I am deeply honored to have, on July 16, 2018, delivered the 5th Annual Edmund W. Gordon Distinguished Lecture as part of the Reimagining Education Annual Summer Institute at Teachers College Columbia University in New York City. My talk was titled, “Liberating Ways of Knowing: The Struggle for Ethnic Studies and the Educators We Need.” Below is a short story they did on my talk, as well.
This year's Reimagining Education Summer Institute—which I highly recommend for practitioners —will feature Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings. I am so pleased to have had a message that resonates and incredibly honored to be in such amazing company, as well.
Heartfelt thanks to Phillip A. Smith, Associate Director for the Reimagining Education Summer Institute and Dr. Amy Stuart Wells who is not only a member of the faculty at Teachers College, but also the 2019 President of the American Educational Research Association.
The talk reflects a lot of my current work and thinking with respect to Ethnic Studies and how, if done well, it encourages other, more liberatory ways of knowing and being in education.
For those you who know Dr. Ted Gordon, Associate Professor in the University of Texas at Austin Department of African and African Diaspora Studies and Vice Provost for Diversity, Edmund W. Gordon is his father that you can learn about here.
Again, thanks to Amy and Phillip for your outstanding leadership together with this wonderful opportunity to share the great work that we're doing in Austin, Texas, as well as to the renowned Dr. Edmund W. Gordon whose pathbreaking scholarship I have read and admired over the years.
Enjoy!
Angela Valenzuela
Civics
This year’s summer
institute on understanding race and education seeks to unite strands of a
broader movement
As in past years, the Institute’s main thrust
is understanding race and education, says its director, Amy Stuart Wells,
Professor of Sociology & Education. Created by TC faculty and students
across six of the College’s 10 departments, Reimagining Education is first and
foremost a professional development forum that provides the nation’s
predominantly white teaching force with hands-on strategies (and continuing
education credits) for making subject matter relevant for America’s students,
the majority of whom are of color. The approaches range from using hip hop to
teach science to training entire schools on how to create college-going
cultures for all students.
“TC is becoming the
go-to place, nationally and internationally, for this kind of work. No other
school of education could pull this off, because no other school of education
has the breadth and depth of knowledge to do this work. And while other
institutions discuss these issues, only we give teachers the opportunity and
the credits to use this for professional development.”
– Amy Stuart Wells
– Amy Stuart Wells
“TC is becoming the go-to place, nationally
and internationally, for this kind of work,” says Wells, who currently serves
as President of the American Educational Research Association. “No other school
of education could pull this off, because no other school of education has the
breadth and depth of knowledge to do this work. And while other institutions
discuss these issues, only we give teachers the opportunity and the credits to
use this for professional development.”
[ Read a story on last year’s Reimagining
Education institute, and the broader Reimagining Education initiative at
Teachers College ]
But this year’s Institute also breaks new
ground in seeking to unite two strands of the broader movement to diversify and
personalize education that thus far have been separated by geography and
differing ethnic contexts. The keynote address (which is also TC’s annual
Edmund W. Gordon Lecture) will be delivered by Angela Valenzuela, Professor of
Educational Leadership & Policy at the University of Texas-Austin, who is a
leader of the Latina/o-based Ethnic Studies movement that has arisen in the
American Southwest. [Note: The Gordon Lecture, which is
sponsored by TC’s Institute for Urban & Minority Education, is free and
open to the public. It will take place on Monday, July 16th, from
2:15 - 3:45 p.m., in TC’s Joyce B. Cowin Auditorium. Click here for more details.]
COMING TOGETHER This year's Institute unites champions of strategies such
as culturally relevant pedagogy with leaders of the more Southwest-based Ethnic
Studies movement like Angela Valenzuela, who will deliver TC's Edmund W. Gordon
Lecture.
“Ethnic studies has presented itself as a
content area, while culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally sustaining
leadership, which is what we tend to talk about more in the Northeast, is
presented as more of a strategy,” Wells says. “As a result, to some extent,
they’ve been more successful in the Southwest than we have here in changing
education at the policy level.”
Wells also believes that this year’s Institute
takes on heightened relevance in the wake of highly publicized battles over
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to change the policy for admitting students to
the city’s eight “selective schools.”
“People are fighting over seats in these
schools because of the way the system is set up, but we really need a different
starting point for the discussion, because right now even the winners aren’t
happy,” she says. “If we can change the way we think about teaching and
learning to reflect a broader understanding of what constitutes ability, then
the admissions criteria we use for kids now would no longer make sense to us.
It would no longer be a zero-sum game.”
Tags: Civics, Curriculum, Diversity,
Inclusive Education, Race, Social Justice, Curriculum & Teaching, Education
Policy and Social Analysis
Published Friday, Jul
6, 2018
Contact Us
Teachers
College Newsroom
Address: Office of
Development and External Affairs
Box: 306 * Phone: (212)
678-3412 * Email: views@tc.columbia.edu
Contact Us
Teachers
College, Columbia University
525 West 120th Street
New York, NY 10027
525 West 120th Street
New York, NY 10027
Tel:
+1 (212) 678-3000
No comments:
Post a Comment