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AwardWinnerVolume XVI, No. 2 • New York City • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010CUTTING EDGE NEWS FOR ALL THE PEOPLEPhoto by Paul MobleyU.S. POSTAGEPAIDTHE EDUCATIONUPDATEPRESORTED STANDARD

2 Education update ■ For Parents, Educators & Students ■ NOV/DEC 2010Steps to Fix Our SchoolsBy Randi Weingartenf you dropped into the educationdebate by watching “Waitingfor ‘Superman,’” you would thinkAmerica’s public school system ishopelessly broken. As a teacher, the formerpresident of the New York City teachers unionand, now, a national union president, I have spentthousands of hours in schools across the countryand around the globe. I’ve seen countless successstories that rarely make headlines, and that toooften are eclipsed by sensational stories of schoolfailure or by the alluring but empty promise ofthe latest educational fad.No one—certainly no one whose life’s work isin education—is satisfied with the current stateof the American system of public education. And,while great things are happening in many publicschools, often in places where you would leastexpect it, there is no doubt that we have to replicateand scale up such successes to ensure thatevery child, in every public school, has access tothe kind of education that prepares him or her forlife, college and career in today’s global knowledgeeconomy.The question is how do we do this? In my yearsof looking at best practices around the countryand in the nations that outperform us, it hasbecome very clear what the foundations are forbuilding a system of public education that providesall children with the great education theyneed and deserve.Collaboration matters. The AmericanFederation of Teachers regularly brings togetherteams—comprised of administrators, teachers,union leaders and elected officials—to worktogether on pressing education issues and tolearn from effective districts. While the focus inthese successful districts varies, the characteristicthey have in common is that their work is rootedin collaboration.Great teachers can be developed. Most teachersdon’t hit their stride until long after dayone. The American Federation of Teachers hasworked with experts and educators to create aframework for teacher development and evaluationthat is being implemented in more than50 school districts. Its purpose is to enable newand struggling teachers to improve, to help goodteachers become great, and to identify those whoshould not be in the profession. Nearly half of allteachers leave teaching in their first five years, achurning that costs American school systems $7billion annually. Turnover has a steep educationalprice tag as well. The countries that consistentlyoutperform the United States understand this, andinvest in training and retaining teachers.Teachers need tools and support. Educatorscan’t do their jobs well without opportunitiesfor meaningful professional development, aneffective curriculum and adequate working conditions.Similarly, high standards are important,but they are just a start. The American Federationof Teachers supports the Common Core StateStandards, which more than 30 states eitherhave adopted or plan to adopt. If implementedproperly (no sure thing in this time of austerity),these standards can help correct the legacies ofNo Child Left Behind—a narrowing of the curriculumand an overemphasis on standardizedtests. But such standards are meaningless withouttraining and assessments aligned to them and,crucially, without time for teachers to prepare andfor students to achieve them.We must demand 360-degree accountability andresponsibility. Everyone with responsibility forour children’s education and well-being, includingteachers, administrators, elected officials,parents and students, should be held accountable.Teachers can’t do this alone. Public schoolshave an obligation to help all children learn,regardless of parental engagement, native languageor family income. But teachers can’t doit all, especially in this time of economic crisis.That’s why a safe and secure environment, and“wraparound services” to ensure kids have accessto after-school programs, health services andtutoring, are so essential.We must keep the public in public schools.Strong schools help create vibrant communities,and engaged communities in turn help ourschools thrive. Parents, faith communities, businessleaders and others are crucial to a successfulpublic school system. All must be partners inGUEST EDITORIALSDon’t Let Charter EnthusiasmSmother Public SchoolsBy Jennifer J. Raabo movie in recent memory has hadquite the impact or made the samepublic contribution as “Waiting forSuperman.” It has touched the heartsand minds of everyone who has seen it. It hasstimulated an important national conversationabout the quality of education. And it has givenGeoffrey Canada the prominence he has longdeserved. He is one of my heroes, and a hero toeveryone who cares about improving schools.Charter schools are an important addition toAmerican education. They give parents choicesfor their children, and they give the childrenhigh quality schooling. The best of the chartersoutperform traditional public schools that havethe same demographics; their graduation rates arebetter, and their students have a higher probabilityof attending college.But the film’s message must be kept in perspective.Traditional public schools are still where thevast majority of children get their educations, andthat will always be the case. More to the point,many public schools are very good — and someare truly amazing. The fact that some do a poorjob of educating their students shouldn’t blind usto this crucial fact or cause us to lose faith in theentire system. In the drive for educational reform,let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.I say this as the president of a college that hasone of the oldest education schools in the country;Hunter has been sending well-trained and highlymotivated teachers into public schools for generations,and all of us at the college are immenselyproud of their contributions. I also say it as themother of a daughter who has been in publicschools K-12 and who has received an excellenteducation there. She has had some truly wonderful,dedicated teachers — an experience shared bycountless thousands of other students across theensuring that every child gets a great education.No one who works in education will be satisfieduntil all students are prepared for the demands ofour ever-changing knowledge economy. Gettingthere, particularly during one of the toughesteconomic downturns of our time, will require thatwe all do more—and do it together .#Randi Weingarten is president of the AmericanFederation of Teachers.nation every year.It is right — it is imperative — that we as anation focus on the parts of the public schoolsystem that are dysfunctional and dedicate ourselvesto fixing them. But it would be a seriousmistake to assume that the system is completelybroken. Making that assumption can only lead tomisguided policies and poor decisions.Instead, we need to appreciate the public schoolteachers who are doing a great job. We needto learn what works in schools, then support itand replicate it. And, as Secretary of EducationArne Duncan has pointed out, we need to keepimproving the quality of teacher preparation — arole in which, I am proud to say, Hunter is takingnational leadership.I am especially proud of our Teacher U, a collaborationof several educational organizations —including some top-flight charter schools — thatworks on the principle that great teaching can betaught. I am also proud of our digital video programthat tapes student teachers as they interactwith children in classroom settings. The studentteachers and their professors can then reviewwhat went right or wrong, an invaluable trainingtool, and many of the tapes become case studiesfor future student teachers. The list of innovationsgoes on.One of the main purposes of charter schoolsis to create competition for the public system bygiving parents and children choices. That’s a valuablecontribution, no question about it. But let’sremember that charters will always be a supplementto the system, never a replacement. The goalis to improve public schools, not abandon them. #Jennifer J. Raab is president of Hunter College.Richmond, VirginiaKurt Landgraf, ETS Pres. & CEO RefocusesPremier Testing OrganizationTo the Editor:I must say that Mr. Landgraf is a person of greatintegrity and one of the most honest people thatI have met. I worked for him while at DuPontPharmaceuticals. He pushed me to be the bestI could be and mentored me. He helped me toLETTERS TO THE EDITORbelieve in myself as a minority and he was notafraid to push the envelope and make paradigmshifts for people, like me. Thanks Kurt!Horace JeffriesNew York, New YorkClosing the Opportunity GapTo the Editor:Kudos to you, Danielle, for writing this insightfularticle. Opportunity and Access are two keycomponents to help young and older people seebeyond their immediate environments. The exposureto opportunities and the concomitant supportare so essential to helping youth and adultsvisualize positive alternatives and options anddevelop a renewed confidence as they think of themany possibilities within their reach. #Fern KhanBrooklyn, New YorkExclusive Interview with Michelle RheeTo the Editor:I am a New York City principal serving underMayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein whoempowered us to transform an “F” school to an“A” school. I loved this article. CongratulationsChancellor Rhee on your work.Dakota Keyes

