Keeping

early literacy through the recitation and singing of nursery rhymes.

up with the constantly changing Internet media industry, though,

“Rhymes and songs introduce infants to language, rhythm, and

“Thanks to technology, we have been able to reach a global au-

Jho says. “Because they are silly, funny, repetitive, and rich in

dience directly,” Jho says. “At the same time, the pace of change

vocabulary, nursery rhymes are a natural vehicle for stimulating

is so rapid that we have to work really hard just to keep up. … It

early literacy.”

is tremendously rewarding, but can also be overwhelming.”

Mother Goose Club has amassed quite a following, both online

A mother of four, ranging in ages from 5 months to 8 years,

and through airings on the Nashville public television affiliate,

Jho stays in the loop with her target audience from right at home.

becoming Sockeye’s most recognizable brand. Its most popular

Still, she finds the ability to stay connected via social media to

video, “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” has more than 22 million views on

her larger audience, both children and their caregivers, is her big-

YouTube, and the first DVD collection, Nursery Rhyme Singing

gest advantage in producing good work.

Time with Mother Goose Club, has won several industry awards.

The growth of Mother Goose Club and other Sockeye products

“I believe it is important to interact with the target audience as much as possible and to keep learning about what they find joy-

is due in large part, Jho says, to the company’s social media pres-

ful, engaging, and worthwhile,” she says. “They are a great source

ence. (In addition to YouTube, Mother Goose Club has a website

of material and inspiration.” — Marin Jorgensen

1963

author Dorothea Martin believe are more important to success than IQ scores. Learn more at www.glolar.com/store. Maxwell currently lives in Tirana, Albania. (See profile page 45.)

senior-level counsel to clients on special projects. Marshall previously served as chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for more than a decade.

1969

Frances Mervyn, Ed.M., a community mental health expert and teacher and dean at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, received the 2011 Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award.

Nominated by a former student, Mervyn received the honor at a ceremony at the Carter Center in Atlanta on January 7, 2012.

Marjorie Malley, M.A.T., published Radioactivity: A History of a Mysterious Science in August 2011. The book was one of Amazon.com’s top 10 books for 2011 in both the science and history categories.

1966 Gary Hart, M.A.T., was elected board chair of the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California, a think tank devoted to Sacramento politics and policy. The San Francisco–based

42

does pose a challenge for Sockeye’s small team.

music [and] encourage bonding between caregiver and child,”

ED.

• SUMMER 2012

organization produces statewide surveys and original research that introduce high-quality, neutral information into the fog of partisanship and ideology.

1967 William Maxwell, Ed.M.’64, C.A.S.’65, Ed.D., completed the first trials of a thinking-skills test that ranges far wider than the traditional IQ or personality test. The University Level Test of Reasoning Abilities measures 21 traits such as curiosity, imagination, and achievement drive, many of which he and his co-

Margaret Marshall, Ed.M., has rejoined the firm of Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP in Boston as senior counsel. She will work part time and focus her efforts on the firm’s extensive community outreach, pro bono, and diversity programs, mentoring junior lawyers, and providing

alumni ne ws and notes 1971

1979

Monica Kelly Appleby, Ed.M., is a beginning member of ElderSpirit Community, a participatory community of mutual support and late-life spirituality (www.elderspirit.net).

Looking back, working to start locally based projects and organizations has been a pattern of her life in central Appalachia and southern Africa. She is coauthor of the book Mountain Sisters: From Convent to Community in Appalachia.

Ron Kronish, Ed.D., was inducted into Miami Beach Senior High School’s Alumni Association Hall of Fame last November along with six other distinguished graduates from a variety of fields, including medical research, music, psychiatry, law, and civic service. Rabbi Kronish was honored for his noteworthy work in the field of interreligious dialogue and education throughout the world, including his achievements as founder and director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel.

1975 Stephen Barker, Ed.M., was selected head of school at Friends Academy in North Dartmouth, Mass., after an extensive search. Barker had been working as interim headmaster of Friends prior to his permanent appointment.

