Women History Makers

1. Women History Makers EDCI658 Fall 2006

2. Marva Collins “The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another”

3. Marva Collins • Grew up in Atmore, Alabama at a time when segregation was the rule • Attended a school where Black people were not permitted to use the public library, and her schools had few books, and no indoor plumbing • Graduated from Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia • She taught school in Alabama for two years. • She moved to Chicago and taught in Chicago’s public school system for fourteen years. • Dissatisfaction with the education received by her two youngest children in prestigious private school

4. Marva Collins • Open her own school on the second floor of her home. • She took the $5,000 balance in her school pension fund and began her educational program with an enrollment of her own two children and four other neighborhood youngsters • Westside Preparatory School was founded in 1975 in Garfield Park, a Chicago inner-city area • During the first year, Marva took in learning disabled, problem children and even one child who had been labeled by Chicago public school authorities as borderline retarded • At the end of the first year, every child scored at least five grades higher

5. Marva Collins • CBS program, 60 minutes, visited her school twice • The little girl who was labeled as borderline retarded graduated from college Summa Cum Laude • Some Marva’s students entered the most prestigious universities in the country such as Harvard, Stanford, and Yale • She was featured on Good Morning, America, 20/20, Fox News, and many more programs • A made-for-television movie titled, The Marva Collins Story starred Cicely Tyson and Morgan Freeman first aired in1 1982, and is still presented on television

6. Marva Collins • Some of her awards are • The Jefferson Award for Benefiting the Disadvantaged • The Humanitarian Award for Excellence • Legendary Women of the World Award • Many honorary doctoral degrees from universities such asAmherst, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, and Clark University • The prestigious National Humanities Medal from President Bush in 2004

7. Marva Collins • Business organizations she has spoken to • The National Girl Scouts • The National Retailers Association • The National Dairy Association • The European Division of IBM • Xerox Corporation • The Million Dollar Roundtable • The Young President’s Organization (YPO) • The National Bankers’ Association • Anheuser-Busch,C • Coors • she has trained executives of Long John Silvers.

8. Marva Collins Program and Method • Her educational program and method are based on the Socratic method emphasizing logical analysis and sound reasoning skills • Her reading materials deliver abstract ideas • She encouraged multiple interpretations not one correct answer • Her 4th graders read Plato’ Republic and reflect on the big question: “what is justice ?” • She reads all the materials to be given to her students in advance and develops an voluntary list called “words-to-watch”

9. Marva Collins Program and Method • When teaching reading, Marva asks her students to predict what is going to happen from the title and from the earlier paragraphs • By posing questions along with the process of reading, she seeks to cultivate meta-cognitive skills such as reasoning, providing evidence, and analyzing • She always asks her students to justify their answers • Her classroom management strategies are to involve all her students in the class discussion and to encourage self-discipline using reasoning • She was against abuse of worksheet, workbook, or seatwork on the ground that these methods do not encourage analytical thinking

10. Marva Collins Quotes • Effective teaching, I firmly believe, requires “repetition-drill,” “repetition-drill,” “repetition-drill.” • One cannot plant a seed at night and have beans the next morning. It is foolish to expect anything that hasn’t been planted, nurtured, tended to, fed, and cared for. • If a student of mine doesn’t respond to one teaching approach, I’ll try many different ways to get my point across. I’d rather spend time teaching than testing and labeling. • If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything • Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide

11. Marva Collins Quotes • I have a dress code for staff and students in my school. Both are expected to arrive each day dressed like professionals in the one case, and, in the other case, come to school prepared to study and learn and practice the excellence that is required in the world of successful people. Certainly, we should teach children how one dresses for work and how one should carry oneself with pride and dignity.

12. Marva Collins Quotes • I was in a Florida school last week where one of my charges had kicked the principal, and she was walking with a cane. He had bitten another teacher. When I began the class I said, “I am honored that you would allow me to be your teacher today. Of course, I only know how to teach bright boys and girls; good looking boys and girls, and I can tell that all of you are bright, and you are, emphatically, good looking.” I added, “However, if there happens to be any dumb children in this class, you may leave now. If there are any ugly children in this class, you, too, may leave.” Continuing, I stated, “I only know how to teach bright, wonderful, good-looking boys and girls.” Not one student left the classroom.

