Dorothea Lasky
Ed.M. AIE '06
Dottie Lasky, author of AWE, a collection of curiously memorable poems published
by Wave Books in 2007, came to HGSE with a couple years of educational work
behind her. After graduating from Washington University in her hometown of
St. Louis, she completed an MFA in poetry from UMass—Amherst. Then, moving
to Boston in 2004, she taught English at the New England Institute of Art in
Brookline and painting and drawing at the Munroe Center for the Arts in Lexington.
Though she had lived her passions as a poet, visual artist, and teacher prior to her time as a graduate student, Dottie’s experience in HGSE’s Arts in Education program was eye-opening. “I learned that there are people who truly care how the arts occur in our educational system,” she says, “and I learned that there is a place for my own, deep concern for it.” During a year of adventurous study in the Arts in Education program at HGSE, Dottie took courses in children’s literature, museum education, media arts, and other subjects—and continued to work on her poems.
Now, Dottie is doing doctoral work in education at Penn, with an eye toward a life in academia that would allow her the privilege of teaching the arts and producing them as well. She is specifically interested in the intersection between creativity and innovation, and in helping to develop policies that will promote, support, and nurture both creativity and innovation in public schools.
Reading the poems in AWE—and then reading them a second and third time to try and figure out what’s so interesting about these quirky love lyrics, daffy confessions, fractured epiphanies, and mock manifestoes— you start to suspect that Dottie is one of those natural-born educators who are interested in the field because of their affinity for children; more specifically, for the possibility childhood affords of an unguarded, headlong plunge into the playful, rather than for a wish to turn children into responsible adults as soon as humanly possible.
Dottie’s book is available from Wave Books. For ordering information, send an email to info@wavebooks.com
Stories are accurate at the time they are published and will not be updated to account for changes such as new jobs.
