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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

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.

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Passionate Teacher, Passionate Learner

Thu, Feb 7, 2002

Robert Fried suggests that every teacher could be a passionate teacher, one who engages young people in the excitement of learning and ideas, if teaching were not being undermined by the ways we "do business" in schools. *The Passionate Teacher and Passionate Learner* draws on the voices, stories, and success of teachers in urban, suburban, and rural classrooms to provide a guide to becoming - and remaining - a passionate teacher, despite day-to-day obstacles. Following the success of *The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide*, Robert Fried's new book is an inspirational and practical guide to reclaiming students' passionate engagement in learning. All preschool children are passionate, curious learners. Somewhere along the way many, many kids become alienated from the passion for learning. Deborah Meier, principal of Mission Hill pilot school in Boston, author, and education reformer, provides commentary.

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Lessons from the Child Witness to Violence Project

Thu, Mar 14, 2002

Betsy McAlister Groves, founder of the nationally recognized Child Witness to Violence Project at Boston Medical Center, dramatically disproves the myth that very young children are not affected by violence. Drawing on her experiences with the project, Groves contends that many children in the US witness violence at home, in school and on television, and that adults can, and should, help these children cope with their reactions.

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Lessons from Japanese and Chinese Education

Wed, Mar 13, 2002

James Stigler, co-author of *The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World's Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom* and *The Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing and What We Can Learn from Japanese and Chinese Education*, speaks about his understanding of teaching and learning based on his research of math education in the United States, China, and Japan.

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Educating for Human Rights and Global Competency

Tue, Feb 10, 2009

Felisa Tibbitts, of Human Rights Education Associates, and Ed Gragert, of the International Educational Resource Network (iEARN), examine the relationship of Human Rights Education and Global Competency. Sixty years ago, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As the world has become more integrated, human rights have become increasingly helpful as a moral compass to guide global competency. The discussants address a variety of approaches to human rights education, what is known and not known about their effects, and the implementation challenges to universalizing Human Rights Education. Fernando Reimers, Ford Foundation Professor of International Education and Director International Education Policy Program provides the introduction and moderation for this forum.

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Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years after 50

Thu, Mar 5, 2009

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot discusses her new book, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years after 50. In this book she offers a strong counterpoint to the murky ambivalence that shrouds our clear view of people in their third chapters, the years between 50 and 75. In her writing, Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot, Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, challenges the still prevailing and anachronistic images of aging by documenting and revealing the ways in which the years between 50 and 75 may, in fact, be the most transformative and generative time in our lives; tracing the ways in which wisdom, experience, and new learning inspire individual growth and cultural transformation.

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In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning

Mon, Oct 28, 2002

Deborah Meier discusses her new book, *In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing and Standardization*, which explores how we can restore faith in our schools in an age of standardized testing and curricula. In a multi-layered exploration of ways to engender trust between parents and teachers, between teachers and students, and among diverse ethnic groups, she traces the success stories of small public schools that she and her colleagues have created in Boston and New York. How do we create a dynamic where teachers and students are trusted to use their own judgment in education? Are standardized tests ever appropriate? She probes these, and other, provocative questions in this lively discussion.

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Steven Pinker: Modern Denial of Human Nature

Thu, Nov 14, 2002

Steven Pinker, the Peter de Florez Professor of Psychology at MIT and author of How the Mind Works and The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, discusses his latest book, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Steven Pinker explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. He shows how many intellectuals have denied the existence of human nature by embracing three linked dogmas: the blank slate (the mind has no innate traits), the noble savage (people are born good and corrupted by society), and the ghost in the machine (each of us has a soul that makes choices free from biology). Pinker tries to inject calm and rationality into these debates by showing that equality, progress, responsibility, and purpose have nothing to fear from discoveries about rich human nature. He claims that the blank slate concept denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces hardheaded analyzes of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of government, violence, parenting, and the arts.

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Blue Guitars: Arts and Aesthetics in Learning

Tue, May 4, 1999

Maxine Greene, professor emerita of philosophy and education and director of the Center for Social Imagination at Columbia University, shares her vision of the power of the arts in education to transform student indifference into a state of wide-awakeness. This lecture is part of the Arts in Education Program's John Landrum Bryant Lecture Performance Series.

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Learning with Excitement: Afterschool Programs

Fri, Oct 3, 2003

This Learning with Excitement Conference presents policy and research perspectives that offer integrative approaches to system-building in youth development and afterschool education. Afterschool education plays an important supporting role in children's scholastic and social success. Among stakeholders, there is not yet consensus concerning the specific objectives and outcomes of afterschool programs. Enhancing young people's overall success through afterschool programing requires a balanced and comprehensive strategy, one that targets a range of developmental competencies and bridges a child's diverse worlds.

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