13. Marva Collins’s Books • Marva Collins' Way, by Marva Collins with Civia Tamarkin • The Marva Collins method; a manual for educating and motivating your child by Marva Collins • Ordinary Children, Extraordinary Teachers, by Marva Collins • Values: Lighting The Candle of Excellence: A Practical Guide, by Marva Collins • A conversation with Marva Collins: A Different School by Marva Collins • Grandma, What Is Learning? by Marva Collins • Redeeming Education by Marva Collins • The School that Cared: A Story of the Marva Collins Preparatory School of Cincinnati, by P. Kamara Sekou Collins

14. Marva Collins Online Resources • http://www.marvacollins.com/biography.html • http://www.marvacollinspreparatory.com/ • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marva_Collins • http://www.usdreams.com/Collins9091.html • http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Marva_Collins/

15. Lynn CheneyThe Second Lady

16. Lynne Cheney and History Education • "One of the important lessons we can learn is that freedom isn't inevitable. This realization should make the liberty we enjoy all the more important to us, all the more worth defending." • Lynne Cheney has loved history for as long as she can remember, and she has spent much of her professional life writing and speaking about the importance of knowing history and teaching it well

17. Lynne Cheney and History Education • she published American Memory, a report that warned about the failure of schools to transmit knowledge of the past to upcoming generations • She launched the James Madison Book Award Fund, which presents a yearly award of $10,000 to the book that best represents excellence in bringing knowledge and understanding of American history to young people

18. Lynn Cheney Publications • She is author or co-author of eight books • Kings of the Hill (second edition, 1996, Simon & Schuster), a book about political figures, among them Henry Clay and Sam Rayburn, who played powerful roles in the House of Representatives. She wrote this book with her husband, who was a Congressman from Wyoming from 1979 to 1989. • Telling the Truth (Simon & Schuster), analyzed the effect of postmodernism on study in the humanities.

19. Lynne Cheney Publications • Children’s Books • America: A Patriotic Primer, released in May 2002, is an alphabet book for children of all ages and their families that celebrates the ideas and ideals that are the foundations of our country. • A Is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women, published September 2003, tells the story of women's contributions to American history • When Washington Crossed the Delaware: A Wintertime Story for Young Patriots, released in October 2004, is a straightforward yet elegant retelling of history • She donated her revenues from these books to charity

20. Lynn Cheney Publications • Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America • America : A Patriotic Primer • Sisters http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0811-07.htm “Let us go away together, away from the anger and imperatives of men. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement. In the evenings I shall read to you while your work your cross-stitch in the firelight. And then we shall go to bed, our bed, my dearest girl.”

21. Lynn Cheney • Dated Dick Cheney since high school and married in 1964 • They had two grown daughters Mary and Elizabeth and four grandchildren • http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-1706213-4831947?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=lynn+cheney • http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/08/01/mary/index.html • http://www.whitehouse.gov/mrscheney/bio.html • http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0811-07.htm

22. Diane Ravitch

23. Diane Ravitch • Diane Ravitch is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and former United States Assistant Secretary of Education who is now a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Education • She was born in 1938 in Houston, Texas, where she went to public schools. She is a graduate of Wellesley College, has a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and lives in Brooklyn, New York City

24. Diane Ravitch • Assistant Secretary of Education (1991-1993) to Lamar Alexander during George H. W. Bush administration • She led the federal effort to promote the creation of state and national academic standards • She was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board from 1997 to 2004 (Appointed by Secretary of Education Richard Riley in 1997 and reappointed in 2001) • From 1995 until 2005, she held the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution and edited Brookings Papers on Education Policy • Before entering government service, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University national academic standards

25. Diane Ravitch Published Works • The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (2003) • Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform (2000) • National Standards in American Education: A Citizen's Guide (1995) • What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? (with Chester Finn, Jr.) [1987] • The Schools We Deserve (1985) • The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980 (1983) • The Revisionists Revised (1978) • The Great School Wars: New York City, 1805-1973 (1974)

26. Diane Ravitch Published Works • Edited fourteen books some of them are • The American Reader (1991) • The Democracy Reader (with Abigail Thernstrom) [1992] • Learning from the Past (with Maris Vinovskis) [1995] • New Schools for a New Century (with Joseph Viteritti) [1997] • She has written more than 400 articles and reviews for scholarly and popular publications

27. Diane Ravitch’s International Influences • She has lectured in Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, the former Soviet Union, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Germany, Japan, Nicaragua, and throughout the United States. • Her lectures on democracy and civic education have been translated by the USIA into many languages, including Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Belarussian, and Ukrainian. • Her books have been translated into many languages, including Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Swedish, and Japanese

28. Diane Ravitch • She was elected to membership in • the National Academy of Education (1979) • the Society of American Historians (1984) • the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985) • the Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences (2002) • She was selected as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar in 1984-85, the first person chosen from the field of education studies • She was awarded the Henry Allen Moe prize in the humanities by the American Philosophical Society in 1986

29. Diane Ravitch • In 1988, she was designated an "honorary citizen of the state of California" by the State Legislature in recognition of her contributions to the state's history curriculum and its human rights curriculum • In 1989, she received the Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award in 1989 • She was honored as a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library in 1992 • The Library of Congress invited her to deliver lectures in 1993 in honor of the 250th birthday of Thomas Jefferson • She received the Leadership Award of the Klingenstein Institute at Teachers College in 1994 and the Horace Kidger Award of the New England History Teachers Association in 1998.

