We share brief presentations from the first of the “Saturday Salons” that Ethical Schools is sponsoring with three international partners. Juan Mora of the Center for Artistry and Scholarship and Ramji Raghavan of Agastya International Foundation talk about how educators and communities can cultivate awareness of and relationship to the natural world.
Learn more and register for the next salon at globalconversations.net
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Collaborate with teachers and learners worldwide!
Along with our partner organizations – Agastya International Foundation, Center for Artistry and Scholarship, and Thinking With You – Ethical Schools is bringing together educators, youth workers, and students from around the world to discuss ethical, democratic, and regenerative education strategies. Hear exciting presentations from visionary practitioners and participate in group discussions.
Come with your co-workers! Attend with a cohort from your school or out-of-school program to maximize the benefits for your organization and students.
Series 1: Ethics and the Natural World
Saturdays, January 10 and 31; February 21
8:30-10:00 AM EST
Pay what you wish.
Suggested donation: $25 per session, $50 for all three sessions
Additional participants from your organization: $15 per session, $30 for all three sessions.
LEARN MORE AND REGISTER AT GLOBALCONVERSATIONS.NET
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We speak with Deborah Meier and Jane Andrias, pioneers in the democratic small-school movement. Debbie founded the Central Park East Schools. Jane Andrias was an art teacher and principal at Central Park East I. Debbie and Jane discuss these ground-breaking schools, their ethical foundations, the “habits of mind” they worked to instill, and the challenges they faced.
*This is Part Two of a two part episode. Go back one episode to listen to the first part.
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We speak with Deborah Meier and Jane Andrias, pioneers in the democratic small-school movement. Debbie founded the Central Park East Schools. Jane Andrias was an art teacher and principal at Central Park East I. Debbie and Jane discuss these ground-breaking schools, their ethical foundations, the “habits of mind” they worked to instill, and the challenges they faced.
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We speak with Tom Roderick, founding executive director of the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility; Jan Zuckerman, Co-founder of Sunnyside Environmental School in Portland, Oregon; and Graham Klag, an alumnus of Sunnyside Environmental School. We discuss Tom’s book, Teach for Climate Justice: A Vision for Transforming Education. Tom explains that climate chaos and social justice are inextricably linked, and proposes a program for addressing both. He centers the concept of the beloved community.
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We speak with Arlene Goldbard, writer, visual artist, speaker, social activist and consultant, whose most recent book is “In the Camp of Angels of Freedom: What does it mean to be educated?” An autodidact from a working-class background, Arlene challenges “the certainty that academic qualifications are the best measure of ability.” She interweaves the stories and portraits of her “angels,” her personal story, and a critique of standard narratives of education. We talk with her in particular about two of her “angels,” Paulo Freire and Paul Goodman.
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Today, we speak with Dr. David Penberg and Adhirath Sethi about Agastya, a unique educational ecosystem serving students and teachers in 22 Indian states. Agastya has a hub-and-spokes design, with an elaborate 172-acre campus outside Bangalore and a fleet of mobile vans and bicycles delivering science and art programming to poor and rural children in far-flung towns and villages.
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We speak with Dr. Elizabeth Birr Moje, dean and professor at the Marsal Family School of Education, University of Michigan. Dr. Moje discusses Detroit’s School at Marygrove, a university-school partnership serving children and families from before birth through grade 12. We talk about design-based research, Marygrove’s innovative teacher-residency program, and what being a model means to Marygrove.
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We speak with Adam Grumbach, social studies program coordinator of the New York Performance Standards Consortium, and Naseem Haamid, a law student who attended Fannie Lou Hamer High School. We discuss inquiry based learning, Performance Based Assessment Tests, Habits of Mind, and self-directed, interdisciplinary portfolios, as alternatives to standardized-test driven curricula.
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What boundaries should a school set on student speech, if any, in order to foster social-emotional learning, civil discourse, and friendship among students? How might they hold themselves and their students accountable for upholding school values, even when they are not reflected on the national political landscape? We invite you to watch the 3rd episode…
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We speak with Dr. Peter Hughes, superintendent of New Jersey’s Cresskill School District, an affluent New York City suburb with large Korean and Israeli communities, about respecting disparate cultures while centering individual students’ interests, talents, and needs. We discuss effective means of communicating with bicultural parents and inclusive strategic planning. How can schools prepare students for joyful futures where they also serve others and are impactful on the world around them?
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We speak with Chris Lehmann, founding principal of Science Leadership Academy, inquiry-driven and project-based schools in Philadelphia. The academic model centers inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation, and reflection. Students take English, science, and history as a cohort, allowing for interdisciplinary understanding. Systems and structures ensure there is time for teachers to build relationships with students, and create the basis for the schools to survive beyond the founders.
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Today we’re here to invite you to watch our new video podcast series “What Would YOU do?”. Created in partnership with EdEthics of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, each episode includes a dramatization of an ethical dilemma that could be faced by educators along with a discussion of the case facilitated by Harvard professor Meira Levinson.
We have two episodes available on our website and they are a great resource for PD!
