Inquiry Going Virtual! Focus on Interviews
“EDUCATION IS NOT FILLING A PAIL; IT’S LIGHTING A FIRE.” The origin of this quote is in question, but there’s no doubt about the meanings. This was the foundation...
Impact of Remote Learning on the Washington Heights Community
In March 2020, teaching environments quickly moved to remote learning in an effort to stem the growing COVID-19 pandemic. As District 6 in Washington Heights grappled with how to...
The Challenge of Identity in the Trump Era
Like it or not, trauma is simply an accepted part of everyday reality for Central American immigrant students. The traumas they face are myriad, from violence in their home...
Prioritizing Mindsets: What New York State’s Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework Gets Right
Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash Schools adhere to ideas of what is the “correct” way to be, act, learn, and communicate. They institutionalize these ideas through school policies, teaching choices, and...
Ethical College and Career Decisions
John Dewey, arguably America’s greatest 20th century philosopher and educator, stressed the importance of teaching habits of rigorous ethical inquiry in the classroom and in the larger society. He...
The school that Bushwick built: the story of EBC High School for Public Service
Introduction I’m Shirley Edwards, and I was Principal of the EBC High School for Public Service, Bushwick for ten of its formative years. Bushwick is an “inner city” community...
Theater, Education, and Community
Strongly influenced by Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Brazilian activist and director Augusto Boal created Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) in the 1970s. TO comprises a series of techniques combining performance and participation,...
Feelings Charts Instead of Behavior Charts: Radical Love Instead of Shame
As practitioners and teachers of Emotionally Responsive Practice (ERP) at Bank Street College, we have the privilege and adventure of stepping into a wide range of settings in which...
Ethical Environments: Robotics
Throughout my two decades teaching, ethics has been central to what I view as my dual role of educator and mentor. Ethics, from the Greek “ethos,” meaning “character,” comprise...
NY Opens the Door to SEL
In August, the New York State Education Department published Social Emotional Learning: Essential for Learning, Essential for Life, a detailed document calling for all NYS schools to incorporate social...
Critical Care, Cultural Humility and the Reflective Practitioner
As a social work educator trained as an education researcher, my understanding of the work of practitioners in schools and other community settings is informed by a number of...
Holistic College and Career Advisement
I have worked in college and career counseling at The Brotherhood/Sister Sol in Harlem since 2001; during the past five years I have formalized the program and spent most...
All Students Deserve an Education in the Arts
How do we, as educators and active participants in society, ensure that all children, not just those parents have money for elite schools, receive music and art education? How...
The Devastating Impacts of Homelessness on Learning
In 2015-2016, one in every 10 children was homeless, up six percent from the year before. That’s more than 111,500 New York City schoolchildren and, as The New York Times...
Ethical Dining at School
Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself. – John Dewey John Dewey (1859-1952) was arguably the most consequential educational thinker of the twentieth century. According to...
Toward an Ethical Disciplinary Process for Teachers
I have told this story of my “disappearance” too many times and yet not often enough in forums that might lead to change. The NYC Department of Education (DOE)...
It’s Not Personal: Moving from Individual Racial Incidents to Organizational Racial Conflict
Racism in higher education is often conceptualized as a student or individualized problem. If institutions of higher education are serious about making progress in this arena, however, they need...
The Art of Social Justice: Behold the beautiful struggle!
The Museum as Ethics Classroom On February 9, 2017, a few weeks after Trump’s presidential inauguration and the Women’s March on Washington, the Brooklyn Museum held a historic gathering,...
Keynote Address: Teaching Ethics in Inequitable Times
Good evening everyone. Hello, hello. You heard from the Peace Poets before, I normally have a policy of never following the Peace Poets, they go after me. We spoke...
John Dewey: Educative Experiences
Upon entering the early education program at Bank Street Graduate School of Education in 2015, I believed there existed a (cultural) tension between progressive pedagogy and its reflection of...
The Overwhelming Whiteness of Transitional Chapter Series Books
A first grader reaches for a book on the shelf in her classroom at a mid-sized city school in New York’s Hudson Valley. She finds herself in that sweet...
Student Voice: The Value of “What do you think?”
The greatest question any authoritative figure can ask a child or a student. Inclusivity in all aspects of decision making is vital, but it is most important in our...
Invisible Parent Involvement Within the NYC High School Admissions Process
I walked into an Upper East Side public middle school and my first stop was the teachers’ lounge where Jane, the Parent Coordinator, waved. She was unable to give...
Guidelines for submissions
Note from the editors to our readers and colleagues: We accept articles for our newsletter on any topic related to secular (preferably Deweyan) educational ethics. As you might expect,...
Join Our Newsletter
Subscribe to receive our latest articles, news and episodes
Practical Strategies To Serve Immigrant Students
In last week’s episode of the Ethical Schools podcast, I highlighted some of the substantial challenges facing the American public education system, namely the glaring disconnect between who the...