30. Diane Ravitch • In 2004, she received the Leadership Award of the New York City Council of Supervisors and Administrators. • In 2005, she received the John Dewey award from the United Federation of Teachers of New York City; the Gaudium Award of the Breukelein Institute; and the Uncommon Book Award from the Hoover Institution • In 2006, the Kenneth J. Bialkin/Citigroup Public Service Award was conferred on her. • She was awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, by the following institutions: Williams College; Reed College; Amherst College; the State University of New York; Ramapo College; St. Joseph's College of New York; Middlebury College Language Schools; and Union College.

31. Diane Ravitch • Her most recent book The Language Police (2003) was a criticism of both left-wing and right-wing attempts to stifle the study and expression of views deemed unworthy by those groups. (See political correctness & multiculturalism) • The book asserts that "pressure groups from the political right and left have wrested control of the language and content of textbooks and standardized exams, often at the expense of the truth (in the case of history), of literary quality (in the case of literature), and of education in general" • Publishers Weekly wrote: "Ravitch contends that these sanitized materials sacrifice literary quality and historical accuracy in order to escape controversy”

32. Diane Ravitch • Her critique of Multiculturalism and her calls for higher standards in public life have drawn fire. • She is independent politically and was appointed to public office by both Republican president, George H. W. Bush and Democrat president Bill Clinton

33. Diane Ravitch Quotes • Behind this disagreement are two different assumptions: I assume that our education system should aim to educate everyone who comes to school; the other side says that ability is distributed along a bell-shaped curve and that we should not be overly concerned about the laggards because we will always need people to pick up the trash and sweep the streets. I confess that I get confused at this point because the current argument favoring low or no standards is coming from people who claim to be on the left.

34. Diane Ravitch Quotes • Some evidence recently surfaced, which suggests that a democratic society pays a price for widespread ignorance. The Princeton Review, best known for its test preparation services, analyzed the vocabulary used by the presidential candidates in the campaign debates of 2000 and compared it to the vocabulary levels used in earlier campaign debates.

35. Diane Ravitch Quotes • The Princeton Review obtained transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debate of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960, and the Lincoln-Douglas debate of 1858. It analyzed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational level needed for a reader to understand a document. This test is ordinarily used to evaluate textbooks and other educational materials.

36. Diane Ravitch Quotes • The results? In the debates of 2000, George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7); Al Gore spoke at a high seventh-grade level (7.9). In 1992, challenger Bill Clinton scored in the seventh grade (7.6), President George Bush in the sixth grade (6.8), and Ross Perot at a sixth-grade level (6.3) (I am also confused why the left presidents scored higher) • Our contemporary politicians, who found it necessary to speak to us as sixth and seventh graders, compared unfavorably with Kennedy and Nixon, both of whom spoke in a vocabulary appropriate for tenth graders. And they, in turn, looked sophomoric when compared to Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, whose scores, respectively, were 11.2 and 12.0

37. Diane Ravitch Quotes • That may be a tough question to answer briefly. I would say that it (9/11) must be treated as the worst terrorist act in all history, the worst single loss of life on American soil other than in one Civil War battle. The event itself must be described in its true horror. The perpetrators of the evil must be identified clearly and their affiliation with radical extremist Islam must be explained. The explanation must show how this form of extremism seeks to create a theocratic society that threatens our most basic values; that it is non-democratic, does not believe in women's equality, does not tolerate freedom of speech or expression, seeks to impose religious rule over all institutions. That it is anti-modern and is a threat not only to us but to world peace and development.