One examines the debate over a form of project-based civics education called Action Civics, in which students research a topic of their choosing and then take action to create change. A parent’s campaign to end the action civics project prompts a high school to examine the purpose of civic education, the rights of young people to influence their community, and the ways that polarized discourse influences schools.
The second episode explores the challenges of teaching about climate change in a community where a large portion of the residents work in the natural gas industry. A new science teacher is surprised when many of her students and their parents object to her lessons on climate change. How far should the beliefs and values of the local community in which a school is embedded inform curricular and other teaching decisions?
To watch, simply go to our website ethicalschools.org and click on VIDEOS. We hope you like it!
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We speak with Arlene Goldbard, writer, visual artist, speaker, social activist and consultant, whose most recent book is “In the Camp of Angels of Freedom: What does it mean to be educated?” An autodidact from a working-class background, Arlene challenges “the certainty that academic qualifications are the best measure of ability.” She interweaves the stories and portraits of her “angels,” her personal story, and a critique of standard narratives of education. We talk with her in particular about two of her “angels,” Paulo Freire and Paul Goodman.
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We speak with Dr. Deb L. Morrison, research scientist at the University of Washington School of Education, about centering climate science throughout the K-12 curriculum. Dr. Morrison talks about ClimeTime, a Washington State-funded program that teaches how to engage in climate science and climate justice education across disciplines, and describes nationally-available resources. She emphasizes the…
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Dr. Alan Singer, Dr. Pablo Muriel, and Gates Millennium Scholar Dennis Belen-Morales, three generations of teachers, describe how they center student activism in their project-based social studies and history classes while giving students the tools to pass the NYS Regents exams. Dr. Singer was Dr. Muriel’s professor in college, and Dr. Muriel was Mr. Belen-Morales’ high school teacher and college professor in turn. Now all three are at Hofstra University.
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We speak with middle school teachers, Debbie Holecko and Claudia Bestor, and their former student, Rafel Alshakergi, about a student-led research project that led to ethical civic engagement. Rafel explains how the experience emboldened her to ask questions and “speak [her] mind.” The project, which got national attention, cut against Ohio’s high-stakes test orientation; many teachers are afraid to do project-based learning because Ohio doesn’t have tenure and bases 40% of teacher evaluation on student test scores. The teachers discuss how to meet standards through project-based learning. This interview is just a joy to listen to! (Encore)
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We speak with independent journalist Audrey Watters, author of “Teaching machines: The history of personalized learning,” about the origins of teaching machines and the pedagogies that incorporate mechanical devices for teaching and learning. Ms. Watters explains how BF Skinner’s emphasis on behaviorism, in combination with commercial opportunism, has led in some cases to the supplanting of teachers by computer software.
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We speak with Dr. Deb L. Morrison, research scientist at the University of Washington School of Education, about centering climate science throughout the K-12 curriculum. Dr. Morrison talks about ClimeTime, a Washington State-funded program that teaches how to engage in climate science and climate justice education across disciplines, and describes nationally-available resources. She emphasizes the importance of integrating society, technology, and science education and says that climate science can be taught even in very conservative areas through place-based education, addressing what matters to kids in their communities.
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We speak with Anna Allanbrook, longtime principal of Brooklyn New School (BNS). Learning at BNS is inquiry-based and cross-disciplinary. As well, BNS is known as the “opt-out school” because 95% of families opt out of standardized testing. The school offers no test preparation.
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We continue our conversation with Dr. Garrett Broad of Fordham University, talking about high school and college students’ experiences working with non-profits and about what students know/should learn about food and food justice. Students often join non-profits with unrealistic expectations. There are tensions between keeping the organization afloat and pursuing radical change.There are no silver bullets; entrenched problems have complex solutions.
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We speak with middle school teachers, Debbie Holecko and Claudia Bestor, and their former student, Rafel Alshakergi, about a student-led research project that led to ethical civic engagement. Rafel explains how the experience emboldened her to ask questions and “speak [her] mind.” The project, which got national attention, cut against Ohio’s high-stakes test orientation; many teachers are afraid to do project-based learning because Ohio doesn’t have tenure and bases 40% of teacher evaluation on student test scores. The teachers discuss how to meet standards through project-based learning. This interview is just a joy to listen to!
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Dr. Alan Singer, Dr. Pablo Muriel, and Gates Millennium Scholar Dennis Belen-Morales, three generations of teachers, describe how they center student activism in their project-based social studies and history classes while giving students the tools to pass the NYS Regents exams. Dr. Singer was Dr. Muriel’s professor in college, and Dr. Muriel was Mr. Belen-Morales’ high school teacher and college professor in turn. Now all three are at Hofstra University. Part 2 of a two-part series that contains lots of specific strategies for teachers and passion for civics education.
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We speak with José Luis Jiménez, principal of A.C.E. Academy for Scholars, PS 290, in Queens. A queer educator of color, he came out to his students during Pride Month in 2017. If a community is truly welcoming to all, he thought, “you don’t “check a part of yourself at the door.” José encourages his…
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Ethical Schools is an an initiative of Ethics In Education Network ®, which offers customized professional development programs for administrators, teachers, and youth workers who wish to prioritize ethics. Please contact us to schedule a free (no pressure) consultation and site visit.