1976 Janet Kahn, Ed.M., has been appointed a member of the national Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health. She is currently a research assistant professor at the University of Vermont’s College of Medicine, a position she has held since 2002.

1977 Donald Kennedy, Ed.D., has been the director of planning for the nonprofit New England School Development Council since his retirement as a superintendent of schools in 2000. Recognizing his work in leading teams of educators to assist more than 200 school districts across the six New England states, he was honored in May 2011 with the Cooperative Leadership Award from the National School Development Council, only the third time this national award has been presented.

1981 Rick Apling, Ed.D., retired from the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress, where he was a legislative analyst for 20 years.

Prior to retiring, he began teaching English for speakers of other languages to adults, which he has continued since his move to Tucson, Ariz., with his wife, Debby. He would love to hear from friends and former classmates (rapling@gmail.com).

1982 Shahé Navasart Sanentz, Ed.M.’82, is president of Navasart Language Consulting LLC, a linguistic services company specializing in the Armenian/English language pair and dedicated to providing translation, interpretation, ESL instruction, and editing solutions on a customized basis.

Navasart Sanentz continues to compile his bilingual (American English–Western Armenian) dictionary in his spare time.

1983 Paul Hoss, C.A.S., recently published a book, Common Sense: The Missing Link in Education Reform. It chronicles the problems with the ubiquity of whole class instruction in our schools and

offers the remedy of individualized instruction, which he implemented after his first year teaching in a traditional classroom and practiced for the duration of his career.

1984 Philip DiSalvio, Ed.D., was appointed founding dean of University College at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, in 2011.

1985 Donald Berger, Ed.M., has been appointed the new head of school at Cape Fear Academy in Wilmington, N.C., effective July 1, 2012. He currently serves as head of school at Cary Academy in Cary, N.C.

1986 Sara Hoagland Hunter, Ed.M., recently published her ninth children’s book, The Lighthouse Santa, illustrated by Julia Miner.

1988 Roland Smith, Ed.D., was selected to receive the 2012 Professional Achievement Award from the National Association of Presidential Assistants in Higher Education. He currently serves as associate provost for diversity and inclusion at Rice University in Houston. Prior to joining Rice in 1996, he was executive assistant to the president of the University of Notre Dame.

Eleonora Villegas-Reimers, Ed.M.’84, Ed.D., was given the Latino Excellence in Education Award by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in October 2011. She was honored for her work as board member of the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care, supporting children and families on the state level.

1989 Elizabeth (Duffy) Schaper, Ed.M., is currently working as the superintendent of schools in West Boylston, Mass.

1990 Gail Shapiro, Ed.M., has revived a former career as a professional organizer and is happily weeding through other people’s offices, closets, collections, and kitchens to help them create harmony, efficiency, and systems that work (www.gailshapiro.com).

1993 Debra Bright Harris, Ed.M., recently completed her doctoral degree in higher education administration at George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Her dissertation was titled Pioneering Women: Black Women as Senior Leaders in Traditionally White Community Colleges. She was also appointed as a commissioner on the Montgomery County (Md.) Commission for Women and currently serves as an advisory board member for the community college division of NASPA, an association that supports student affairs administrators in higher education. She resides in Silver Spring, Md., with her 13-year-old daughter.

1994 Maria Dominguez Gray, Ed.M., was named the first female executive director of the Phillips Brooks House Association at Harvard. Dominguez Gray had served as deputy director of the student-run, public service organization since 1999.

1995 Susan Graham, Ed.M., is director of school relations for CODiE Award–winning AcademicMerit. She works with HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

43

LEISE JONES PHOTOGRAPHY

been recognized by the city and the commonwealth of Massachusetts for its partnerships and noted for the college admittance success of its students.

