HGSE in the Media

February 2008

Ed Week Chat: Mica Pollock on Race in Schools
Mica Pollock discusses how educators can address race-related issues in classrooms. (Education Week, 02/27/08, Free registration required)

At Some Point, Private Hillary and Public Hillary Will Have to Meet
"It is also imperative that Clinton describe what Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan calls 'the moments where meaning is made' and the events that shaped her commitments." (Seattle Times, 02/26/08)

Team Obama
Ed Week looks at the background of some of Senator Obama's education advisers including HGSE Professor Fernando Reimers. (Education Week, 02/25/08)

Teacher Absenteeism Affects Student Achievement
"Does teacher absenteeism have a direct impact on student achievement? You bet, say Harvard researchers Raegen Miller, [Professor] Richard Murnane, and [Professor] John Willett, who are examining the effect of teacher absences on fourth-grade test scores in a large, urban school district." (School Library Journal, 02/20/08)

Tenure, Part II: Revitalizing Burnt-Out Profs
"If routine breeds stagnation, will well-established universities be able to change? Professor Richard Light of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education thinks so. He has a grant from the Spencer Foundation to demonstrate that colleges can themselves become learning institutions. Not only do schools impart education to students, but they also have the potential to embed creative ideas within themselves. Light is working to develop best practices that schools can share to keep innovation in teaching moving forward." (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 02/20/08)

Shades of Brilliance
"A graduate student attending the Harvard Graduate School of Education, [Susan] Foster has been teaching the Step into Art program alongside Rischin for a year. 'I think one of the best parts of the program is the students are really excited to see the art in person,' Foster said. 'They already come equipped with the knowledge of that piece of art so I think they are more excited to see it because they know something about it.'" (The Daily News Tribune, 02/20/08)

When Modern Life Just Doesn't Add Up
"'It improves retention and outcome dramatically,' says [Senior Research Associate John] Comings. 'Just putting a map into their heads of where they are going appears to be very important for maintaining their motivation to learn and also their achievement.'" (The Guardian, 02/19/08)

Good Parenting Ups Kids' Mental Skills
"At a critical time in early childhood when the brain is developing, stress inhibits the formation of connections between brain cells and restricts blood flow to the brain. 'It literally disrupts brain architecture,' says [Professor] Jack Shonkoff, MD, a child development expert at Harvard University." (Web MD, 02/15/08)

Study Examines Whether Complex Financial Aid Forms are Barriers to Post-Secondary Education
"The College Enrollment Study is a joint venture that involves University of Toronto associate professor Philip Oreopoulos of economics, researchers from Case Western Reserve, and principal investigator [Professor] Bridget Long from Harvard." (University of Toronto, 02/11/08)

The End of Literacy? Don't Stop Reading
"'I don't worry for a nanosecond that reading and writing will disappear. Even in the new digital media, it's essential to be able to read and write fluently and, if you want to capture people's attention, to write well. Of course, what it means to 'write well' changes: Virginia Woolf didn't write the same way that Jane Austen did, and Arianna Huffington's blog won't be confused with Walter Lippmann's columns. But the imaginative spheres and real-world needs that all those written words address remain,' writes Professor Howard Gardner." (The Washington Post, 02/15/08)

A World of Potential
"David Zarowin, executive director of WIDE World, an online professional development program housed at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is working with officials in the Jing An school district in Shanghai - the one with the stringless harp - on online courses for teachers." (Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, 02/03/08)

Chilean Early Childhood Program Makes a Difference
"Late in January, a delegation from Chile visited Harvard to discuss 'Un Buen Comienzo' ('A Good Start'), an early childhood education program undertaken in 2006 by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Medical School, and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, with the Chilean Ministries of Education and Health and other local institutions that impart preschool education." (The Harvard Gazette, 02/01/08)

Where Have all the IT Girls Gone?
"Howard Gardner, professor of cognition and education at Harvard University, ascribes this difference only in part to gender. 'In early years, there's evidence that boys are somewhat more oriented toward physical objects, while girls are more oriented toward other persons and social interchange. But these are only averages, and the within-gender differences far outweigh the across-gender differences.'" (Management Today, 02/01/08)

Building a Knowledge Base for Educational Leadership
"'Something important is clearly afoot in the training of educational leaders. For more than a decade, academics and policymakers have been at work developing and implementing standards for the preparation of education leaders through the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium, under the aegis of the Council of Chief State School Officers. Now, these standards have worked their way into the certification systems in most states,' writes Professor Richard Elmore." (Education Week, 01/29/08, Free registration required)

My Turn: 2008 Partners -- You, I and the Media
"I've read two interesting books that relate to the issue of our access to a monumental amount of information. Dr. Howard Gardner (Harvard educator and psychologist) describes what I think we all need to do when deciding who to vote for. In his new book, Five Minds for the Future, he writes a synthesizing mind is critical for today and the future, saying, 'A synthesizing mind is able to knit together information from disparate sources into a coherent whole.' Being able to do this could result in our feeling confident we have chosen the right candidate." (Burlington Free Press, 01/29/08)

Web 2.0: Helping Reinvent Education
"Chris Dede, Timothy E. Wirth professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, opened his talk Thursday morning at FETC 2008 with an unexpected statement. 'What you're going to hear this morning,' he said, 'is a talk I've never given before.'" (The Journal , 01/08)