Dr. Lella Gandini, the United States liaison for the dissemination of early childhood education known as the Reggio Emilia approach, was a guest speaker at Webster University’s home campus Wednesday, March 21.
Dr. Lella Gandini at Webster
With some 150 attendees including Webster University School of Education faculty and students, Gandini discussed core concepts from the just-released third edition of “The Hundred Languages of Children: the Reggio Emilia Experience in Transformation 2012.”
The publication is an integrated set of essays on a unique approach to early childhood education that documents the internationally acclaimed schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Gandini will be in St. Louis until the morning of Sunday, March 25, including consulting at Maplewood Richmond Heights Early Childhood Center.
Gandini’s visit drew a full house with more than 150 in attendance.
More about Gandini
A native of Italy, she was connected early with the Reggio Emilia approach and later became the point person for the approach in the U.S.
Gandini’s description of the Reggio Emilia approach: “The starting point is to be convinced that children have tremendous potential already when they are born, so that – in a preschool – rather than thinking ‘What can I teach these children?’ teachers observe and listen to children and construct learning with them.”
She is co-author of several books for parents and educators and author of many books of fairy tales, nursery rhymes and stories for children.
Her most recent publication, which was the focus of this lecture, is co-edited with Carolyn Edwards and George Forman. As Howard Gardner states in the forward to this book, “Amid the multitude of books about education issues these days, few stand out. This book that you hold in your hands does. … Anyone with an interest in the education of children should read it; few who do so will remain unaffected by the experience.”
Posted on Mar. 23rd 2012 | in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Webster University mourns the passing of former president Jacqueline Grennan Wexler, a visionary leader who helped transform then-Webster College into the university it is today.
Jacqueline Grennan Wexler, alumna and former charismatic president and visionary leader
Wexler, a former Sister of Loretto who remained a member of the wider Loretto Community and was known affectionately to her students and others as “J,” served as Webster’s president from 1965 to 1969. During her tenure, Wexler brought national attention to Webster for her pioneering spirit and for the changes she spearheaded at the school. The White House named her to a standing committee of education thought leaders, where she challenged peers as a catalyst for educating the underprivileged.
She was instrumental in the transfer of the school’s governance from the Sisters of Loretto to a lay board of trustees in 1967.
Transferring ownership of Webster College to a lay board was a significant decision for the College and another milestone in an impressive line of accomplishments for Wexler. Webster College was the first Catholic institution to recognize the potential for growth and the quality of education as a secular institution.
At Webster she emancipated the curriculum, raised funds to build the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts, and developed innovative academic programs.
“I was privileged to have the opportunity to get to know Jacqueline on a personal level in 2004 when we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Master of Arts in Teaching program, which she established,” said School of Education Dean Brenda Fyfe. “I had asked her to be our featured speaker and honoree at this celebration. This was the start of several conversations and meetings that gave me first-hand insight into her incredible leadership, intellect, and passion for education.”
“When I came to Webster there was no Department of Education,” said Webster professor and friend of Wexler, Andrea Rothbart. “This was no accident. Jacqueline believed that the way to educate teachers was to have them become experts in the subjects they were to teach.”
Jacqueline Grennan Wexler in the early 1960s
After leaving Webster, she served as president of Hunter College of the City University of New York from 1970 to 1979, and was appointed president of the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1982 (now known as National Conference for Community and Justice). She also was the first woman elected to the board of directors of United Technologies Corp.
In 2004 the School of Education celebrated the 40th anniversary of the MAT program and Wexler returned to campus as the featured speaker.
“As part of the introduction to Jacqueline at the celebration, I read a letter sent to me from Jerome Bruner, a long-time admirer of Jacqueline and early consultant to the MAT program in the ‘60s,” said Fyfe. “He spoke of his work with her for a couple of years on a White House Committee established by President Kennedy. I want to share a few comments from the letter that speak to the high esteem she earned from nationally and internationally acclaimed scholars such as Bruner:
“Jacki, Sister J, was not only a catalyst in that group, but a source of steady continuity…We loved Sister J, but loving her meant taking our obligations to educational improvement seriously. That meant no light-weight stuff. Her spirit pervaded that Committee and, soon, enough, it began pervading the Washington educational scene.’”