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4 COLLEGES & GRADuate Schools ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ NOV/DEC 2010Pres. Lisa Staiano-Coico,The City College of New YorkBy Joan Baum, Ph.D.Introducing Dr. Lisa Staiano-Coico, the newlyappointed president of The City College of NewYork, the first-ever CUNY alumna to assumethis office at the 163-year-old college, MatthewGoldstein, the CUNY chancellor, reiterated the“crucial” importance in having “visionary, energetic”people in top positions at CUNY. Hisadjectives were underscored by Charles Shorter,a trustee, who chaired the search committee thatselected Dr. Staiano-Coico, a Brooklyn Collegegraduate, to be City College’s 12th president.In Dr. Staiano-Coico, he said, the college getsa “superstar,” not only a scientist with finecredentials, but a passionate leader. Indeed,in a recent interview with Education Update,President Staiano-Coico’s passion and purposewere on articulate and energetic display.She reiterated remarks made in her acceptancespeech, reaffirming her dedication to “leadership,discovery and impact.” Expanding briefly oneach of these, she noted that by “leadership” shemeant “collective leadership,” with all membersof the academic community working to promotepartnerships on campus and between campus andcommunity to ensure that City College studentshave a “collective impact” on the world. In hertalk with Education Update she acknowledgedthat the biggest challenge facing all CUNY collegesis “the shrinking budget,” which meansdoing more with less, but she sees the problem asa prompt “to be strategic, to prioritize.”Her top goal, she says, is to increase graduationand retention rates, and she is pursuing variousenrollment and tracking tactics to this end. Hersecond goal, to support the faculty, is alreadyunder way in the form of RFPs for ten grants toencourage collaboration among faculty from differentdisciplines. Her third goal is to strengthenpartnerships with the community, both localand citywide, an initiative that includes offeringscholarships to high school students in the areaand continuing an impressive internship programwhere students not only serve in communityagencies but incorporate what they’ve learnedback into their academic lives. A fourth goal is toenergize the alumni, role models of working menand women who have made it. She mentions howsurprised students are to learn that her own earlywork in science was as a lowly lab technician andgofer. “That’s how you start making your dreamscome true.”Although President Staiano-Coico spoke abouther interest in the sciences, social sciences,humanities and arts, she reinforced ChancellorGoldstein’s theme that “this is the decade ofscience.” Psychology is the most popular majoron campus, but it is the forthcoming AdvancedScience Research Center at City College thathas the president’s major attention and that, inthe spirit of interdisciplinary study, will incorporatethe other disciplines as it moves to become“the jewel in the CUNY decade of the sciencescrown,” a research center for both undergraduatesand graduate students. She believes it is a lifechangingmoment when a student gets excitedCOLLEGE PRESIDENTS SERIESabout science — it certainly was for her whena dynamic biology teacher confirmed for herwhat her early reading of a book about rocks andminerals sparked — that she loved science. It wasunusual, she recalled, for a girl from Brooklynto have been so motivated, but she credits hermother and father for being supportive. Theearlier students become exposed to science andfirst-class scientists, the better. Her most rewardingmoments have been — and will continue tobe — seeing students who began in a lab move onto major careers in medicine and science, “pursuingtheir dreams.”To the goal of promoting science, Dr. Staiano-Coico couldn’t have come more prepared as bothresearcher and administrator. Her recent work onalcohol and drug abuse prevention for first-yearcollege students is continuing. Though immersedin her new administrative life, she regularlyattends meetings with colleagues from Cornelland Temple and now CUNY to discuss findingsabout prevention programs in urban settings.And she speaks whenever she can to high schoolstudents about how “drugs and alcohol can derailtheir lives.” City College has residence halls,where some youngsters will be on their own forthe first time and will perhaps be vulnerable,especially to alcohol. She wants to add moreresidence hall counselors and develop more programsthat will “de-stigmatize” the problems ofdrugs and alcohol and integrate research data andoutreach activities.She is, and will continue to be, a hands-onCEO. She meets with students every secondTuesday of the month at an open table in thecafeteria (“what, only two microwaves?”), holdingtown hall meetings and inviting students toher house for dinner. For sure, she will be ableto talk to them about more than science. A StiegLarsson fan and a lover of Thomas Hardy, sheexhibits the broad and deep learning she wouldinspire in others. Respice, Adspice, Prospice, asthe City College motto has it: Look back, lookat, look ahead. #Benno Schmidt HonoredBenno Schmidt, chairperson of the Board ofTrustees of The City University of New York,will receive the sixth annual Philip Merrill Awardof the American Council of Trustees and Alumni(ACTA) for Outstanding Contributions to LiberalArts Education. The presentation took place ata gala dinner at the University of PennsylvaniaMuseum of Archaeology and Anthropologyin Philadelphia.The Merrill Award honors those who havemade an extraordinary contribution to theadvancement of liberal arts education, core curricula,and the teaching of Western civilizationand American history.“At a time when the liberal arts are under siegeand many educators are paralyzed by the face ofa changing world, Benno Schmidt has emerged achampion for the arts and letters and a forwardthinkinginnovator committed to delivering qualityinstruction to all college students,” said AnneNeal, president of ACTA. “Whether protectingacademic freedom or building a model communitycollege with strong general educationrequirements, Benno has been at the epicenterPres. Mitchel B. Wallerstein,Baruch CollegeBy Joan Baum, Ph.D.In office for only four months, Dr. MitchelB. Wallerstein, the seventh president of BaruchCollege of the City University of New York, talksconfidently and with humor about the pleasuresand challenges (“surprises I call them”) of hisnew position. Of the delights, he cites walking thehalls and meeting the students, marveling at the“veritable United Nations” that Baruch Collegerepresents due to its diversity, with more than160 nationalities represented in its undergraduateand graduate student body, and the enviableacademic ratings that it receives. Of the surprises,the main one, he says, was learning “the extent ofthe state’s fiscal crisis,” a reality he knows that heshares with colleagues at CUNY and nation wide,but one that he is striving not to allow to affectadversely student services, academic programs, orhis vision for the college for the next five years.Though the paint is barely dry in his office onEast 22nd Street, one of seven Baruch Collegebuildings in the area, President Wallerstein says hewants to be more visible and “engage more activelywith students”; and to that end he has instituted amonthly “Pizza With The President” discussiongroup, open to all students, approximately 30 at atime, that includes student government leaders aswell as first year students and graduate students.