December Newsletter: Education Program
The Gottesman Libraries
The Gottesman Libraries Education Program informs students, faculty and staff about the latest thinking in education, in ways that engage members of the community with one another and with a broad range of educational experts. The program also provides understanding of work being done throughout the College.
Read more below about offerings in December.
Workshops
Regularly scheduled instructional offerings include workshops, tours, orientations, and course-specific instruction in coordination with staff and faculty of the College.
Workshop: The Lit Review, Revisited, Tuesday, 12/14, 4-5pm
We are into finals, and you may be finishing up a paper or researching for your proposal. So, it is never too late to review the possible ways to conduct a good literature review! In so doing, you will become acquainted with key tools and strategies for tackling your topic, and also develop your search preferences as you grapple with the universe of information.
An essential step in the process of writing a thesis or dissertation, or any paper for publication, the lit review asks that you read and critique articles, books, and other sources that have already been written on your topic or related topics. You are required to find sources and evaluate the best way to focus your research so that you can contribute to a body of scholarly literature.
Please rsvp with your details no later than Monday, December 13th. If you'd like to attend virtually, let us know and we'll send a Zoom link.
Where: 104b Russell
Talks
The Gottesman Libraries sponsors talks by leaders in education, psychology, and the applied health sciences to recognize and celebrate scholarly work of interest to the Teachers College community.
Online Book Talk: Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline, with Mark Warren, Jonathan Stith, Letha Muhammad & Mark Gooden, Thursday, 12/2, 4-5pm
Please join us for a panel book talk with Mark R. Warren and guests on his latest book, Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline (Oxford University Press, November 2021). The author and panelists will reflect on the book and the history of the movement to dismantle the school-to-prison and discuss their current work campaigning for police-free schools.
"In Willful Defiance, Mark R. Warren documents how Black and Brown parents, students, and low-income communities of color organized to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline in their local schools and built an intersectional movement that spread across the country. Examining organizing processes in Mississippi, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other localities, he shows how relatively small groups of community members built the power to win policy changes to reduce suspensions and expulsions by combining deep local organizing with resources from the national movement. As a result, over the course of twenty years, the movement to combat the school-to-prison pipeline resulted in falling suspension rates across the country and began to make gains in reducing police presence in schools, especially in places where there have been sustained organizing and advocacy efforts.
In documenting the struggle organizers waged to build national alliances led by community groups and people most impacted by injustice rather than Washington-based professional advocates, Warren offers a new model for movements that operate simultaneously at local, state and national levels, while primarily oriented to support and spread local organizing. In doing so, he argues for the need to rethink national social justice movements as interconnected local struggles whose victories are lifted and spread, In the end, the book highlights lessons from the school-to-prison pipeline movement for organizers, educators, policymakers and a broader public seeking to transform deep-seated and systemic racism in public schools and the broader society."
-- publisher's description
Mark R. Warren is Professor of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts Boston. A sociologist and community-engaged scholar, he studies and works with community, parent and youth organizing groups seeking to promote equity and justice in education, community development and American democratic life. Warren is the author of several books, including Lift Us Up, Don't Push Us Out! Voices from the Front Lines of the Educational Justice Movement (2018); A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform (2011); and Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice (2010). Warren has co-founded several networks promoting activist scholarship, community organizing and movement-building, including the Peoples Think Tank on educational justice, the Urban Research Based Action Network, and the Special Interest Group on Community and Youth Organizing in the American Educational Research Association. He has won a number of prestigious awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association.
Jonathan Stith is Director, Alliance for Educational Justice and co-director, National Campaign for Police-Free Schools. He has 20 years of experience working with youth and community organizations to address social inequities. As the former Executive Director of the Youth Education Alliance (YEA), he was a critical leader in the School Modernization Campaign that won 3.2 billion dollars for school renovation and repair in the District. He was also a steering committee member of the Justice for DC Youth Coalition that successfully organized youth and their families to win critical juvenile justice reforms in the District.
Letha Muhammad is Director, Education Justice Alliance (Raleigh, NC) and coordinating committee member, Dignity in Schools Campaign. She is working to advance the organization's impact on dismantling the School to Prison and School to Deportation Pipeline in their local school district, Wake County Public Schools, and in other districts across the state. She believes that one of the most effective ways to dismantle the School to Prison Pipeline is to work with parents and families that are directly impacted by this issue which will help ensure that Black and other students of color have access to a quality education.
