Blog Archive » Living

Yesterday, I met with the School of Education Faculty to discuss the current situation with school reform, teacher education, and ways in which Trinity might take a more prominent role in contributing to new models for educational success in our city.   The faculty is eager to move ahead with genuine transformation of our work in education and counseling — and great ideas abound!  Secretary Duncan's call to action is resonating at Trinity, and this will have a very productive long-term impact on our effectiveness in educating school leaders, teachers, counselors and others.

Dr. Amy Brereton wrote a comment on my previous blog about Secretary Duncan's speech at Columbia, and what she has to say is so important that I'm bringing it forward for consideration here, see below….. And, what do YOU think?   Please join this discussion by clicking on the "comments" link below, or send me your thoughts in an email to president@trinitydc.edu

Here's Dr. Brereton's comment:

Secretary Duncan's speech at Columbia Teacher's College has provided us (schools of education) with an opportunity to reflect on the work we do. Like President McGuire, I agree with several of the points Secretary Duncan made. The faculty in Trinity’s School of Education have embraced this opportunity to discuss our work and how we can continue to support and train the excellent teacher candidates enrolled in our programs. We have identified a need for collaboration.

A culture of blame has dominated discussions about education in the United States. Children are blamed. Parents are blamed. President McGuire’s blog describes the unproductive blame that has been heaped on teachers. Secretary Duncan’s address indicates that schools of education are to blame. This culture of blame cultivates division and operates from a deficit perspective.

It is imperative that we move beyond blame. Parents, teachers, schools of education, and children all have powerful expertise that can inform and transform educational practices. The most innovative and impressive educational approaches and models (i.e. Waldorf, Froeble, Reggio Emilia, Montessori) view children as strong learners, parents as essential partners, and teachers as capable professionals.

We face incredible challenges. We have some choices. We can continue to face these challenges in isolation, doing all we can to deflect the blame that is flung at us, or we can take collective ownership of our children’s education. We can continue looking to the ‘other’ as the source of ‘school failure’, or we can take heart in knowing that we have vast resources at our disposal in the form of parents, teachers, schools of education, and children…especially children.

Unfortunately, collaboration is not easy to achieve. It demands parity. Are we ready to listen and consider the opinions of parents and children with the same level of seriousness that we listen to and consider the views of policy makers? As the faculty’s response to President McGuire’s blog indicates, we recognize the need for civil discourse about improving education and we are keen to take our seat at the discussion table. The question is: What must we do to ensure that we are not sitting there alone?

Maybe it's just because Halloween is tomorrow, but the news has been full of scary things this week.  And I'm not even counting the Redskins.  As if you needed more reasons to hoard your Hershey's Kisses from the trick or treaters so that you can curl up on the couch and enjoy them yourself, here's just a short list of recent scary headlines: Full Article

"…history is largely about how people with power stomp all over those who don't have it…"

Mary Meehan, Class of 1963, blows past the screechy stereotypes too often associated with Pro-Life advocates in the contemporary political climate.   An ardent anti-war activist — a real "lefty" back in the day! — who campaigned for Senator Eugene McCarthy when he ran for president, Mary professes the fully integrated view of what it means to be truly Pro-Life, which means that she not only opposes abortion but also the death penalty, war and all forms of violence against human life.   She eschews partisan labels in favor of working across the chasms that too-often separate people who, fundamentally, share the same values and views on moral issues.   As I listened to Mary speak when she visited Trinity on October 1, I found myself wishing that more women like her could win the headlines and talk-show appearances that are too often dominated by demagogues who harm the cause of life. Full Article

(Photo from Indiana University)

Lost in the hubub over President Obama's achievement of the Nobel Peace Prize was another extraordinary — and, for some, controversial — Nobel Prize winner.   Dr. Elinor Ostrom of Arizona State University and Indiana University became the first woman ever to win a Nobel Prize in Economics.   She was one of five women to win Nobel Prizes this year, the most ever.   The other four included Herta Mueller for literature, Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Grider for medicine, and Ada Yonath for chemistry.  Reflecting on Dr. Ostrom's Nobel,   Washington Post Columnist Ruth Marcus writes about her frustration that we still keep having "first woman" moments when society should be well beyond gender barriers by now.   But in fact, the glass ceiling remains intact in many arenas of human endeavor, and so each woman's achievement hammers another shard loose from that vast barrier to full equality. Full Article

In  a week in which David Letterman was defended as some kind of charming rogue for committing serial sexual harassment of his female co-workers, while the President of the United States was denounced in many circles for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, I just had to get out of town.   So, after lunching on Friday with "the most powerful women of Washington" (a great group, I'm honored to know them!) I tied my kayak to the top of the car and raced to one of my favorite local mind-clearing spots:  the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the Eastern Shore. Full Article