Photo of Wexler from front cover of the Saturday Review, July 15, 1967
The seeds of change that Wexler planted have transformed Webster into a vastly different institution. The university has grown to become the only Tier 1, private, nonprofit university with more than 100 campuses across the United States, Europe and Asia.
An on-campus memorial ceremony celebrating her life was held on Feb. 8 with photographs, video interviews with those who worked with her and remembered her well, music by the Webster University Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Singers, and reflections and tributes from President Beth Stroble as well as Sanford Zimmerman, the first chair of lay Webster College Board of Directors, Sister Donna Day, representative of the Sisters of Loretto, and more.
Posted on Mar. 8th 2012 | in Uncategorized | Comments Off
It’s the start of a great new year at Webster. We welcome a terrific group of new freshmen and transfer students (pictured here with some of their parents at orientation). They are a strong group of students who come to us with great GPAs, wonderful enthusiasm, intellectual curiosity, and energy. We know they will be a great addition to our School of Education family.
Welcome also to our new graduate students in our Master of Arts in Teaching degree programs, MA programs, Master of Educational Technology, and Education Specialist degree programs. They come to us from many different countries, with a multitude of different teaching and experiential backgrounds and the commitment to serve a world of learners. This wonderful mix of colleagues always ensures lively class discussions that draw out diverse perspectives and prior learning that we can apply and examine in relation to the subjects and focus of our studies.
Dean Brenda Fyfe
Together with our current student body, these new students are now settled into the semester working with faculty toward our mutual vision to “make this world worthy of its children.” (Casals, 1970). We do this in all of our programs by studying and researching content knowledge and instructional methodology, engaging with colleagues in reflective practice, and cultivating responsive teaching that demonstrates respect for the diversity of learners and community members we serve.
Have a great year everyone! And best wishes to our recent and long term alumni and friends. Keep in touch.
Two replacement faculty positions and one new position were filled this year after national faculty searches.
Dr. George Shea
We are very pleased to announce that Dr. George Shea, who was an Interim Professor of Education with us last year, will be returning this year as our newly hired status track Assistant Professor in English and Language Arts. He will be teaching in the Communication Arts, Reading, and Early Childhood Education (CARE) Department. Dr. Shea completed his doctoral work in English Education and an MA in English at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. He brings extensive background in English education at the high school and university levels and leadership in the National Council of Teachers of English.
Dr. Joe Sencibaugh
Dr. Joe Sencibaugh is our new Associate Professor of Education for the Teacher Education Department. He completed his doctoral work at St. Louis University with a concentration in administration, leadership and supervision. He is teaching in the areas of special education, teaching methodology, and foundations courses. Prior to coming to Webster he was Associate Professor at Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri for three years and at Harris-Stowe State University for 5 years.
DJ Kaiser
DJ Kaiser is our new Assistant Professor for Teaching English as a Second Language in the Communication Arts, Reading and Early Childhood Education Department. He is currently completing his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with an emphasis in Drama at Washington University in St. Louis. He brings extensive background in Translation Studies, Teaching English as a Second Language, Linguistics and Spanish.
Jan Willcox
The SoE community is also pleased to introduce Jan Willcox, our new Director of apprentice Teaching and Field Experience. Jan has thirty (30) years of experience as an Elementary School Teacher. In addition, she has over eight years of Field Experience Supervisory experience as well as significant expertise in evaluating the effectiveness of practicum and apprentice teaching experiences for students in all disciplines. Jan’s expertise includes the design of student teaching evaluation instruments as well as the analysis and interpretation of academic assessment data, specific to teacher preparation. Please join us in welcoming Jan as one of our newest School of Education members!