Mark Anthony Gooden is the Christian Johnson Endeavor Professor of Education Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Gooden will introduce Mark Warren and guests and facilitate the Q&A.
This book talk is co-sponsored by the Department of Educational Policy and Social Analysis.
Please rsvp with your interest and details no later than Wednesday, December 1st, and a Zoom link will be provided. Or Join HERE.
Opening Art Talk: Human-Nature Entanglements: Explorations In Creativity Beyond Human, with Isabel Correa, Thursday, 12/16, 5-6pm
Please join designer Isabel Correa for the opening of her new exhibit, Human-Nature Entanglements: Explorations In Creativity Beyond Human which explores biodesign as a creative space to re-imagine humans’ relationship with the rest of nature. The exhibition presents an array of material explorations in shape, texture, and color resulting from the entanglement between mycelium – the underground networks of mushrooms –, other materials, and technologies. By blurring the boundaries between the practices of making and growing we are invited to interrogate sharp distinctions and hierarchies between humans and non-humans, culture and nature, artificial and organic. Instead, we examine the ways in which all material bodies are intertwined and constantly giving form to each other through pressure, friction, breath, growth, accumulation and ongoing material transformation by which all forms emerge.
Isabel Correa is a Chilean designer and graduate research assistant in the Snow Day Learning Lab, Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on understanding how creativity and transformative learning unfold when children and youth are allowed to imagine and build possible worlds. Her dissertation work – at the intersection of design, biology, and learning sciences – explores the development of bio-design tools and technologies to engage diverse audiences in re-imagining humans’ relationship with nature.
Human-Nature Entanglements: Explorations In Creativity Beyond Human is the Gottesman Libraries' Commissioned Art for 2021. This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Myers Foundations which support art in institutions of higher education.
Please rsvp by Tuesday, December 14th with your interest and details.
Where: 305 Russell / Offit Gallery
Artivism: The Power of Art for Social Transformation
Online Guest Talk / Workshop: Maine Inside Out, with Bruce King and Margot Fine, Monday, 12/6, 4:30-5:30pm
Maine Inside Out (MIO) activates individuals and communities to imagine and embody freedom through art, advocacy and support, and transformative justice. Formerly incarcerated people lead our work to build a world where everyone matters and belongs.
Since 2008 MIO has organized and supported system-impacted young people through art programs inside Maine’s youth prison and in the community. MIO’s art and advocacy has changed the culture and policy of youth incarceration in Maine in tangible ways including support of youth-led advocacy which saw the population of incarcerated youth drop from over 200 in 2008 to under 20 youth in 2021.
Bruce King and Margot Fine are Co-Leads at MIO. In this workshop, they will offer insights and stories about MIO and the larger ecosystem of organizations and leaders in Maine and nationally that are imagining and building the social infrastructure needed for a world without prisons.
Resources:
Register here.
Online Guest Talk: From Vortex to Peace: Poetry as a Pathway of Resistance, with Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Monday, 12/13, 4:30-5:30pm
In this presentation, Yolanda will discuss the writing of two full-length books of poetry as a way to deal with pain and joy and journey to self-love, and affirm her love of equity and her ancestors’ legacy.
Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz is an award-winning associate professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on racial literacy in teacher education, Black girl literacies, and Black and Latinx male high school students. A sought-after speaker on issues of race, culturally responsive pedagogy, and diversity, Sealey-Ruiz works with K-12 and higher education school communities to increase their racial literacy knowledge and move toward more equitable school experiences for their Black and Latinx students. Sealey-Ruiz appeared in Spike Lee’s “2 Fists Up: We Gon’ Be Alright”, a documentary about the Black Lives Matter movement and the campus protests at Mizzou. Her co-authored book (with Dr. Detra Price-Dennis] Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Toward Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces was published in May 2021, and her first full-length collection of poetry Love from the Vortex & Other Poems (Kaleidoscope Vibrations LLC) was published in March 2021. Her sophomore book of poetry, The Peace Chronicles was released in July 2021.
Resources:
Twitter: @RuizSealey
Instagram: @yolie_sealeyruiz
Register here.