“If you feed them, they will come,” he says witha knowing smile. And then he adds that he alsoattends the college’s sports events — basketball,of course, but also so-called “minor” sports suchas ping pong. He’s amazed at the fierce skills studentsbring to the game. The president is, in short,impressively informed about the college, its uniquehistory, its prestigious current reputation, and itscurrent events.Students admitted to Baruch, PresidentWallerstein points out, score well on the SAT exam.In fact, the Fall 2010 incoming freshmen classhas an average score of 1220, leading the chargefor academic excellence at CUNY colleges. Healso cites the recent “bests” Baruch has collected,badges colorfully displayed on the college’s Website that show that Baruch has become competitivewith some of the “elite” colleges across the countryin academic achievement, value and diversity.The current fiscal constraints, moreover, have notdampened the president’s pursuit of wishes anddreams. A current campaign to raise $150 millionhas already brought in close to $110 million.It’s onward and upward, given the college’s continuedenhancement of undergraduate programsand of those leading to its masters’ in BusinessAdministration and in Public Affairs. And maybe,the president says, there could be down the linea fourth school at Baruch that focuses on communicationsand information sciences and creativecurricular arrangements with the graduate school.In any case, the momentum at Baruch, is clearlyinterdisciplinary and international.Named after its philanthropic founder, BernardM. Baruch, and started as a men-only school ofbusiness and civic administration that traces its historyto the founding of the first free public institutionof higher education in the U.S. in 1847, BaruchCollege has become a “mecca” for women, whonow constitute 57 percent of an approximate totalenrollment of slightly more than 17,000 students.A senior college of CUNY known not only for itsZicklin School of Business, the largest of its kindin the country, but also for the Weissman Schoolof Arts and Sciences and the School of PublicAffairs, this is a natural place for the new president,considering his extraordinary career and variedprofessional background across disciplines. Beforecoming to CUNY, Dr. Wallerstein served as deanof the Maxwell School of Citizenship and PublicAffairs at Syracuse University (2003-2010), whichhas been ranked as the leading school of public andinternational affairs in the country for the past sixteenyears. Before that, he was vice president of theJohn D. and Catherine T, MacArthur Foundationin Chicago (1998-2003), where he directed theProgram on Global Security and Sustainability;and previous to that, confessedly smitten withWashington politics, he accepted PresidentClinton’s offer to be Deputy Assistant Secretaryof Defense for Counterproliferation Policy, andSenior Defense Representative for Trade Security.An elected member of the Council on ForeignRelations, the International Institute for StrategicStudies and an elected Fellow of the NationalAcademy of Public Administration, PresidentWallerstein, a native New Yorker, holds a Ph.D.and M.S. degree in Political Science from MITand an A.B. from Dartmouth College. His selectionas president of the prestigious college speaksmultitudes about him, Baruch, the mission of theCity University, and the nature of higher educationin an increasingly complex world. For surePresident Wallerstein’s latest book, “CombatingTerrorism: Strategies and Approaches” (2007), afive-star entry on Amazon, co-written with WilliamC. Banks and Renée de Nevers, is sure to continueto make him a much-sought out expert on a timelyand significant subject, as he brings to his newrole as the college’s CEO ideas for strategies andapproaches to make Baruch an even more significantplayer in academe and on the world stage. #of higher education reform efforts for more thantwo decades. We are very proud to recognize himfor this award,” Neal continued.CUNY has undergone an academic renaissanceunder Benno Schmidt’s leadership as chairperson.Before joining the CUNY Board, he ledMayor Rudolph Giuliani’s task force on revitalizingthe CUNY system. As president of YaleUniversity from 1986 to 1992 he was known forhis outspoken defense of freedom of expressionand liberal education. Before joining Yale, he wasdean of Columbia University Law School where,in 1973, he became, at age 29, one of the youngesttenured professors in Columbia’s history. #

NOV/DEC 2010 ■ For Parents, Educators & Students ■ Education updateCUNY Month Observer:Education Update 11/5/10 11:58 AM Page 15NOVEMBERISOpen houses, admissions and financial aid work-shops,lectures, museum exhibits, sports tournaments,book talks, and panel discussions with distinguishedprofessors, achieving students and honored guests.See what CUNY offers in November!NOV.10BOROUGH OFMANHATTANCOMMUNITYCOLLEGE“Focus onFamilyHealth &Fitness”2 P.M. to4 P.M.NOV.11MACAULAY HONORSCOLLEGEMacaulayPerspectives:ReimaginingFunnyPATTY MARX,HUMORIST(SATURDAY NIGHTLIVE) AND AUTHOR6 P.M.to 8 P.M.NOV.14LEHMAN COLLEGENew Orleans NightWITH PIANISTALLEN TOUSSAINT,TRUMPETERNICHOLAS PAYTONAND JOEKROWN TRIOTICKETS$25-$3520% CUNYDISCOUNT6 P.M.FOR A COMPLETE LISTING OF OPEN HOUSES AT ALL CUNY COLLEGES AND DETAILS ON HUNDREDS OF OTHER EVENTS DURING CUNY MONTH, VISIT WWW.CUNY.EDU/CUNYMONTHNOV.16COLLEGE OFSTATEN ISLANDNew YorkPhilharmonicQuartet7:30 P.M.NOV.17HUNTER COLLEGEIrish VoicesSeriesLIZ SMITH, NEWS-PAPER COLUMNIST7 P.M.NOV.18THE CITY COLLEGE2010 NobelLaureate MarioVargas Llosa“RETURN OFTHE MONSTERS”PRESIDENT’SLECTURE5:30 P.M.NOV.30BOROUGHOF MANHATTANCOMMUNITYCOLLEGE2010 CUNYCollege Fairfor Veterans3 P.M. to 7 P.M.(Call in advance of attending events to confirm date/time details and whether registration is necessary.)BREAKING BOUNDARIES:Educational Opportunities and New CareersCUNY campusesare celebrating in November!Visit cuny.edu/cunymonth

6 COLLEGES & GRADuate Schools ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ NOV/DEC 2010An Interview with Acting Dean Robert Greenberg, Hunter CollegeJAGUARSAMERICAS’ SUCCESS STORYJane Alexander and Alan Rabinowitz, PhDJOIN 92ND STREET Y as we explore Panthera’s Jaguar Corridor, the mostcomprehensive and transformative strategy ever implemented to savethe jaguar. Learn about this range-wide plan, which stands as the jaguars’only hope for genetic diversity and long-term survival in the wild.Special offer: Get $10 student tickets! Use discount code JAGSEATS GO FAST—ORDER YOURS TODAY!Order online and save 50% on service fees atWWW.92Y.ORG/PANTHERA or call 212.415.5500.92nd Street Y · Lexington Avenue at 92nd StreetAn agency of UJA-FederationTranscribed by Marissa SchainDr. Robert Greenberg is Dean of the Schoolof Arts and Sciences at Hunter College. He isone of the most unusual deans in the nationAt the age of 13, he suffered retinitis pigmentosa,which rendered him legally blind. Bythe time he got to college, he couldn’t readvery well and in graduate school he needed toget readers. Nevertheless, he got a FulbrightScholarship, studied in Yugoslavia, majoredin Slavic languages, and ultimately obtaineda Ph.D. from Yale University. His life is a triumphof the human spirit.Dr. Robert Greenberg (RG): I was diagnosedwith retinitis pigmentosa when I was 13. Thefirst symptom is night blindness. For the first13 years until the diagnosis I was able to read.The night blindness was kind of a nuisance, butI managed. The prognosis was not very good. Iwas told by my 30’s I would lose most of mysight. I got through most of middle school andhigh school. By the time I got to college, it wasgetting harder and harder for me to handle readingmaterials. I was considered legally blind byage 18. The universities and colleges said thestate of New York did provide services and help. Icould have readers, I could get mobility training,I could get any other independent living skillswhen I became legally blind at the age of 17,Then I graduated from Sarah Lawrence Collegein 1983 and I got accepted to Yale for a Ph.D. inYugoslavic languages. I began Yale in fall of ’83I remember this day pretty clearly. I was tryingto write a paper, it was 1984, and suddenly thedocument on the screen didn’t look right. Therewas hole in the middle of the word. Say you werereading the word “history” you would see “h andy” but nothing in between. So I went to the ophthalmologist,he said it’s just the retinal degenerationthat reached the center. Itwas