1998 Steve Stein speaks at a fundraiser for the Boston Debate League.

2004 Manuel Rustin is recognized with the Milken Educator Award at a school assembly.

Eileen Mackin, Ed.M., recently founded SmART Schools LLC with her husband, Robert Mackin, in Portsmouth, N.H. With funding from the New Hampshire Charitable Trust and support from the Rhode Island Foundation and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, SmART Schools is a K–12 whole-school reform initiative that provides daily opportunities for all students to engage in the arts and demonstrate skills, knowledge, and understandings in and through the arts.

MILKEN FAMILY FOUNDATION

1998

school districts to implement FineTune, Assessments21, and Literary Companion, a suite of online professional-development, assessment, instruction, and learning solutions designed to help schools implement the common core state standards in reading, writing, and language.

Erik Gregory, Ed.M., is director of the Organizational and Leadership Psychology Program at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology. In the newly created position, which he began last summer, Gregory oversees master’s degree programs in organizational psychology and executive coaching and will soon launch a new doctoral program in leadership psychology, which he believes is the first of its kind in the country.

44

ED.

• SUMMER 2012

Gerard Robinson, Ed.M., was named education commissioner for the state of Florida.

Previously, he was Virginia’s secretary of education.

1996 Danielle Boyd Heard, Ed.M., has been selected as head of school for the Nashoba Brooks School in Concord, Mass., effective July 1, 2012.

She currently serves as assistant head of the school.

1997 Meg Campbell, C.A.S., was appointed a member of the Boston School Committee by Mayor Thomas Menino. She is the founder and executive director of the Codman Academy Charter Public School in Dorchester, Mass., which has

Steve Stein, Ed.M., works as executive director of the Boston Debate League. In January, he was inducted into the Gold Key Society at the Barkley Forum for High Schools at Emory University in Atlanta for his commitment to urban education and success in building a large and effective urban debate league in Boston.

Christopher Tucker, Ed.M., was named executive director of Garden Court on De la Vina, an affordable housing project for seniors in Santa Barbara, Calif. He previously worked at Garden Court from 1999 to 2004 as its first executive director. Tucker most recently worked in development at Bridgepoint Education in San Diego and volunteered with Orphans International in Haiti.

2000 Jennifer Anastasoff, Ed.M., was elected to the board of directors of the Junior Statesmen Foundation. She is a founding CEO of Fuse Corps, a venture for social change that aims to bring together entrepreneur-

ship and elected public offices, marrying public and private sectors for effective community development.

2002 Dan Peppercorn, Ed.M., is an eighth-grade teacher and social studies curriculum coordinator. He is a former all-state athlete and coach who performs improv, makes films, and is working on a humorous novel. His latest book, Creative Adventures in Social Studies: Engaging Activities & Essential Questions to Inspire Students, was recently published.

2003 Emily Mello, Ed.M., was named director of education and public programs at the Miami Art Museum, a modern and contemporary art museum.

In this role, she will oversee educational programming that reaches nearly 35,000 people and will plan for the greatly expanded educational offerings that will be available when the museum’s new facility in downtown Miami’s Museum Park opens to the public in 2013.

2004 Leigh Fitzgerald, Ed.M., was named executive director of Hawaii Technology Academy, Hawaii’s largest charter school serving students on the five islands. She joins the academy after seven years as one of the founding faculty and administrative members of Maui Preparatory Academy.

Manuel Rustin, Ed.M., was recently awarded a Milken Educator Award, which includes an unrestricted $25,000 prize, from the Milken Family Foundation.

Rustin works as a social studies teacher at John Muir High School in Pasadena, Calif. Read a recent story about Rustin on the Ed School’s website.

A Sporting Chance: William Maxwell

W

hat is your true calling? That is one of the questions a student entering the Global Academy for International Advancement (GAIA) must answer

before he or she is admitted. This knowledge, says William Maxwell, Ed.M.’64, C.A.S.’65, Ed.D.’67, is the basis for success at the school he moved from Arizona to Tirana, Albania to start. The first class of students is slated to begin in September 2012.

