Stories by Lory Hough

You’re a teacher, and you want your classroom to feel safe. You want your school to be a place where kids are happy and ready to learn. But what happens when you don’t know how to do that? When one of your young students is transgender and your training on how to support them is spotty at best? Like Jacob’s teachers, you figure it out. Jacob was about to start kindergarten. A new school with new kids. But some of the kids were from his neighborhood and they might remember that Jacob had once been Mia, the second child of Mimi and Joe Lemay. Although the family was open in the community about...

There are a lot of areas where educators can help transgender students and be supportive of the full spectrum of gender identity. For starters, they can evaluate (and then get rid of) all the ways that schools “gender” students. For example, in elementary school, instead of boy/girl lines, have kids line up by birthday or alphabetically. In high school, have all graduating students wear the same color gown. What are other areas educators need to consider? Terminology: Schools can start by making sure all school personnel, from teachers to coaches to lunch staff, are up-to-date on key...

It was the most amazing Amazing Race ever for Scott Flanary, Ed.M.'10. In June, this self-described superfan of the CBS reality adventure show was announced the winner of the 29th season, along with his teammate, Brooke Camhi. Ed. caught up with Flanary, a campus recruiter, to talk strategy, TV fame, and spending the prize money. You took leave from work? I once told my boss that I was a huge reality show fanatic and if I were ever cast on a show, I’d need a leave of absence. She agreed. When the time came, I let her know I was cashing in on my “need to leave.” (I was speaking in code...

When California native Stephany Cuevas, Ed.M.'15, a current doctoral student, moved to the East Coast in 2012, she was more than familiar with the term “undocuAlly,” which basically states that someone has made a commitment to be a visible ally to undocumented students and their families. Having lived in California in a predominantly Latino community, and having been a student at University of California, Berkeley, where the topic of immigration predominates, she had heard the term often. Cuevas was surprised, then, when she moved to the East Coast in 2012 to start the Ed.D. Program, how...

You've heard of moot court? The activity at law schools where students simulate court proceedings as a way to turn the theoretical into the practical? Des Floyd, Ed.L.D., thought, Why not create something similar for secondary school students but, instead of teaching law skills, present them with common experiences that teach compassion? Last spring, the classroom activity, called Care Court, earned Floyd a finalist slot in the Dean’s Challenge, a contest where Ed School students worked alongside Making Caring Common to develop simple education ideas that promote empathy. Floyd says he used a...

This fall, Lecturer Vicki Jacobs, C.A.S.'80, Ed.D.'86, took over as faculty director of the Teacher Education Program (TEP) following Kay Merseth’s retirement from the position. We wondered how Jacobs, who had been serving as faculty director of the Specialized Studies Program since 2015, found her way to teaching and to the field of education. Jacobs sat down with Ed. to talk about her path, which included almost missing her first teaching interview, and dreams of becoming a folk singer. Hometown? I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but we spent a good number of years in Columbus while I was...

The more Joseph McIntyre, Ed.M.'10, Ed.D.'17, read to his baby daughter, the more he realized that most of the books were about boys — to the point that he began to switch the genders of main characters. “It made me wonder how things looked in children’s literature as a whole,” he says. While a student in the doctoral program, McIntyre began analyzing existing research. Previous studies found ratios of male-to-female central characters in picture books of 1.5:1 to 2:1. However, he realized these studies had treated all books in their samples equally. As he continued his doctoral research,...

When we think of school, chalk is one of the first images that come to mind, even though blackboards aren’t used as much these days. And it’s no wonder: The white, powdery sticks, made from gypsum or calcium sulfate, have been used in classrooms across the country since the 1800s, when class sizes grew and teachers found it easier to teach using big slate blackboards at the front of the room rather than having students writing on individual tablets at their desks. By the 1930s, enameled steel greenboards started to replace blackboards, offering less glare and more stability than fragile slate...

When Project Zero started at the Ed School in 1967, it had limited funds and only a few staff members, most part time or volunteer. At the time, founder Nelson Goodman used the word “zero” in the research center’s title because that’s how much firm knowledge about arts education he thought existed. Goodman wanted to change that with the new center. As he once wrote, “We viewed the arts not as mere entertainment, but like the sciences, as ways of under-standing and even of constructing our environments, and thus looked upon arts education as a requisite and integrated component of the entire...

Earlier this year, Anne-Marie McCartan, the former executive director of the national Council of Colleges and Arts & Sciences and a 40-year veteran of various higher education positions, published Unexpected Influence, a series of profiles of women who helped shape the early community college movement. After the book came out, she spoke to Ed. about why she tackled this topic, what she discovered doing her research, and what surprised her the most. INITIALLY, WERE YOU SURPRISED THAT THE NAMES TYPICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH COMMUNITY COLLEGES WERE ALL MALE? Actually, I started the research...