Forum Network

Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

Funding provided by:

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

Meet the Poet: Nikki Giovanni

Tue, Feb 4, 2003

Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor of English and Gloria D. Smith Professor of Black Studies at Virginia Tech, reads and discusses excerpts from her latest of 27 books, *Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems.*

Forum Network

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education
Chinese in America: A Narrative History

Thu, May 1, 2003

Iris Chang, author of *Thread of the Silkworm* and *The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II*, an account of Japanese war crimes in Nanking, China, speaks about her latest book, *The Chinese in America: A Narrative History*.

Forum Network

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education
A Nation Reformed or a Nation at Risk?

Wed, Feb 19, 2003

This discussion, led by some of the contributors to the recently published book, *A Nation Reformed?*, in response to the 20th anniversary of the release of *A Nation at Risk*, focuses on the educational gains and losses of the last 20 years. The panel is moderated by the book's editor, David Gordon, and includes Timothy Knowles, deputy superintendent for the Boston Public Schools; Kim Marshall, former principal of Boston's Mather Elementary School, now with New Leaders for New Schools; Jeff Howard, founder and chair of the Efficacy Institute; and Gerald Holton, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Professor of the History of Science Emeritus, Harvard University, and a member of the National Commission on Excellence in Education which produced *A Nation at Risk*.

Forum Network

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education
Another World: Alternative Ways to Globalization

Fri, Feb 28, 2003

Panelists explore alternative and constructive pathways to globalization in "Another World Is Possible", the culminating forum of the Student Research Conference. Speakers include Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics at MIT, Mel King, former Massachusetts State Representative, Carolina Contraras, Somerville High School Atrevete organizer, Dayanna Fernandez, Somerville High School Atrevete organizer, Leonida Zurita Vargas, Quechua Community organizer from Rural Bolivia, and moderator Melissa Chabran, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Forum Network

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education
Language Police: Restricting What We learn

Tue, May 6, 2003

Diane Ravitch discusses her latest book The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. Ravitch maintains that America's students are compelled to read texts that have been censored by publishers who willingly cut controversial material from their books. Her book documents the existence of an elaborate and well established protocol of beneficent censorship, quietly endorsed and implemented by test makers and textbook publishers, states, and the federal government. School boards and sensitivity committees review, abridge, and modify texts to delete potentially offensive words, topics, and imagery. Publishers practice self-censorship to sell books in big states.

Forum Network

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education
W.B. Yeats: The Arch-Poet

Wed, Dec 10, 2003

Roy Foster speaks about the final volume in his acclaimed biography W.B. Yeats, A Life, Volume II: The Arch-Poet 1915-1939. **Roy Foster**is the Carroll professor of Irish history at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Hartford College. He is author of numerous books including Charles Stewart Parnell and Lord Randolph Churchill: A Political Life.

Forum Network

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education
Louis Menand: Pragmatism's Three Moments

Thu, Feb 12, 2004

Louis Menand lectures on pragmatism, a distinctly American philosophy based on experience and experiment rather than fixed principles. Louis Menand, professor of English and American literature and language in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University and a member of the Harvard Graduate School of Education faculty, is the author of *The Metaphysical Club* (2001), an exploration of American pragmatism that examines the transformation of American intellectual thought from 1865 to 1919 and explores the development of the pragmatism philosophy.

Forum Network

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education
Liberal and Conservative Theories on Urban School Change

Mon, Mar 15, 2004

Charles Payne of Duke University, and author of *I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Movement* discusses "A Curse on Both Their Houses: Liberal and Conservative Theories of Urban School Change."

Forum Network

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education
18,190 Days: Brown v. Board of Education

Fri, Mar 5, 2004

On the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, this panel discussion considers the topic "18,190 Days of (de)Segregation: How Far Have We Come?" with Angelo Ancheta, Mitchell Chang, Vanessa Siddle Walker, and Charles Willie.

Civil Rights Movement Series

Partner:

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

Partner:

Harvard Graduate School of Education