The seed for GAIA was planted in 1964 when Maxwell was an Ed School student. Professor Anne Roe urged the incoming doctoral class to design a model school for the 21st century.

suggested that sports be central in the curriculum. “[This] was a heresy at the time in every scholastic and academic institution on the planet, except behind the Iron Curtain, where sports were turned into a propaganda tool.” Still, the idea stuck.

Almost 50 years and many professional achievements later — including serving as the first principal of the first postsecondary institution in southeastern Nigeria and founding the

THE UNIVERSITY OF ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY

“I thought, ‘Wow, what a great challenge,’” Maxwell says. It was another of Maxwell’s professors, George Goethals, who

International Conference on Thinking — Maxwell’s academy in which both athletics and academics are emphasized is becom-

When working in groups, Maxwell says teams coach, tutor,

ing a reality thanks to an invitation from the National Olympic

encourage, and inspire one another. “The usual negative ef-

Committee of Albania, a country that is among the 100 nations

fects of peer pressure are transmuted into a very powerful

that have never won an Olympic medal.

positive force.”

“Albania’s Olympic and ministerial leadership recognized the

For students, failure is not an option, says Maxwell. In fact,

powerful morale boost an Olympic medal would [give] a nation

parents are given a guarantee: At the end of the program, their

coming out of centuries of despotic rule,” Maxwell explains.

child will be admitted to one of the world’s top 100 graduate or

The academy — which Maxwell likens to Plato’s academy —

professional schools and/or make his or her nation’s Olympic

seeks to create well-rounded and successful student-athletes.

team. If neither is accomplished, any tuition paid is refunded.

Students begin their training at home from age 3.5, then at age

Failure isn’t an option for Maxwell either. Having invested his

12 become full-time residents at GAIA. At the end of six years

and his wife’s life savings into the start-up of the academy, he

— at the age of 18 or so — students will have earned a high

has more than just his reputation at stake. Still, he’s confident

school diploma and a bachelor’s degree. Each day consists of

that the students chosen to enroll will lead his long-planned

three hours of classroom lessons and three hours of athlet-

academy to success.

ics, and students spend at least six hours a week working with

“Everyone is born with at least one outstanding talent, usually

their hands in activities such as gardening and woodworking.

more than one, which is one’s ‘true calling,’” he says. “My true

Students also spend two hours in individual and group study.

callings include a high intuition to find talent.” — Marin Jorgensen

2005

Janey Pearl, Ed.M., joined Stand for Children Arizona, a nonprofit committed to improving education for all kids, as communications director. She worked previously as senior advisor to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, where she was responsible for English and Spanish media relations, working on education issues, and serving as a

Colleen Richards Powell, Ed.M., has been promoted to the position of chief external relations and communications officer for the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. In this role, she will provide creative leadership both internally and externally to

develop and direct community, government, and business outreach; media; and marketing programs.

2006 Yansi Eraslan, Ed.M., continues to serve as the president of Özel Ege Lisesi, a K–12 school in Izmir, Turkey.

liaison to the Latino, immigrant, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities.

2007 Maria Blanco, Ed.M.’01, Ed.D., was named associate dean for faculty development at Tufts University School of Medicine.

HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

45

2009 & 2007 Christopher Eide and Bree Dusseault

Silicon Valley, Calif. Edmodo’s goal is to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for every learner.

Krina Patel, Ed.M.’01, Ed.M., Ed.D., is a Boston-based nutrition expert. In January, she organized a food walk in the walled city of Amdavadis, India, as part of her Stir a Memory workshops. The project focuses on stirring up memories of foods people grew up with in order to help them reconnect with their roots.

ADRIA PEADEN

2008

Kathleen Castillo-Clark, Ed.M., was recognized last November by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards for having achieved National Board Status in the certificate area of early and middle childhood literacy: reading-language arts. She and her husband Scott have recently relocated to Chicago and were expecting their first child in February.