only in one eye at the timebut it was definitely making thateye unusable for reading. Thiswas the first year of grad school.I took a few semesters off. Itbecame much more apparent thatI would have to not use my eyeat all. Very soon after the othereye did the same thing. So Icame to Yale in ‘83 kind of ableto read normal text pretty well.By the time I came to finish mycourse work in spring of 1986, Icame back without the ability toread and then I had readers, and I had cassettes,I had hundreds of cassettes. Most of my workwas in other languages, like Russian, Serbian,Croatian, Czech, many Slavic languages. I had tofind those readers.But I kept on schedule. I became a teachingfellow. Nothing was easy those days. First of allthey saw me as having gone through that transition.My professors at Yale weren’t sure I couldhandle it. If you come in blind, they saw it as ifyou had proven yourself. Here I am becomingblind while there, it’s a lot harder for them toswallow that. But luckily they gave me a chanceand I became a teaching fellow in 1986-87. I keptto my schedule. I did my exams on time. I didn’tlose anytime. They accommodated me. Theymade some exams oral that were not oral.PR: What were some of the other accommodationsthey made?RG: They just started having scanners. The stateof New York was still sponsoring me. I was doinga residence in New York. They bought a computerfor me with a speech synthesizer. That helped mea lot. I had a computer; it wasn’t called JAWS. ItSUN, NOV 147:30 PMPhoto: Steve WinterWatch the CompleteLive Video Interviewwith Acting DeanRobert Greenbergonline atEducationUpdate.comwas called Vert Plus. It was cumbersome.PR: What do you use now besides the reader?RG: I use a note taker called Pac Mate. I usea little camera scanner. I can take a picture ofthis page and it will read it back to me. I use ascanner so we can scan a lot of things. It scansand reads it to me. Back then we didn’t have thattechnology. I remember also in 1988 I appliedfor the Fulbright Scholarship for my dissertationresearch in Yugoslavia and I was accepted.I was about to go and I needed to get a physicaldone. The doctor at the Yale clinic didn’t want toapprove me because of the blindness; he thoughtI would be in danger. There were still lots ofobstacles to overcome. But I challenged thatdoctor and complained. It was discriminatorywhat he was trying to go. But I did go and I hada great time. I went to Yugoslavia before it brokeapart. It changed my career because my career allfocused on Yugoslavia. I went back repeatedlyand became an expert on language and ethnicityof Yugoslavia. That was important to do. If I hadnot been standing up to that attitude and try tochange it, I wouldn’t be where I am today.PR: Where did you derive the strength andthe tenacity to advocate for yourself?RG: There was one organization that wasvery helpful called the National Federation ofthe Blind. In 1986 I won a scholarship with theNational Federation of the Blind. The New YorkState commissioner sent me something to applyto this scholarship. But they don’t just ask you togive you a check, they ask you to come to theirweek long convention in Kansas City, Missouri,Kansas City, July 1986. The reason they do thisthey want you to get something more than acheck. That’s where I derived a lot of strength. Imet a lot of people who were going through thesame thing I was going through and were not sittingat home. The truth of the matter is that 75%of blind people are still unemployed.PR: What do you attribute that to?RG: I think there are many reasons. I think partof it is how we’re educating people today. Part ofeducating blind people should be some form ofempowerment, yes you can strive for the top, yesyou can ambitious, no you can’t settle for less.Sometimes what happens is that some very wellmeaning schools where people want to help don’ttake this extra step. It’s not just “let’s teach thisperson basic things, reading, writing, cooking,sewing, get around. It should be much more. Ithink it’s the attitude. What I noticed when goingto this convention was this can do attitude. It’san attitude that hasn’t yet occurred in the sightedworld.PR: Do you think that was a crucial point?What about the other organizations of theblind?RG: The difference between all of these organizationsthat have wonderful programs for theblind, is that the one that I went to is an organizationOF the blind. We are the blind speaking forourselves. We went to these places and benefitedfrom them. But we feel strongly that we can domore. We want to be fully incorporated into societyand we’re working towards that so that in thefuture we can have a much higher percentage ofblind people working and getting college degrees.We have a lot of goalsPR: To what extent should parents and familiesbe trained as well to provide the propersupport system?RG: A lot of it is about attitude.When a parent fears that achild is going blind, they becomequite protective and quite worried,understandingly so. There’sa lot of fear among sighted peoplewhat it must feel like to be blind.There’s a loss of control and asense of what to expect when yougo outside. Many people fear andthey become hopeless. They wantto stay home and be protected andhave everything done for them.We’re trying to explain to peoplethat that’s a normal human reaction,and it’s not that there’s a magic pill to changeyour attitude. But if you want to live your life thatway, it’s not going to be particularly happy.I’ll give you an example, there was somebodywho was losing her sight and she wouldn’t use acane. That’s because she didn’t want to be stigmatizedwith the cane. Blindness doesn’t meaneverything is black in front of your eyes. I toldher to use the cane. You’ll have a way of extractingyourself from some place you shouldn’t begoing. I was in that situation where I fell into anopen manhole in 1985 before I used my cane. It’shard to let go.PR: What were your greatest obstacles?RG: One of the biggest obstacles was probablygetting my first job, it was at a prestigiousuniversity, Georgetown, I just finished my Ph.D.You would think that was the big obstacle, but Ihad the help, I was doing ok. I went into my jobinterview. They were well meaning people askingme how would I direct homework. It wasn’tabout me or whether I knew the subject. I guessI answered ok, because I did get the job, but thatwas an obstacle. Once I had that on my resumethat was my first full time teaching job, it becamemuch easier.PR: How did you manage in Yugoslavia?Were there any specific obstacles there thatyou didn’t find in the United States?RG: Yes, people park on the sidewalk. I hadtwo Fulbrights, one in Yugoslavia in 1989-90and one in Mexico in the Yugoslav Republic in2001. I think that speaking the language disarmedeverybody. I was able to communicate and thatreally helped. They were very accepting. It wasvery uncommon. You would meet someone onthe street and see the Union of the Blind ofCroatia or Serbia. Blindness is a worldwide issue.In some respects, I was a foreigner anyway so theblindness was just an extra thing. No one made afuss about it. The fact that I spoke their languagemade them very accepting me no matter what.PR: If you were giving a recommendationto Arnie Duncan, Mayor Bloomberg, or JoelKlein about how to make life easier aboutblind people, what would you suggest?RG: Right now accessibility is important forelectronic resources. When books are submittedto the Library of Congress electronically, theyshould be made available for blind people. Wehave access to the Library for the Blind, it’s anew electronic form. But those are types that areread by professionals. When a book comes out,it might not be read for another six months. Ifwe can download things on our computer, andhave the copyright allow people to read bookselectronically, it would be a big plus.One of the issues in NYC is if you’re goingto require hybrid taxis, there should be a way ofknowing when a hybrid taxi is idling. If you’re ina hybrid car, and it’s waiting at the red light, youdon’t hear it, it’s silent. If a blind person thinks itis clear to cross the street, they might be wrong.In trucks and other cars, you can hear the gas.There must be a way to tackle that issue.Another issue is the new MTA subway platformswhen they announce when the next subwayis coming. Some buses do talk which isvery convenient. Not just for blind people, fortourists too. That is where Europe is ahead. It’sall very clear. #Marissa Schain is an intern at EducationUpdate and a senior at Brooklyn College.