Dr. Stephanie Mahfood
Dr. Stephanie Mahfood has been hired as a 3/4 time faculty position to support our MA in Special Education in the Multidisciplinary Studies Department. Dr. Mahfood earned her Ph.D. in Special Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Stephanie has been working with us through multiple part-time contracts as an adjunct faculty member, advisor, special projects manager, and coordinator for several years. We have finally been able to formalize her extensive work.
Dr. Kathy Marlock
Though she has been with us for a year now, we want to make sure everyone knows about Dr. Kathy Marlock, our terrific new Associate Dean of the School of Education. A national search was conducted a year ago to fill this position.
As many of you know, Dr. Marlock has been with Webster University since 2005. She held the position of University Director of Academic Assessment from March 2005 to January 2009 and then moved to a position of Director, IT Project Management at Webster. Dr. Marlock earned her Ph.D. at the University of Utah in 2001 in Educational Leadership & Policy Studies with an allied area in Institutional Economics. For the past few years she has taught statistics courses for our Educational Leadership programs. She is leading us through our next accreditation review, which will happen in the fall of 2012.
Maegan Bowersox
Also, one year ago, Maegan Bowersox, an alumnus from our undergraduate teacher education program and currently working on an MA in Communication Arts, began a ½ time position to support the Teacher Education Department in the area of advising. Maegan’s work has ensured that all incoming new students for initial teacher certification have clear and documented programs of study and strong advising to guide them through program completion.
“In the Garden with Dr. Carver”, a children’s book written by Webster alum Susan Grigsby (MAT ’06) has won several awards in 2011! IInformation about the author, the book and the awards can be found in this article.
The School of Education has The Earl and Myrtle Walker Fund which pays students up to $1,000 per semester to tutor in St. Louis schools. Qualified applicants need to be working toward their initial teaching certification and have completed EDUC 3150 or EDUC 3155.
Recent graduate and Walker Fund recipient Dave Gramke tutored about nine hours a week last year. He spoke with us about his experience. “I primarily tutored children in special education, but also tutored children in the general education population as well,” he said. “Along with tutoring, I also administered tests and helped grade them. Many times, I also would assist the teacher with the entire class. I even co-taught lessons with the teacher on several occasions.”
This past summer, at the end of June, 2011, Webster University in coordination with the Missouri Botanical Garden and the St. Louis Zoo hosted the first annual Midwest Institute for PK-12 Sustainability Educators.
Education for Sustainability PK-12 attendees, guest speakers and sponsors left to right at the Botanical Gardens are: John Burroughs School teacher Deena Goran; Saint Louis Zoo Director of Education Louise Bradshaw; environmental specialist/educator Gabriela Doural, who earned her undergraduate degree in anthropology from Webster and is now back to earn Webster’s master of arts in Education and Innovation degree; and Lyon Elementary School teacher Tracy McCord.
The institute addressed current environmental, economic and social equity issues and ways to help educators introduce practices and principles of sustainability into their respective schools.
The institute’s main goals were to establish an awareness of sustainability issues, observe activities and initiatives currently in place at PK-12 schools and consider how to embrace the responsibilities and take action with their students.
There was standing room only during the three days filled with insightful presentations, videos, tours, networking and resource fairs, discussion groups, and more.