Bree Dusseault, Ed.M., recently married Christopher Eide, Ed.M.’09.The couple met studying schools in New Orleans. Together they are cofounders of EduDrinks, a monthly gathering of individuals across Seattle interested in education. After founding two schools in New Orleans, Dusseault is now an executive director in Seattle Public Schools.

Rich Reddick, Ed.M,’98, Ed.D., was recently selected as one of four Outstanding Young Texas Exes for 2012 by the University of Texas-Austin’s alumni organization. Individuals are nominated and then selected by a committee, based on their having “made significant achievements in their careers and service to the university.”

He is an assistant professor of higher education administration at UT-Austin where he’s been doing research on many topics, including a study of junior faculty dads that has received coverage in Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Brandon Wong, Ed.M., recently joined the Edmodo team as an engagement manager working directly with schools and districts. Edmodo is an education social media start-up in

Kate Grenci, Ed.M., has been a house manager at an adolescent girls’ semi-independent residential program with Child and Family Services, a social services agency in Rhode Island, since August 2011. In addition, she joined the Community College of Rhode Island’s Office of Opportunity and Outreach Access program in February 2012. Access is federally funded, providing one-on-one support to students who are the first in their family to attend college, are low-income, and/or have a documented disability.

2009 Christopher Eide, Ed.M., recently married Bree Dusseault, Ed.M.’07, and he is still in disbelief that she said “yes.” The couple met studying schools in New Orleans.

Together they are cofounders of EduDrinks, a monthly gathering of individuals across Seattle interested in education. Eide is the founder and executive director of Teachers United. He was recently named to the inaugural class of Aspen Institute Teacher Leader Fellows.

Priya Nalkur-Pai, Ed.M.’03, Ed.D., recently joined The Boda Group (bodagroup.com) as leadership coach and principal.

The firm works with leaders and teams within organizations to help them operate more effectively and strengthen leadership capacities. She continues her life and career coaching practice as managing director of AMP Coaching, LLC. She and her husband welcomed a baby girl, Anjali, in July 2011.

Life is grand with all these new changes, she says!

2010 Eric Oberstein, Ed.M., was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album for producing Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra’s 40 Acres and a Burro.

Top 10 Ways For Graduates to Stay In Touch

1

Read every single issue of

Ed., front to back.

4

Send your updates to alumni.harvard.edu

and classnotes to classnotes@gse.harvard.edu.

8

2

Register with the HAA (alumni.harvard.edu)

5

Network with

to access the main Harvard alumni directory

and receive Harvard-wide news.

classmates and

other alums on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Subscribe to the Ed School’s event calendar and e-newsletters at

www.gse.harvard.edu/alumni_friends.

46

ED.

• SUMMER 2012

9

6

3

Volunteer on various alumni committees and programs

such SAMI, AAA, or the HGSE Fund.

Follow the school on our

Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr pages.

Listen to EdCasts with education thought leaders via iTunes and

through the school’s homepage.

7

Attend Askwith Forums on

campus or watch them streamed live.

10

Contact the alumni office: gse_alumni_relations@

harvard.edu or 617-496-3605.

BFFs Amid a world of constant change, little is guaranteed to remain the same. However, for four Ed School alumni from the 1950s, one thing has stood strong: their friendship.

From secondary school to college to graduate school, no matter how much their lives have changed, Barbara Cage, Ed.M.’54; Xonnabel Clark, Ed.M.’54; Rosetta Sanders, Ed.M.’55; and June Sanchez, Ed.M.’54, supported one another. They continue to do so today.