8 Special Education ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ NOV/DEC 2010Exclusive Interview with Dr. Harold Koplewicz, CEO, Child Mind InstituteTranscribed by Marissa SchainIs your child Dyslexicor experiencing school failure?If so, we may be the solution.We strive to help childrennot only have the skills neededto learn, but want to learn.TheSterlingSchoolWe take our commitment seriouslyOrton Gillingham trained staffSmall classes withindividualized attentionEducation Update caught up with Dr. HaroldKoplewicz, president of the Child Mind Institute,to discuss the latest issues in children’s mentalhealth care and what makes the Institute anunusual center.Dr. Pola Rosen (PR): What is the mission ofThe Child Mind Institute?Dr. Harold Koplewicz (HK): We’re a relativelyyoung organization. We just celebrated ourfirst anniversary. We have a very big mission.Our mission is transform mental health care forthe world’s children to fulfill their full potential.In this country alone we have 50 million childrenwho have a real psychiatric disorder and less thanhalf of them get help. We want to change theway we deliver the care, how we identify thesekids who have these problems, and we want toimprove the treatments. We want to improve thetreatments that are out there and also find newtreatments so that kids can really do well at work,which is school, at love, which is most of the timewith their family, and at play which is hobbies orsports, or activities with their friends. What everyparent wants for their child is to have full lives.PR: How do you plan to do identification?HK: Diagnosis in child mental health is stillbeing done the old fashioned way, which istaking a history. In medicine, history taking isclearly the most important instrument we have.If you’re speaking to a man in his 50s who haspain in his chest that is radiating down his leftarm, you are concerned it might be some heartattack, some kind of myocardial infarction; themuscle of the heart is not getting the right bloodsupply. There are many ways we can test thehypothesis because we have instruments that cantake pictures of the heart. We have ways of lookinginside the heart. We are getting there with thebrain and what we are looking for is a new wayof making these diagnoses.We started the Healthy Grain Network. It’s theidea of taking 10,000 kids and putting them into afunctional MRI, which is different than a structuralMRI. It is an imaging machine that can tell youhow the brain is functioning. We have figured outthat if you let a child stay at rest, the brains ofkids who have ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivitydisorder], or have autism or have anxiety,the brain talks to itself differently than a typicalchild. When the brain is at rest, we can see someArt, music, culinary arts andcomputers for a rich educationNOW AcceptING ADmISSIONScall 718-625-3502WWW.SteRLINGScHOOL.cOmRuth Arberman,Director of the Sterling School299 Pacific Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201Watch the CompleteLive Video Interviewwith the Child MindInstitute CEO, Dr. HaroldKoplewicz online atEducationUpdate.comreal differences. If we can get thousands of kidsacross the world, to lie in a machine and get thesekinds of pictures, this would be the equivalent ofwhat the growth charts are like when you go toa pediatrician. We need to do that to the brain.Then we have to find a group of kids who havedisorders and see how their brain developmentis different in the development than typical kids.PR: Will this change the face of mentalhealth care?HK: This is truly going to be a game changerin many ways. We are trying to encourage ourscientists to break down asylums. Traditionallyyou would have a scientist at Columbia, orsomeone from Harvard who wouldn’t sharetheir data until they had published it. We want agroup of scientists who are part of our scientificresearch council from ten different institutionswith expertise from many different areas to beable to collaborate with each other and to be ableto put their data online even before they use it, sowe can speed up the process.In many ways child psychiatric disorders is thelast frontier. If you think about heart disease, 30years ago people, who had a heart attack, becamecardio cripples. If they survived they were neverthe same. Today with stents, with new medication,with bi-pass surgery, we can really changethe world.We haven’t been able to do that yet with psychiatry.We also know that 75 percent of seriouspsychiatric illness occurs before the age of 24, 50percent before the age of 14.The biggest bang for the buck that we can getis finding treatments that will work on kids early.PR: Will there be financial benefits for thenation if you treat symptoms and illness early?HK: I think truly while child psychiatric illnessis misunderstood; there are many myths aboutit. It doesn’t really make a difference what yourpolitical affiliation is. This is good for our nation.Whether you are a liberal who cares desperatelyabout the good of children’s lives, mentalhealth is good for our children. They’ll do betterin school, more likely to graduate, less likely todrop out and get involved in illegal activities.If you’re a fiscal conservative, it is good for us tofind more solutions for good mental health for ourkids. Because if you do stay in school and you dograduate your chances of paying taxes and becominga contributor to society are much greater thanif you find school so frustrating because you can’tsit still in school, or you’re too anxious to attend,and frankly becoming someone who takes fromsociety than someone who is able to contribute.PR: In re MRIs: Will that research andthose tools be able to tell us that a child hasADHD or has autistic tendencies? Will thoseMRI’s be able to differentiate between some ofthe diagnoses we have out there now?KH: The Holy Grail has always been the bloodtests. If you have a cough and you are hackingaway and it bothers you tremendously and you goto the doctor, before he even takes a chest x-ray,if you have a fever and a cough and he takes ablood test, we can tell whether or not you have avirus or a bacterial infection. If you have a virus,we can tell the patient, “drink plenty of fluids andstay in bed, you will live longer than the virus.” Ifit’s a bacterial infection, there are specific antibioticsyou can take and have to take to make sureit doesn’t get worse.You’re not going to be able to get that specificblood test. But what we will be able to get arebiomarkers. If we can be able to tell the differencebetween the brain of a child who is typicalversus the brain of a child with autism tendencieson the Asperger and Autism spectrum versus thebrain of a child with ADHD, that becomes theconfirmation of a diagnoses. That in itself wouldbe very reassuring for parents. One of the hardestthings that parents have is A) accepting their childhas one of these disorder and B) the treatment.Very rarely has there been more controversythan the idea of medication for psychiatric disorders.Instead of embracing them and saying thatwe have a wonderful group of medications thatcan help children sit and focus…many people inthe public think that’s cheating or that’s teachingchildren to use drugs. The facts on this are completelyagainst that. In fact they say we know thatkids that are adequately medicated for ADHDearly are less likely to use drugs later. Kids thatare properly medicated for depression are lesslikely to self-medicate later.The truth is that psychiatric illness in children isnot only common but it’s quite treatable and childrenwho have these disorders can go on to livenormal lives if they get the treatment they deserve.PR: Are you planning outreach programsin schools?HK: More importantly than local schools, likeWilly Sutton said, the reason he robbed banksis that’s where the money is, and the reason wework in schools, is simply that’s where the kidsare. Teachers know children better than anybodyelse. If you talk to a group of parents who havethree