--
The vision of Artivism: The Power of Art for Social Transformation is to generate a movement with committed social artivists in response to historic global unrest. Artivism aims to generate community through multi-disciplinary teamwork for a more dignified and meaningful coexistence, however you define these terms. The goal of this initiative is to nurture confidence in taking continuous action from wherever you are by means of reciprocity.
Artivism: The Power of Art for Social Transformation is a collaboration between Adelphi University; Gottesman Libraries, Teachers Colege, Columbia University; and Sing for Hope.
Artivism: The Power of Art Social Transformation, grew out of Illuminations of Social Imagination: Learning From Maxine Greene, (Dio Press, 2019), edited by Teachers College alumni Courtney Weida and Carolina Cambronero-Varela, and Dolapo Adeniji-Neill, of Adelphi University. "The concept for this book is inspired by the late Maxine Greene (2000), who described her enduring philosophical focus and legacy of social imagination as “the capacity to invent visions of what should be and what might be in our deficient society, on the streets where we live, in our schools” (p. 5). The purpose of this volume is to examine and illuminate the roles of community organizers and educators who are changing lives through public art and community arts projects. This research originally emerged from a well-attended 2018 conference presentation and exhibition at Teachers College, Columbia University, engaging with the local and international community of arts education and arts administration."
-- Publisher's Description
Live Music
The Everett Cafe Music Program sponsors performances by TC student and affiliated musicians. Come enjoy a variety of genres and styles!
Want to play in Everett Cafe? If you'd like to showcase and/or volunteer your own talents, please contact us with your details via online support. Solos, duets, trios are welcome!
Wadsworth Strings, Thursday, 12/2, 4-5pm (rescheduled)
The Wadsworth Strings Ensemble features music for classical strings, from the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn, to well known arias from the operas of Puccini and Bizet. You may hear a selection of continental Viennese waltzes and French cabaret. Musicians of The Claremont Strings Ensemble have performed collectively at Weill Hall, Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall and throughout the Northeast, playing a diverse range of symphonic and chamber music, eclectic jazz, and gypsy swing. Wadsworth Strings, emanating from the Washington Heights area, is a division of Claremont Strings, founded by Vivian Penham, a graduate of the Juilliard School and Columbia University.
Vivian Ngo, Thursday, 12/2, 5:15-6:15pm
Indie dream pop, with a cinematic taste of raw poetry. Southern California born and raised, Vivian Phong Ngo first began producing music on her laptop inside of her room sophomore year of college. Not only is she a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer, but she is also beginning her first year of her Masters program at Teachers College in the Applied Linguistics program. Her love for music began at a young age when she was forced to play classical piano, branching out into the realm of pop, she realized her love for writing existed outside of formatted textbooks.
News Displays
Need to keep current, look to the past, teach a topic? The Everett Cafe features daily postings of news from around the world, and also promotes awareness of historical events from an educational context. Be sure to check the Cafe News postings on the library blog.
World AIDS Day, Monday, 12/1
Ada Lovelace Is Born, Friday, 12/10
Bill of Rights Adopted as a Single Unit, Wednesday, 12/15
First Modern Crossword Puzzle, Tuesday, 12/21
Book Displays
We are pleased to host the following curated book displays that draw upon special and current topics of significance to teaching, learning, and research.
Staff Picks: Restorative and Transformative Justice
"Hereth, Kaba, Meiners, and Wallace write "Restorative justice is an approach that attempts to empower communities to respond holistically to violence and harm...RJ takes into account the needs of victims, offenders, and others affected by an incident of harm working to rebuild what was lost rather than viewing punishment as a final resolution," in Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline, included in this collection (p. 246). These books contain a range of resources related to restorative and transformative justice. Particular titles provide support for educators implementing restorative justice programs in their schools. Other resources give background on criminalization and the prison system, arguing for solutions to harm that address their root causes. Schools are often complicit in criminalization, thus educators who wish to dismantle the carceral system must actively work against the school-to-prison pipeline and administrative tendencies to pathologize marginalized students. These books can serve as supportive resources for all individuals interested in adequately addressing harm and working toward a world without prisons. If you prefer electronic resources, relevant e-books are included. Having worked on various prison abolitionist projects, I have seen that there are interventions to be made in all settings to transform the way we react to conflict and harm. I hope this collection inspires others to combat criminalization in their communities and support those affected by the carceral system, to try what Mariame Kaba proposes "a million experiments."