It began as a young friendship in New Orleans, where Cage, Sanchez, and Clark all attended secondary school together at Gilbert Academy. It matured and expanded when all three transitioned to nearby Dillard University. It was there that they welcomed Sanders to the group after all

to Longfellow Hall and Appian Way. Their old classrooms no

four became sorority sisters. And while graduation from Dillard

longer exist, replaced by Harvard’s Science Center.

marked a time of major change for the women, it did little to

As the women walked around, they were reminded of their initial

pull them apart. Instead, all four were selected to be part of

arrival at the school, exactly 58 years prior, in September 1953.

a small group of six Dillard graduates to attend the Ed School

“Much has changed since our year of matriculation,” Sanders

under a program sponsored by the Fund for the Advancement of

says, but “our recent mini-reunion rekindled a feeling of belong-

Education. According to Clark, going to Harvard together made

ing and pride for overcoming the culture shock we felt when we

their bonds stronger.

first arrived, and [reminded us] how we quickly adjusted and

“For June, Barbara, and I, it would be our first big move away

became a support group for each other.”

from home and from New Orleans,” she recalls. “But because we were friends, we felt like we had our own support system.”

Nearly six decades later, that system of support is still strong

Walking into classrooms in Longfellow Hall, Clark says they could not help but be overcome with awe as they took in the modern arrangements and new technologies.

and the women remain close. Last September, they decided

“The scene immediately brought an exchange of smiles and

to have a mini-reunion in Cambridge, where Clark and Sanders

comments as we remembered our much

still live. Cage, who moved to Virginia, also came. Sanchez had

smaller classrooms with oval-shaped

hoped to, but had to stay in New Orleans to care for her 95-year-

tables and Harvard-style arm chairs in

old mother. Their visit to the Ed School campus was eye-opening

Lawrence Hall,” she says. “My, how times

— the campus has completely transformed from the one they

have changed!”

came to know, relocating from Lawrence Hall and Palfrey House

— Rachael Apfel

Watch a video of the women reunited at the Ed School.

inmemor y Juanito Maramara, Ed.M.’22

Edith Pennock, Ed.M.’58

Judith Growe, M.A.T.’70

Harold Michal-Smith, Ed.M.’28

Frank Randall Powers, M.A.T.’47, Ed.D.’58

Gordon Hull III, Ed.D.’73

Ruth Nerboso, GSE’47

Ronald Scott, C.A.S.’58

George Bennett Halperin, Ed.M.’79

Marcie Caplan Greenberg, M.A.T.’49

Leonard Godfrey Jr., Ed.M.’61

Joan Harte, Ed.M.’79, C.A.S.’80

Arthur Jonas, GSE’53

Frances Turgeon, M.A.T.’61

Eugene Kinasewich, Ed.M.’67, Ed.D.’81

Ray Friend Bentley, M.A.T.’54

William Joseph Cullen, Ed.M.’62

Erin Phelps, Ed.M.’74, Ed.D.’81

Alice Kinnamon, Ed.M.’55

Jesse Victor Hopper, Ed.D.’62

Claire Kolbe, Ed.M.’88

Eleanor Jaquinet, Ed.M.’56

Herman Eschenbacher, Ed.D.’63

Laurie Naparstek, Ed.M.’89

Barbara-Joan Anderson Moseley,

Margot Uman Kenney, Ed.M.’63

Kazue Imanaka, Ed.M.’92

M.A.T.’56

John Hopkins, Ed.M.’64

Loutfallah Georges Chedid, Ed.M.’04

John Przybyla, M.A.T.’56

Mary Helen Callahan, M.A.T.’66

r eces s

The Things They Still Carry The Law School has their gavels. The Divinity School, halos. The Kennedy School has inflatable globes. The Design School, rulers and protractors. And for many years, the Ed School basically had nothing, except for the one year they carried apples. But Christine Pina, Ed.M.’99, and Cyle Bohannon, Ed.M.’99, wanted to change that. Ed School students, they reasoned, should also wave something as they walked into Harvard Yard during commencement.

Now 13 graduations later, the tradition they started — having Ed School students carry children’s books — is still going strong. But it isn’t just graduates who gained something meaningful. Thousands of children have also benefited: The books are collected after commencement and donated to a local organization or school. The year Bohannon and Pina were involved, more than 500 books, sold at cost to students by Charlesbridge Publishing, were given to Dante Alighieri Elementary School in East Boston with the help of Ed School alum 48

ED.