children, their sample size is three. If agood teacher has 25 kids in her class every yearof third grade and she has been teaching for tenyears, she knows 250 eight-year-olds; she’s goingto tell you a lot.More importantly today because of all thebudget cuts, many schools are eliminating specialeducation or exclusion programs so teachers morethan ever really have to have skills in classroombehavior and classroom management. And if theycan’t do that, they end up spending so much timeon the child who’s making the most amount ofnoise and the other kids end up suffering. Schoolis supposed to be a place of learning, not a placeof psychiatric treatment. Teachers have to havethese kinds of skills.We’re now working on a pilot program for Teachfor America. We’re working on a program with theBoard of Education here in New York City to seeif we can establish programs that can be replicatedacross the nation. One of them, which I think ismost interesting, is a program called Parent ChildInteraction Therapy. We work with kids who aredisruptive and are off task. That program wasstarted by a group of people at the University ofFlorida. We are becoming the largest training site inPCIT. We train parents about what behaviors theyshould ignore, what behaviors they should actuallystop, and what behaviors they should praise. If yourkid is doing lots of things that you don’t like, whenthey do something that you do like, you tend notto praise it and you tend to ignore it and that’s notgood. And we train parents about these skills, weevaluate the child by observation, sometimes wego to school and observe then, and then we givethe parents a receiver they put in their ear. Eitherthrough a one-way mirror or through a camera, weare able to tell parents when they should ignorethings, what they should praise, and if they’re notpraising enough and to stop behavior that is reallydisruptive. It works fast in 6 to 10 sessions.Now we are transforming that teacher interactiontherapy. We ask them to take the most difficultchild they’re having difficulty managingout of the class and to work with that child infront of us. We give them skills to work with themost difficult child in praising them, in ignoringcertain behaviors and stopping certain behaviors,[and] they can generalize those skills for thewhole class.A good example of that would be if one childis constantly raising their hand and the other childrenin the class don’t raise their hand. If you concontinuedon page 9

NOV/DEC 2010 ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ Special Education9Dr. Harold Koplewiczcontinued from page 8stantly call on the child who raises their hand, theother children won’t answer. They will give up. Ifyou ignore the child who is raising their hand, thenthat child will stop raising his hand also. What’s ayoung teacher to do? We teach that teacher to slapthat hand and say “That’s a good hand! I like thathand, can you show me some other hands?”And so it’s not the question or the answer we’relooking for, it’s the behavior of raising your hand.We’re trying to teach teachers that just by changingsome of their behaviors, they can get more oftheir kids to raise their hands and then figure out ifthe kids are giving the right answer or not.If you think about the traditional way of psychotherapy,we used to play with children on the floorand hope we would get a better understanding ofwhat the child is thinking or feeling. Unfortunatelymany times the child would behave very well onthe one-to-one and you wouldn’t be able to generalizein the outside world. What we’re planning iswe’re wiring our new center. It’s going to consist ofover 23,000 square feet of space. If you treat a childintensely, if the child has terrible OCD, they can flyto New York, they can stay in a hotel with their parents,the can get 3 to 5 hours of intensive exposureand response prevention and medication. And theygo home, and how do we see them? We use Skypeand they get a booster session a week later so theydon’t have to come 100,000 miles. That’s what Imean by transforming the mental health care of ourchildren. How do we change the delivery and howdo we train you? Most importantly parents needto know more. Our Web site, which will launchin November, will be the destination of noncommercialinteraction that will give scientific soundinformation about mental health. Not only fromthe Child Mind Institute personnel and faulty, butfrom Columbia [University], Harvard, UCLA, theexperts in the world on our Web site.PR: What would you say is the prevalentmental illness among children today in thiscountry?HK: There are two, I think it depends on the age.In very young children, it’s disruptive disorders.About 5 percent of the population has ADHD. Wecan show you differences on MRIs versus a groupof typical kids. These are children who are clearlymore inattentive, more impulsive, and more hyperactivethan a child their age. Unfortunately it’sa lifetime illness. It doesn’t mean you can’t payattention, it means you lose your attention spanvery quickly when it becomes boring for you.The other common illness which I think is minimizedby the public is anxiety disorders. Anxietyis something we all experience. But in anxietydisorder…it lasts longer than two weeks. It’s a setof illogical worries that we can’t shake and affectsour behavior. It happens between 6 percent of thepopulation between the ages of 7 and 16 at anytime. That’s a conservative estimate. Very oftenthese kids don’t come to see a child psychologistor a mental health professional and they end up in apediatrician’s office because they have headaches orstomach aches. We can’t find the organic cause buttheir stomach ache and their headache is still realbecause it’s caused by their anxiety or this misfiringof the amygdale. Unfortunately this often is mislabeledor minimized with the hope that children willoutgrow it but unfortunately kids will either treat itthemselves or they will limit their lives.The good news is that there are so many psychosocialinterventions that work. Children whoare selectively mute who have a form of socialanxiety will not speak to strangers. They willonly talk to mom and dad. With intensive behavioraltherapy, within 5 days, you can get thosechildren to relax and [speak well]. We call it thebrain buddies program to do it in a fun way andto make parents feel less shameful or guilty thatthey’ve done something.PR: Is there a national program that youadmire that would serve as a paradigm forthe nation?HK: I think one of the reasons we decided tostart the Child Mind Institute, after spending 12years at NYU…is that typically what happensis that these programs are always a “PS” [postscript]. At Child’s Hospital, they were alwaysterrific at taking care of childhood cancer, atdiabetes or seizures, but it’s always a post script.When you think about mental health and whenyou think about psychiatry, child psychiatry isalways the afterthought. It became clear to us thatthe same way St. Jude’s truly tackled childhoodleukemia, we needed to create an institution thatis exclusively dedicated to transforming childmental health care. If we don’t have that, thenunfortunately whenever there is a cutback, orwhenever there are financial problems, there isLindamood-Bell® New York Learning CenterEducation Update - December 20101/2 Page Horizontal - 10.25” x 6.75”always something that may appear to be more lifethreatening or more important.Since this is in many ways the last frontier, thebrain is, in my opinion, the most exciting way to doexploration. But if you think about the bang for thebuck … there is just a tremendous amount of potential.And clearly everyone realizes that if you turnaround a child that was going to drop out and staysin school, or a child that was literally so unable tofocus or was unable to calm themselves down toattend school, you could really make a difference.Kids who have separation anxiety or school phobiaare significantly more likely to have panic attacks.Unfortunately we’re the only place that clearlycares about child mental health in a way that’sexclusive. Not to say that other things aren’timportant but we think this is the most importantthing we have to offer the nation. #L INDAMOOD B ELL ® L EARNING C ENTERSWe Teach Reading,Comprehension, and MathOur research-based individualized learning programgoes beyond traditional tutoring.The Right Evaluation The Right InstructionThe Right Learning Environment“After just a few weeks mygrades went up! Thanks!”Call now for information and to reserve your space:212-644-0650110 East 55th Street in New Yorkwww.LindamoodBell.com©Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes

