University Seminar: Getting Them to Care, Monday, 1/26, 7-9pm

What is social responsibility and how can we foster it in today’s youth? Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility in NYC has been helping educators find practical answers to that question for the past 25 years. Tom Roderick, Morningside Center’s long-time executive director, will describe the organization’s current priorities and challenges, including efforts to make social and emotional learning an integral part of every child’s education.

Tom Roderick became executive director of Morningside Center in 1983, and has been leading the organization ever since. In 1985 he co-founded the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program, which has provided instruction and leadership opportunities in conflict resolution for hundreds of thousands of students in New York City and in 15 other school districts around the country. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale and a master’s in education from Bank Street College. Before joining Morningside Center he taught elementary school students in Harlem and East Harlem, and directed the East Harlem Day School, a parent-controlled storefront school. He is the author of A School of Our Own: Parents, Power, and Community at the East Harlem Block Schools (Teachers College Press, 2001).

Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility (formerly Educators for Social Responsibility Metropolitan Area) educates young people for hopeful and intelligent engagement with their world. Founded in 1982 by educators concerned about the danger of nuclear war, they launched the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) in 1985 in collaboration with the NYC Board of Education. Over the years they have continued to implement the RCCP while developing new approaches and programs to address emerging needs. These include: The 4Rs (Reading, Writing, Respect, and Resolution), which integrates conflict resolution into the language arts curriculum for grades pre-k through middle school, Pathways to Respect, which helps schools eliminate bullying and build community; PAZ (“Peace from A to Z”), an out-of-school-time (OST) program serving children 320 daily at P.S.24 in Brooklyn; and www.teachablemoment.org, an online teacher resource center, which provides short, free, downloadable curriculum pieces on topical issues. For more information, visit the Center’s website at www.morningsidecenter.org.

This session is the fourth meeting of the 2008-2009 season of the University Seminar on Innovation in Education which is co-chaired by Ronald Gross, who also conducts the Socratic Conversations at the Gottesman Library; and Robert McClintock, John L. and Sue Ann Weinberg Professor in the Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education at Teachers College. Founded in 1970, the Seminar explores the process of learning in individuals, organizations, and society throughout the lifespan and via major institutions.

The next University Seminar on Innovation in Education will be held on Monday, February 23, Topic: TBA.


Where: 305 Russell