OPINION
Silence
is Golden
Special to The Appian
A trip to a Massachusetts monastery evokes an unexpected dialogue of
the heart.
It's
Greek to Me: A Call for Responsive Curriculum
By Rhonda Henderson
Normally, hearing someone quote Cicero does not
do it for me.
Diversity:
An Invitation for Public Dialogue
By Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández,
Dorinda Carter and Heather Harding
The
challenge of diversifying the faculty of this or any
other educational institution is not--nor has it ever
been--a matter of competence.
What
I Learned at Harvard: The “Informal Curriculum”
By Jamie Schultz
When you decide to travel to a new
destination, you experience excitement, nervousness, trepidation and
change. New expectations and an explosion of diversity: diversity in
views, actions, ways of living, and ways of thinking. Throughout
this year, we have all learned a great deal—how to be a more
effective principal, what part of a child’s brain is “lighting
up” when they read phonemes, or how to successfully run a video
conference in Japan.
An
Above PAR Experience
Reflections on an Excellent
Course, Now Gone
By J. Jerome Hughes
Walking through the doorway of Gutman-440, I
thought back to early December when another student first told me
that there was
a new
course with Donna San Antonio on the HGSE website. At that time,
I had heard great things about Donna from various students of color--
past and present. Seeing the description of her course “Participatory
Action Research” on the course website, I was convinced it
would be an engaging course.
Administration Needs Better Response to Diversity Drought
By Minnie Quach
HGSE'S low representation of faculty of color results in huge gaps
in other areas of the school community. The lack of diverse faculty
is linked to the inadequate course offerings from different perspectives,
the lack of potential mentors and advisors for students
of color or students from other underrepresented backgrounds or interests;
and increased feelings of frustration, isolation, and invalidation
among many students who are disappointed with the institution’s
lack of concern with issues of diversity.
Student-Led Initiative Brings The World to Local Schools
By Rebekka Olsen
Professor Fernando Reimers, director of the International Education
Policy (IEP) program at HGSE, encourages us to question the nature
of what children learn about international issues and global citizenship
in their classrooms. “What do children in the Americas learn
about each other? About the interdependent nature of the challenges
they face? About the opportunities for collaboration across national
boundaries?”
The Ice Queen Melteth
By Rhonda Henderson
Damien doesn’t like light-skinned people. Light-skinned black
people, that is. He said so one afternoon as I sat next to him in
his French class, where I was substituting for his usual teacher.
Marriage
of the Heart
By Katie
Brown
They say
experience is the best teacher, and my experience taught me that I
could lose my job in education by not hiding who I love. A lifetime
of church teaching taught me that love is of great value, but only
if that love is between people in certain categories.
Let
Several Flowers Bloom
The Second in a Series on
Education and Election 2004
By David
Meadow
One of the issues that have made it into household
discourse since No Child Left Behind is the achievement gap, and
to what extent that
gap is a product of systemic inequalities. More and more people are
realizing the civil rights implications of this gap’s stubborn
persistence. How, I wondered, does that affect what actually makes
its way into campaign platforms?
Offer
the Option of Private Feedback
An Opinion on Course Evaluations
By Nancy
Laurie
For some of us who are educators ourselves or were educators before
coming to HGSE, our training has taught us that the vehicles for offering
feedback -- particularly constructive criticism -- need to be carefully
chosen with sensitivity to the person receiving the feedback, so that
the points will be heard. We are mindful of the concept that professors,
too, as they are educators or teachers, are also learners (all teachers
are).
SIT:
A New Space for Critical Reflection
By Liz Sepúlveda
and Rhonda Henderson
May, 2003. A letter reaches us, prompting the
incoming class to read Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire.
Once in Cambridge, the situation was different. Deep discussion
about critical pedagogy was nowhere to be seen.
What was Freire talking
about? What did “banking
education” mean? What could we learn and apply in
classrooms?
WARY,
CHARY KERRY
By David
Meadow
He’s a wary, chary Kerry whose predicament
is hairy;
Should he shuffle leftward, scuffle rightward? How to gain the flair he
Needs to beat the smirking fratboy whose financial edge is scary?