New York City • NOV/DEC 2010 • 11Cancer Research FundHonors Dr. Charlotte FrankThe Israel CancerResearch Fund held anevening of breast cancerawareness at the homeof Acting Consul Generalof Israel in New York,Ido Aharoni. ICRF is thelargest single source ofprivate funds for cancerresearch in Israel . Theorganization has awardedmore than 1700 grantsto exceptional scientistsat all of Israel’s leadinginstitutions. These scientistsinclude the firstIsraelis ever to win theNobel Prize in chemistry.NYU COLLEGE OF NURSING“Feeling Good InYour Neighborhood”The NYU College of Nursing has beenawarded a $ 2.9 million, five (5) year, FederalHealth Resources and Administration (HRSA)grant to fund its Mobile Health Van Program(MHVP), “Feeling Good in Your Neighborhood”announced Dr. Terry Fulmer, Dean, NYUCollege of Nursing.“Feeling Good in Your Neighborhood” is acommunity outreach program offering schoolbasedprimary health care services to underservedand recent immigrant adolescents at BrooklynInternational High School, Prospect HeightsInternational High School, Brooklyn School forMusic and Theatre, and Urban Assembly Schoolof Music and Art. The new, fully equippedMobile Health Van is staffed by highly qualifiednurse practitioners, registered nurses and otherprofessionals who provide health care servicesin a friendly, safe environment.“The goal of the Mobile Health Van Programis to promote positive health outcomes andself-efficacy for adolescents whose studentpopulation is underserved and who have noschool-based health services,” says Dr. JudithHaber, Principal Investigator, Associate Dean ofGraduate Programs, NYU College of Nursing.“The grant will enable the MHVP to continueto strengthen the overall health capacity of theseteens, their families and communities.”“With HRSA’s generous contribution, theMobile Health Van Program over time will haveestablished itself as a financially self-sufficient,replicable model of nurse managed communitybasedprimary care,” says Terry Fulmer, Dean,NYU College of Nursing. “The tenacity anddedication of our faculty has lead to the continuedsuccess of the Program.”The Mobile Health Van Program will implementthe “Set-Up, Catch-Up, Hook-Up” modelof nurse managed primary care coordinationwhich seeks to address primary care serviceswith a three-fold approach: “Set-up” involvesan assessment including completion of healthhistory, practices, and care needs; “Catch-up” isthe intervention phase when outstanding healthneeds and priorities are dealt with through primarycare clinical services and health literacyeducation; and finally, “Hook-up” refers to theprocess of linking the student with insurancecarrier/enroller, community based primary careprovider and primary care medical home specialistservice for follow up of specific healthconcerns and/or linkages/referrals to communityresources.#Acting Consul General of Israel in New York, Ido Aharoni,and Dr. Charlotte Frank, who was honored at the 2009ICRF Women of Action benefitDr. Bertrand Bell: Championof Graduate Medical EducationRevisits The Bell Commissionby Jacob Appel, M.D., J.D.Most medical educators are interested in whattheir students know. Dr. Bertrand M. Bell, aleading professor at the Albert Einstein Collegeof Medicine, is just as interested in what theydon’t know. “What is the greatest challengefacing medical students and house officers?” heasks. “Knowing that you have to ask when youdon’t know the answer.” He adds that “medicalculture still says the opposite—and that’s dangerous.Arrogance [among physicians-in-training]is still a major problem. If you don’t admit whatyou don’t know, that’s how you get into trouble.”Dr. Bell knows a lot about what junior physiciansdo and do not know. Studying andimproving the training of medical interns andresidents—he calls them “graduate medical students”—hasbeen a central focus of a medicalcareer that has spanned more than half a century.He is most famous for giving his eponym to the1987 final report of New York State’s Ad HocAdvisory Committee on Emergency Services,which he chaired. “Using the formal name ofthe committee was too long so the press decidedto call it the Bell Commission. There weresome very prominent people on the committee,”reflects Bell. These included Thomas Morris, thePresident of Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital,and Robert Friedlander, the Dean of AlbanyMedical College. “But I was the chairman, soit’s named after me.” The committee was authorizedby Governor Mario Cuomo following thepublicity surrounding the controversial death ofeighteen-year-old Libby Zion at The New YorkHospital in 1984. Among its best-known recommendationswas an eighty-hour work week formedical residents.Bell is clearly pleased that, over time, theBell Commission’s hour recommendations havegained traction nationally. However, he remainsconcerned that many of the Commission’s recommendationsregarding supervision have goneunheeded. “Our findings…emphasized the issueof supervision,” he wrote in a follow-up article,“but it is the hour issue that has always been thefocus of the profession and the public.” Twentythreeyears after his initial report, he still viewsbetter supervision as crucial to improving medicalcare. “Graduate medical students need to bewalked through the process [of delivering care]step-by-step,” he notes. He derides the dictumof “see one, do one, teach one,” which hasDr. Eve Kurtin Honored in Los Angelesbeen a guiding philosophy in American medicaleducation for many decades. “I like to say ‘seeone, do one, teach one, kill one,’” he observes,emphasizing that doing a procedure one timeis clearly not enough experience to perform itunsupervised in the future.Needless to say, many in the medical professionresisted Bell’s efforts, particularly thoserelating to duty hours restrictions, on the groundsthat transferring patients between residents morefrequently would lead to increased medicalerrors. Dr. Bell has one word for those critics:“Palaver.” He adds that there is no empiricalevidence to support their claims, but much tosupport his own. “All they have is the Fiddleron the Roof argument. Do you know what thatis? Tradition! It dates all the way back to thefirst residency program at Johns Hopkins.” Bellnotes pointedly that the Fiddler on the Roofmodel kills patients.Even before his service on the Bell Commission,Dr. Bell was no stranger to controversy. “I wasalways doing controversial things,” recalls Bell.“I write letters to people. Lots of letters. Youknow those window guards in hospitals andhousing projects? That’s me. I got the ire ofEd Koch when I insisted they would save lives,but he agreed to make it happen—if I stoppedwriting him letters. I think we saved a lot oflives that way.” Bell is also regarded by manyas the father of emergency medicine, as he wasone of the first practitioners to approach emergencycare as a separate discipline from generalinternal medicine. Bell faced reprisals afterhis Commission’s recommendations and wasultimately replaced as Director of AmbulatoryCare Services as Einstein, likely as a result ofhis efforts. Yet he has no regrets. “I’ve neverbelieved in tenure,” he observes with relish, “butI have tenure….I still had a wonderful job thatnobody could take away from me. They pay meevery day to do a mitzvah.”At age eighty-one, Bell still enjoys his calling.