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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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Harvard Graduate School of Education

The Askwith Education Forum, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is endowed through the generosity of Patricia Askwith Kenner and other members of the Askwith family, and acts as a galvanizing force for debate and conversation about education in its narrowest and broadest perspectives. Each year, the Forum welcomes a number of prominent people from diverse fields to speak about issues relevant to education and children. Recent topics have included immigration, values, affirmative action, education reform, and the arts. All of these events are free and open to the public.break

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/askwith

Boston Youth Question the Value of the U.S. Educational System

Tue, Apr 18, 2017

A group of community organizers and students met in a classroom in Harvard's Graduate School of Education to speak with aspiring educators. The question they raised: _Are We Being Educated or Incarcerated?_ "There's too much emphasis on behavioral class management and curriculum development. As a result of such, there's very little engagement and relationship development between teachers and students. Consequently, our urban youth of color are not being effectively educated; they are being mentally colonized, marginalized, and incarcerated." — Emdin (2016) and Quiceno (2017) This discussion gave some youth an opportunity to share with Harvard students and education professionals their personal narratives about the disciplinary issues they have encountered within the public and charter school system. They also offered some recommendations to dismantle the "school-to-prison pipeline".

Boston Talks About Racism

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education
Artists As Activists: Muslim Women Artists

Tue, Feb 11, 2003

Munir Jiwa discusses his current research, entitled: *Toward an Anthropology of Islam: Visual Arts and the Construction of Muslim Identities in the USA*. This lecture is part of the Arts in Education Program's John Landrum Bryant Lecture Performance Series. **Munir Jiwa** teaches at the New School University in the areas of anthropology and religion with a focus on the arts, museums, media, and material culture. He consults globally on the subject of Islamic affairs and communications.

Forum Network

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Harvard Graduate School of Education
Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson

Thu, Nov 20, 2003

In "Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson", author Gore Vidal takes readers to a time when America's founding fathers fought and worked to create a new country. Among Vidal's revelations: Benjamin Franklin believed the Constitution was flawed and predicted it eventually would fail; that the Revolution was kept alive only by the force of Washington's personality and "the cleverness of our diplomats" (including Franklin, Jefferson and Adams) in convincing France to come to America's aid.

Forum Network

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Harvard Graduate School of Education
College Sports and Educational Values

Mon, Dec 1, 2003

William Bowen and Sarah Levin disentangle the admissions and academic experiences of recruited athletes, walk-on athletes, and other students, as described in their book, *Reclaiming the Game*. Over the last four decades, the athletic-academic divide on elite campuses has widened substantially. They examine the forces that have been driving this process and presents concrete proposals for reform. Thanks to an expansion of the College and Beyond database that resulted in the highly influential studies *The Shape of the River* and *The Game of Life*, the authors are able to analyze in great detail the backgrounds, academic qualifications, and college outcomes of athletes and their classmates at 33 academically selective colleges and universities that do not offer athletic scholarships. They show that recruited athletes at these schools are as much as four times more likely to gain admission than are other applicants with similar academic credentials. The data also demonstrate that the typical recruit is substantially more likely to end up in the bottom third of the college class than is either the typical walk-on or the student who does not play college sports. Even more troubling is the dramatic evidence that recruited athletes "under-perform." In other words, they do even less well academically than predicted by their test scores and high school grades.

Forum Network

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Harvard Graduate School of Education
No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning

Wed, Apr 7, 2004

Abigail Thernstrom, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom, discuss their new book about the racial gap in academics.

Forum Network

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education
Emerging Field of the Arts in Education

Thu, May 4, 2006

Steve Seidel moderates as a panel reflects on the history and future of the field of arts in education.

Forum Network

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Harvard Graduate School of Education
Community and Youth Organization and Reform

Thu, Mar 9, 2006

The Harvard Graduate School of Education hosts a forum focused on community and youth organizing as a strategy to build civic participation and power in low income communities and as a powerful force for change in urban schools.

Forum Network

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Harvard Graduate School of Education
Abbott Districts: Better Funding, Better Achievement

Thu, Mar 16, 2006

The Harvard Graduate School of Education hosts a forum focusing on New Jersey's Abbott Districts, where state aid, resulting from thirty years of legal challenges, makes average per pupil spending higher now than it is in the state's suburbs. This increase in spending highlights the link between better funding and academic achievement. Can whole school systems be transformed to close achievement gaps? Does money matter? Thirty little-known Abbott Districts in New Jersey are the nation's leading response. The Abbott and Union City stories are not well known, but have national implications. This forum features Gordon MacInnes, Assistant Commissioner for Abbott Implementation, and Fred Carrigg, Special Assistant to the Commissioner for Urban Literacy, who helped move Union City from the second lowest-performing system in New Jersey to the highest among the state's larger systems. Ronald Ferguson, Lecturer in Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, moderates.

Forum Network

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Harvard Graduate School of Education
Connecting the Scholar and the Classroom

Thu, Mar 23, 2006

A panel of experts debate educational theories and other intriguing topics in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Harvard Educational Review. Topics discussed: How is educational research evolving? How are researchers addressing changing demands of the field, developing technology and globalization, as well as increased aims to link educational theory, practice, and policy? Speakers include Kevin Kumashiro, Director, Center for Anti-Oppressive Education; Richard Murnane, Academic Dean and Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Sonia Nieto, Professor of Language, Literacy & Culture, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The discussion is moderated by Kathleen McCartney, Acting Dean and Gerald S. Lesser Professor of Early Childhood Development.

Forum Network

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Harvard Graduate School of Education
Communities of Color Moving Forward

Fri, Mar 3, 2006

Panelists discuss how they understand and define catastrophe in the context of communities of color. They ask whether catastrophe is a one-time, horrific event that changes a community's daily life or a long-range series of events that consistently undermine a community ability to pursue goals. Is a catastrophic event generated by natural occurrences or human action? Attention is specifically focused on events affecting individuals and communities of color and a community's ability to drive the education of its members.

Forum Network

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education