It is clear he mustn’t tarry, must this dead-on centrist Kerry.
Adventures
in Cross-Registration
By Matt
Crenshaw
Perusing the HGSE brochure for the first time, I got the impression
I was watching a Ron Popeil infomercial. For all the possibilities
the Ed School provided, there was the familiar hook…but wait,
there’s more! Through the magic of cross-registration, HGSE
students could take classes at any school throughout Harvard or
at MIT. I was sold. If only tuition were three easy payments of
$19.99.
The
World Social Forum in Mumbai
An HGSE Student's Reflections
on the Experience of a Lifetime
By Sharmi Surianarain
From the very moment I stepped
into the venue—I
felt the rush of being among (100,000!) people
that were passionate about pressing issues of social
concern around the world. Groups organized around
every imaginable theme, from a Free Tibet delegation
and anti-war movements to disability rights activists
and commercial sex workers unions, vied for your
audio-visual attention.
Administration
Could Improve Registration
A Letter to the Editor
By Kiernan Mathews
Thank you for Becky Branting's article on this semester's surprisingly
harrowing registration process ("Students
See Stars," 2/23/04).
There are several irritating factors, however, that Ms. Branting
overlooked. All of them are within the control of the HGSE faculty
and administration.
Body
Image With Ginger Spice and Miss America
Thoughts on a Forum About Eating
Disorders
By David Meadow
Have you ever had a sister who was slowly destroying
herself? Did she manage to conceal this from you even as
you communicated with her on a regular basis? Dr. Rebecca
Knapp’s sister did just that.
Fast Food Diversity?
Reflections on the Multicultural Festival
By Jeff Garrett
On
Friday, November 14th, the first floor lounge of Cronkhite Graduate
Center was the site of this year’s HGSE Multicultural Festival.
The event drew a sizeable crowd eager to sample the array of free
food from around the world and take in the intriguing performances
from members of the HGSE community. Over the course of three weeks
prior to the event, I along with other members of the HGSE Black Student
Union (BSU) had been asked if we would like to perform at the festival.
In the past, we were told members of BSU had danced and done step
routines at the festival, and the organizers of the event for this
year were interested in having members of BSU do something similar
for this year’s performance.
Let the Teachers Pee
By Abbie
Groff
She started the day by walking in the back
door of the school two minutes after the first bell. She greeted
her students with a “shut
up” or a morning swat with the yardsticks-taped-together (as
it had a further reach, and at her age, she needed all the advantage
she could to land a blow on her spry little thirteen-year-olds). Walking
by her classroom made me cringe, as the students ran wild and she
dozed behind her desk in her special leather office chair she had
purchased with her classroom resources money (a small sum given annually
to every classroom teacher from the state education budget) several
years back. She was retiring at the end of the year. She was a bad teacher.
Witty
Sharpton Surprises Skeptics
By Joanna
Durham
When Reverend Sharpton came to the
Kennedy School this month for the live taping of "Hardball: Battle
for the Whitehouse" on MSNBC, I was one of the lucky
few who managed to procure a ticket. I, like many critics,
haven't taken Al Sharpton too seriously. His meager fundraising,
lack of political experience, and radical activism led me
to doubt his run for the presidency will surpass the primary
election.
Déjà vu
Paulo Freire 2003
By Lazarus H. Joseph
My path had crossed with the bearded educator before, twenty-three
years before in fact. Only then I did not know he was a bearded Brazilian,
only that he was a friend and a guide in a most oppressive and explosive
time.
From
Cambridge With Love
By Rhonda Henderson
When we last saw each other, it was June, and you finished
junior year. We were cleaning out our yellow classroom with the magenta
door-packing up our junk from my desk and bookshelves, and your junk
from your lockers. Both had become repositories of the year's garbage
and jewels.
Eye
Contact in Harvard Square
By Pedro Medina
A visitor to Cambridge suggests a simple way for Harvard students
to build social capital: look at one another.
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