38. Diane Ravitch Online Resources • http://www.dianeravitch.com/ • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Ravitch • http://www.hoover.org/pubaffairs/dailyreport/archive/2866856.html • http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/interrogatory091603.asp

39. Deborah Meier “I wouldn’t give the same test to everyone. I would rather test students in the same way that we test most things, by having good conversations”

40. Deborah Meier • Deborah Meier has spent more than three decades working in public education as a teacher, principal, writer, advocate, and ranks among the most acclaimed leaders of the school reform movement in the U.S. • Meier was born in New York City in 1931 • Was educated at Antioch College (B. A.) and the University of Chicago (M. A.) • She began her teaching career in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia as an elementary and Head Start teacher

41. Deborah Meier • For 20 years, Meier helped revitalize public schools in New York City’s East Harlem district • In 1974, Superintendent Tony Alvarado asked Meier to test her theories in a new elementary school in Harlem’s District 4, where test scores were the lowest in the city • She founded Central Park Elementary School (CPE), a highly successful alternative school emphasizing active learning based on Dewey’s progressive thoughts • Within the next dozen years, Meier opened two other Central Park elementary schools and, in collaboration with the National Coalition of Essential Schools, the Central Park East Secondary School

42. Deborah Meier • Give teachers autonomy • Give parents voices • Her school reached a graduation rate of 90% and became a model for Small School Collaborative • Meier is currently the principal of the Mission Hill School, a K-8 pilot elementary school recently established in Boston’s Roxbury community • Received a MacArthur Fellowship and several honorary degrees form from Bank Street College of Education, Brown, Bard, Clark, Teachers College of Columbia University, Dartmouth, Harvard, Hebrew Union College, Hofstra, The New School, Lesley College, SUNY Albany, UMASS Lowell, and Yale

43. Deborah Meier • Meier documented her story and experience at Central Park East Secondary School in The Power of their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem (1995) • Will Standards Save Public Education? (2000) • In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing and Standardization (2002) • With Ted and Nancy Sizer, Keeping School: Letters to Families from Principals of Two Small Schools (2004) • Co-edited with George Wood, Many Children Left Behind (2004), all published by Beacon Press

44. Deborah Meier Quotes • The standardization movement is not based on a simple mistake. It rests on deep assumptions about the goals of education and the proper exercise of authority in the making of decisions– assumptions we ought to reject in favor of a different vision of a healthy democratic society • By shifting the locus of authority to outside bodies, it undermines the capacity of schools to instruct by example in the qualities of mind that schools in a democracy should be fostering in kids–responsibility for one’s own ideas, tolerance for the ideas of others, and a capacity to negotiate differences

45. Deborah Meier Quotes • The coalition of experts which produced A Nation at Risk were wrong when they announced the failure of American public education and its critical role in our economic decline. Constructive debate about reform should begin by acknowledging this misjudgment. But it should then also acknowledge the even bigger crisis that schools have played a major part in deepening, if not actually creating, and could play a big part in curing. This crisis requires quite a different set of responses, often in direct conflict with standardization.

46. Deborah Meier Quotes • An understanding of this other crisis begins by noting that we have the lowest voter turnout by far of any modern industrial country; we are exceptional for the absence of responsible care for our most vulnerable citizens (we spend less on child welfare–baby care, medical care, family leave–than almost every competitor); we don’t come close to our competitors in income equity; and our high rate of (and investment in) incarceration places us in a class by ourselves. All of these, of course, effect some citizens far more than others: and the heaviest burdens fall on the poor, the young, and people of color.

47. Deborah Meier Quotes • What is quality teaching? “Teaching that engages — or reengages — kids and their curiosity about the world, gets them asking questions and subjecting their own and other people's ideas to tough testing, that calls upon the best habits of mind and imagination, that makes perseverance seem obvious and natural, that widens their horizons in terms of subject matter, people, and places”

48. Deborah Meier Quotes • How do race and class play out in relation to teaching quality? “For significant conversations to take place we need a teaching force that reflects the diversity of learners — that is able to grapple with the various perspectives and difficulties that we experience as learners in our society. How things "seem to be" through the eyes of males vs. females, blacks vs. whites, the well-off vs. the poorly off is critical to developing schools that take advantage of our children's multiple strengths.”

49. Deborah Meier Quotes • What I wanted was to create thoughtful citizens — people who believed they could live interesting lives and be productive and socially useful. So I tried to create a community of children and adults where the adults shared and respected the children’s lives

50. Deborah Meier Online Resources • http://www.deborahmeier.com/ • http://www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/innovators/meier.html • http://www.pbs.org/merrow/tv/trust/interviews.html • http://bostonreview.net/BR24.6/meier.html • http://bostonreview.net/BR24.6/meier2.html • http://schoolredesign.net/srn/server.php?idx=545 • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Meier • http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/20_02/debo202.shtml • http://www.missionhillschool.org/dmeier/deb.html