-- Grace Handy, Library Associate
Staff Picks is curated and designed each month by the Gottesman Libraries' staff to highlight resources on educational topics and themes of special interest.
Everett Cafe: The Entangled World of Fungi
"To find a mushroom, start with wonder. You are one of millions of creatures dwelling in the forest or your city park and, although we evolved in divergent ways, there is continuity and kinship among all of us. Despite looking different, fungi are genetically closer to us than they are to plants. To look for mushrooms is to wonder about other forms of intelligence that we do not understand but on which our world depends.
To find mushrooms, look down and be courteous not to step on them. Find places of silent but bustling activity: a pile of old leaves or a trunk resting on the forest floor. There is nothing dead about a fallen tree. Fungi together with moss, liquen, insects, and bacteria are thriving there; transforming decaying matter into fresh soil, building new beginnings, and nourishing seedlings for rebirth. But we often miss all the action when we walk through the parks and forests absorbed by our busy minds. Mushroom foraging is to leave thoughts behind, arouse our senses and become entangled through smell, touch, taste, and sight with the living earth around us.
If you find a mushroom, look closer. You stand upon a vibrant but nearly invisible network of fungal threads called mycelium. Mushrooms are the fruiting body and the only visible part of this expansive but hidden organism. Fungi are truly the largest living creatures on our planet and among the oldest. Scientists describe mycelium as nature’s organic internet which carries messages and resources between trees and plants while recycling air, soil, and water for everyone's benefit. Finding a mushroom is letting yourself become intertwined with a wider community of beings.
The Entangled World of Fungi invites us to unravel the kingdom of fungi in the search of meaning, connectedness, possibility, and life amid environmental decay. We explore mycology as a place for radical rethinking of humans’ place on earth offering insights into new forms of nourishing and healing our communities, doing science, restoring ecosystems, building artifacts, and educating our children and ourselves as we learn to become better creatures of this world."
-- Isabel Correa, Recipient of the 2021 Commissioned Art Award
At the Everett News Cafe, you'll find a new book collection every few weeks that relates to current events, education, or learning environments.
Exhibition: Human-Nature Entanglements: Explorations in Creativity Beyond Human, by designer Isabel Correa, Thursday, 12/16-Friday, 3/18
In times of ecological unraveling, Human-Nature Entanglements: Explorations in Creativity Beyond Human looks into biodesign as a creative space to reimagine humans’ relationship with nature. The exhibition presents an array of material explorations in shape, texture, and color resulting from an entanglement with mycelium (the underground networks of mushrooms), technologies, bioplastics, waste, and other materials. By blurring the boundaries between the practices of making and growing we are invited to interrogate sharp distinctions and hierarchies between humans and non-humans, culture and nature, artificial and organic. Instead, we examine the ways in which all material bodies are intertwined and constantly giving form to each other through pressure, friction, breath, growth, decay and ongoing material transformations by which all forms emerge.
Isabel Correa is a designer, doctoral student, and research assistant at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on understanding creativity particularly in education, and involves the development and study of playful tools and practices for children to make sense of the world around them and build alternative worlds. Working at the intersection of design, learning sciences, and biology her dissertation explores creativity across species through the development of biodesign practices that invite learners to reimagine humans’ relationship with nature.
This exhibition was made possible through the generous support of the Myers Foundations. The pieces displayed in this exhibit are part of Isabel Correa’s dissertation research on Interspecies Creativity with the advice of Dr. Nathan Holbert, and developed in collaboration with Snow Day Learning Lab’s members Maria Lopez-Delgado, Ayse Unal, Uttarika Shetty, Yuxi Huang, and Blake Danzing, and Trisha Barton, lead designer of the Gottesman Libraries.
Also be sure to visit the Everett Cafe book display, The Entangled World of Fungi, which invites us to unravel the kingdom of fungi in the search of meaning, connectedness, possibility, and life amid environmental decay.
Where: Offit Gallery, 12/16-3/18
Opening Talk: Thursday, 12/16, 5-6pm
Featured Databases: Holidays and Celebrations
Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa are approaching, as festive garlands once again decorate the halls of Teachers College. We feature databases that cover the literature of holidays and celebrations as they reflect the study and teaching of curriculum, family, culture, and religion. Read more on the Library's news feed.
==
To request disability-related accommodations contact OASID at oasid@tc.edu, (212) 678-3689, or (646) 755-3144 video phone, as early as possible.