One of the institute organizers was Webster University’s professor Lori Diefenbacher who coordinates the Education for Global Sustainability program in the School of Education. Diefenbacher partnered with Kim Petzing, sustainability director of Earthways (Missouri Botanical Garden), and Louise Bradshaw, director of education at the St. Louis Zoo. Interactive presentations, learning exercises, games included:
• Louise Bradshaw (St. Louis Zoo): climate change and citizen science
• Kim Petzing and Katy Mike Smaistria (Earthways): the power of consumer choice
• Eddie Jones (Litzsinger Road Ecology Center): place-based education
• Brian Pelletier (Kakao Chocolate): sustainable chocolate
• Debi Gibson (teacher): schoolyard chickens
• Tracie Cain (Academy of the Sacred Heart): inquiry science
Practice what you Preach: Webster's sustainability institute's tasty lunch of beans, vegetables, yogurt, fruit, burrito fixings and more featured ALL St. Louis area organically grown foods except for the rice, which while it was organically grown— it came in from California. No plastic plates, silverware or cups were in evidence either as the institute organizers insisted on "real everything—no disposable" and paid extra to have real kitchen items used to avoid the event producing more landfill waste. Left to right are institute organizers Earthways Center of the Missouri Botanical Gardens education coordinator Katy Mike Smaistria and Webster professor Lori Diefenbacher.
The second day brought teachers to the Missouri Botanical Garden for presentations and garden tours where representatives addressed:
• storm water management
• changing linear thinking into to systems thinking
• waste management
• energy efficiency
• institutional commitments to green projects
On Thursday afternoon the group migrated to the Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School (MICDS) who hosted an organic sustainable lunch followed by a resource fair that represented area green products and sustainability services appropriate for schools. The presenters included:
Audubon Center at Riverlands
3 Degrees
Ameren Missouri Pure Power
City of St. Louis Refuse Division’s Recycling Program
Gateway Children’s Nature Connection
Gateway Greening
Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis ReStore
Missouri Department of Conservation
River des Peres Watershed Coalition
Friday’s finale challenged the participants to process what they had learned and develop initial action plans for changes and improvements in their schools. Guided by best practices Diefenbacher and the other coordinators encouraged participants to assess what they already had in place at their schools, perform a gap analysis and then move forward with new sustainability initiatives.
The feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive. Next year’s Institute will take place during the last week of June, 2012. Click here to view video from the 2011 Midwest Institute for PK-12 Sustainability Educators.
Anyone interested in courses that lead to a Webster certificate in Education for Global Sustainability should contact Lori Diefenbacher at diefenlo@webster.edu.
In the Garden with Dr. Carver, by Susan Grigsby, was selected as one of The Best Children’s Books of the Year, 2011, by The Bank Street Children’s Book Committee and was named a 2011 Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People by the National Council for the Social Studies.
In the Garden with Dr. Carver
The book also just received the 2011 “Growing Good Kids – Excellence in Children’s Literature” Book Award, chosen by The Junior Master Gardener Program and the American Horticultural Society. The award recognizes a select group of children’s books that are especially effective at promoting an understanding of and appreciation for gardening and the environment.
In the Garden with Dr. Carver is a fictional account of a girl remembering his visit to her school, based upon historical records and photos, a biography written from interviews with him, and the booklets he wrote for teachers.
Carver’s reputation is based on his research and promotion of alternative crops to cotton, such as peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes. He wanted poor farmers to grow alternative crops both as a source of their own food and as a source of other products to improve their quality of life.
After finishing college with work in plant pathology and mycology that won him national recognition and respect, Carver headed the Tuskegee Institute’s Agriculture Department. He taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash crops that also improved heavily cultivated soil, initiated research into crop products and taught generations of black students farming techniques for self-sufficiency.
Carver designed a mobile classroom to take education out to farmers. He called it a “Jesup wagon” after the New York financier and philanthropistMorris Ketchum Jesup, who provided funding to support the program.
The Jesup Wagon
As Grigsby explains, “My children’s book focuses on the work that Dr. Carver did with his mobile classroom or movable school. In the story, the children participate in activities that Dr. Carver advocated including nature study through observations and drawing, the eating of natural foods, recycling, making what one needs from what nature provides, amending the soil, and agricultural practices.”
Susan Grigsby
According to Grigsby, she was inspired to write the book because most people only connected Dr. Carver with peanuts. “But he did so much more and was ahead of his time in regard to issues of sustainability and, as he said, the need for students to go beyond the four walls of their classroom and spend a part of every school day outside learning about the natural world,” she said.