• SUMMER 2012

William Trueheart, Ed.D.’79, then-president of the nonprofit Reading Is Fundamental.

Bohannon, who has since started a lifecoaching business, says choosing to hold books was inspired by Professor Kurt Fischer.

“My classes with Kurt made me acknowledge the importance of metaphors and symbols,” she says. “I wanted our actions as a group to convey what the Ed School was about in the same way the globes conveyed a message about the Kennedy School.”

Pina, now vice president for institutional advancement at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, is proud that this tradition is still going strong.

“The fact that so many classes after us have continued this practice is inspiring to me,” she says. “I think of how we’ve been able to emphasize the importance of children’s literacy to so many kids and families, and I’m even more proud to be associated with the Ed School.”

— Lory Hough

CATHERINE WALSH

MICHAEL RODMAN

What books did they carry?

Pina (above, left) waved Jaha and Jamil Went Down the Hill: An African Mother Goose and Bohannon (right) carried the Who Am I? series.

in v es ti n g

Paying It Forward and Backward

W

hen the members of the class of 2012 arrived on

ing their gift in honor of a favorite former teacher or professor.

campus last fall, little did they know that a special

Those educators are recognized on the class gift website and

gift awaited them.

with a personalized certificate.

It was courtesy of the 2011 Class Gift campaign, through

Faux also hopes that by participating in the class gift cam-

which graduating students raised more than $25,000 for un-

paign this year, her classmates will begin considering their

restricted financial aid for the next class. Most important, 67

long-term commitment to the school.

percent of graduates made a contribution — a record since the class gift program was instituted at the Ed School in 1998.

Announcing the gift at last year’s convocation, class gift

“By carrying forward the same spirit of giving to the HGSE Fund as alumni, we can continue to help future classes through financial aid,” Faux says. — Mark Robertson, Ed.M.’08

chair Michael Clarke, Ed.M.’11, thanked his classmates and acknowledged the power of paying it forward in education.

“Think of the message that you have sent to next year’s class by contributing to financial aid for them,” Clarke said. “You are saying that despite your student loans, or that you are still looking for a job, you care enough about the future of education to lend a helping hand to the people on the next rung of the ladder.”

In the class gift program’s early years, gifts were designated to specific projects, such as the video events monitor in Gutman Library or the student lounge area in Conroy Commons. However, in recent years, class gifts have been designated for unrestricted financial aid for incoming students, one of Dean Kathleen McCartney’s top priorities.

The program has also come to stress not just how much is raised, but also participation, encouraging all graduates to contribute whatever amount they are able. In 2011, three master’s cohorts — Higher Education, Learning and Teaching, and Special Studies — achieved 100 percent participation.

The 2012 class gift team wants to take this generosity one step further this year by setting a goal of 100 percent participation by all graduating students. The 2012 class gift chair Alison Faux, Ed.M.’12, says that to encourage contributions, the committee is stressing both “paying it forward” and “paying it backward.”

“The class gift does two great things,” Faux says. “It helps us support next year’s class, just as we were supported by the EL S VA CO NC EL LO S

the latter is by asking students to “applaud an educator” by mak-

NI

get to this point in our careers.” One way the program enables

DA

class of 2011. It also helps us reflect on those who helped us

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49

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Where’s Ed.?

JILL ANDERSON

In February, Ed. caught supermodel Tyra Banks smizing at the last issue of the magazine. Banks was in Longfellow Hall meeting with Dean Kathleen McCartney before she headed back to her dorm — yes, dorm — on the Harvard Business School campus, where she was finishing the Executive Education Owner/President Management Program. Rumor has it that back in the dorm, Banks immediately changed into her new Ed School sweatshirt. Smize.

To read Ed. online, go to www.gse.harvard.edu/ed.