As far back as 1898, he prepared materials for teachers showing them how to integrate gardening and nature studies into their math, science, arts, and English curriculum. “The focus of my studies at Webster had been on the integration of writing across the curriculum and I felt like I’d found a mentor in Dr. Carver.”
As part of her MAT coursework, she was able to work on projects at the Missouri Botanical Garden in which she designed and tested ways of implementing informal learning experiences, first with Charles Darwin’s work, and then in the Carver Garden.
“I chose Webster for my MAT because it provided the flexibility and encouragement to pursue discoveries of new pathways with learning and because there were extraordinary instructors including Lynn Rubright, David Clewell, and my advisor, Dr. Marlene Birkman,” she said.
“I took every course I could with Dr. Birkman—from folklore to poetry. Her enthusiasm and love of life and learning are contagious and I’d recommend to anyone going through the Webster MAT program to try and take at least one class with her. She holds the bar high in her expectations for the highest quality of work, work that can change the hearts, minds, and lives of students. I am forever indebted to her for the direction my life took.”
Thanks to Birkman’s mentoring and advice, Grigsby now works at both writing and at teaching in a variety of programs in which she’s able to explore the integration of writing and other arts across the curriculum.
“It was on Birkman’s recommendation that I looked into working with Interchange (interchangestlouis.org), an amazing arts-integration program that collaborates with St. Louis schools. I’ve worked with Interchange, as a St. Louis Poetry Center Teaching Artist, for about five years now,” she said.
The main audience is children in grades K-4 with a teacher’s activity guide to supplement the book that’s available for free, under resources, at the Albert Whitman web site.
In the Garden with Dr. Carver is sold at Left Bank Books and Pudd’nHead in the St. Louis area. It can also be purchased online through Left-Bank.com or the other major online book distributors.
Visit Grigsby’s web site, www.susangrigsby.com, for upcoming book signings and workshops that are open to the public.
Grigsby, who graduated with an MBA at Webster in 1989 and an MAT in Communication Arts in 2006, has two new children’s books scheduled for release in February 2012.
Webster University’s annual human rights conference serves as an opportunity for students, faculty, visiting scholars, activists, and community members to discuss issues related to 2011′s Year of International Human Rights theme.
SOE Des Lee Scholar Janaki Rajan visits with the Webster community. (Photo by Claudia Burris)
Sponsored by the Institute and Webster University’s School of Education, the annual conference is held at the St. Louis campus and includes participation from worldwide campuses and a visiting human rights scholar.
Entitled “Women’s Rights as Human Rights,” the 2011 conference will be held March 31 – April 1 featuring these distinguished plenary speakers:
• Janaki Rajan, Ph.D., School of Education E. Desmond Lee Professorship for Global Awareness, Thursday, March 31, 9:15-10:30 a.m. Keynote Address: Access to Education. Finding Voices, Making Choices
* Video International Human Rights: Hearing from Global Voices. Location: Library Conference Room/ Global webcast.
Death breaks our hearts. It can be hard enough to explain things to ourselves, let alone a child. Dealing with divorce, issues with poverty, military deployment and incarceration are also equally confusing and stressful situations for children to face.
Adrienne Cleveland
Adrienne Cleveland, a student in the MA in Applied Educational Psychology, decided to do her thesis on what books are available for children to cope with these sobering realities. Cleveland’s is first master’s thesis to be written in the School of Education.
“When I first started teaching in a public school in Harlem, New York, most, if not all of my students were dealing with some fairly heavy issues in their personal lives ‑ poverty, coping with the death of a loved one, etc.,” she said. “My school gave me many books to fill my classroom library. As I sorted through these I noticed that a lot of them were written about kids facing some of the same issues my students were facing. I became very interested in these books and knew that they would be helpful to share, but was not really sure how to properly use them. This sparked some of my research.”