“Many of my patients have died, but I still gointo work four days a week,” he says. “And Istill try to find out what I don’t know. I discuss‘the case of the week’ with my daughter [whopractices medicine in Minnesota]. I love going towork. I work with a wonderful bunch of peopleand everyone knows my name.” Indeed, it maybe the only medical eponym many physicians-intrainingever remember.#Eve Kurtin Steinberg was honored recentlyat Friends of Sheba Medical Center’s annualWomen of Achievement Luncheon at the BeverlyHills Hotel in California.Since 1987, the Women of AchievementAwards have recognized women who distinguishthemselves by their professional accomplishments,outstanding humanitarianism, or heartfeltcommitment to making a difference in the livesof others. Friends of Sheba presents the Womenof Achievement Awards to those who embodythe spirit of compassion, selflessness and givingon which Sheba Medical Center was founded.The recipients’ leadership and creativity, alongwith their boundless spirit and goodwill, inspirehope and peace for the future.Dr. Eve Kurtin Steinberg is passionate aboutinvesting in people, whether they are patients andhealth care providers, members of her community,or in Israel. Her life’s work is dedicated toinspiring innovation that will improve the qualityof lives around the world.For more than 30 years, Eve has been a leadinghealth care executive and investor. She currentlyserves on the boards of Vantage Point VenturePartners and associated companies: CenterreHealthcare, Asteres, SafeLife, Allocade, andPhreesia. She joined Vantage Point from PacificVenture Group, where she was managingdirector. Prior to that, she was thefounder and CEO of Physician VentureManagement and was a vice presidentwith American Medical International.She currently serves on the board ofthe American Physician Foundationand is a founding member of theRAND Health Board of Advisors.Eve received a Doctorate ofPharmacy from the Universityof the Pacific and an MBA fromthe University of California, LosAngeles.#

12 spotlight on schools ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ NOV/DEC 2010Young Ambassador StudentExchange Programby Maya Tadmor-AndermanAs part of a month long exchange programsponsored by the America-Israel FriendshipLeague (AIFL), forty Israeli high school studentstraveled to the United States recentlyon the Youth Ambassador Student ExchangeProgram (YASE). Beginning with a weekof home hospitality in cities across the US,the Israeli students joined youth from NewYork, Arizona, Oklahoma and Virginia for aweek of workshops on cultural understandingand tolerance in the nation’s Capitol.Dr. Charlotte Frank, senior vice-president ofMcGraw-Hill, has played an instrumental role indeveloping and nurturing YASE, ensuring that,what began as a fledgling operation in New YorkCity in 1980 when she was Executive Directorof Curriculum and Instruction at the Departmentof Education, extended to other cities across theUnited States.The unforgettable week of activitiesincluded team and leadership workshops,tours of the United States Capitol, a visit tothe national mall and US Holocaust museumto hear from a survivor and a formal dinnerfeaturing Youth Ambassador student alumniand AIFL board members.The next step on the journey took the studentsto New York City visiting the world renownedsites, seeing a Broadway show and getting an indepth look at diplomacy with a tour of the UnitedNations. Students also spent a day at LehmanYouth and Philanthropy InitiativeLast year Marymount School of New York wasthe first U.S. school to take part in the Youth andPhilanthropy Initiative (YPI), an internationalprogram that includes participants from over250 schools in Canada and the United Kingdom.According to Sabra McKenzie-Hamilton, aMarymount School religious studies teacher andClass X advisor, “We adopted YPI because itsupplemented Marymount’s pre-existing socialjustice curriculum, augmenting what was alreadyin place.” In the past, Marymount students studiedlocal social service agencies to develop ideasfor service projects and created action plans toparticipate. YPI added a financial literacy componentto this model.With YPI, Class X students are expected toprepare an in-depth study of a local social issueand find a grassroots agency that raises and usesfunds to tackle that issue. Once the agency isidentified, students must analyze the nuts andbolts of the agency’s budget, just as any informeddonor would do. Ultimately the students aredetermining what it is about a particular agencythat attracts people to fund it. As part of the program,students integrate all of their research onthe social issue, the agency, and its finances toHigh School in the Bronx to share their experienceswith local students. The week of activitiesculminated with a celebration held in their honorbefore the delegation headed to Israel, whereAmerican Youth Ambassadors will live withIsraeli host families and experience Israeli lifeand culture first hand.The goal of YASE is to enable students fromdifferent backgrounds and cultures to build abridge of cross-cultural understanding and longlasting friendships. When you see them gatheredtogether they all look alike, sing together andthe emphasis is always that we are more similarthan we are different. The Youth Ambassadorsreturn energized and excited to maintain theirfriendships and share their experiences with theirrespective surrounding communities through participationin the many AIFL follow up activities.#MARYMOUNT SCHOOL NEWScreate a multimedia presentation promoting their“adopted” agency. Just as agencies must do inthe “real world,” student teams must compete forfunding with other worthy agencies by revealingtheir passion, telling the most compelling story,and representing an informed position, completewith compassion and creativity.Approximately 14 groups are distilled into 4groups that participate in a final round of judgingby an independent panel. The best presentationwins a $5,000 grant to the “winning” agency.The process weaves together multiple disciplinesincluding economics, performing arts (publicspeaking), and religious studies. The programteaches students “to be advocates as they usetheir voices creatively, bring attention to anissue, and encourage others to join,” reflectedMs. McKenzie‐Hamilton.Marymount has been guided in its implementationof the program by the vision and generousfunding of a parent, who seized upon the potentialcareer opportunities that it offers to women.YPI promotes the Marymount mission by presentingstudents with the occasion to practiceethical decision-making as they deal with globalissues at the local level. #Race to NowhereExposes Destructive Impactof Academic PressureBy Gillian GranoffIn her documentary “Race To Nowhere,” VickyAbeles takes a courageous look at the destructiveimpact of today’s excessively rigorous academicclimate on our children. Through profiles ofseveral high school students, the film relays theamount of stress that today’s students feel as aresult of homework, extracurricular activities,MOVIE REVIEWsports, tutors, home chores and other responsibilities.Faced with these crippling demands — andthe pressures associated with them — many ofthese children turn to very adult and destructivebehaviors. Considering the strain and, often, thedamage that students experience as a result of thisacademic lifestyle, Abeles’ film asks: Where isthis path leading us, and is it worth it?FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT’S DESKMake Time For Your Kids,Especially When It’s Toughby Dr. Carole G. Hankinwith Brian SutchOne of the most significant challenges modernfamilies face is finding the time to actually betogether as a family. While technology continuesto draw people closer together through mobilemessaging and social media applications suchas Facebook, the demands of our modern worldcontinually make it more difficult for parentsand children to spend as much time together asthey would like to.We have come a long way from the “idyllic”1950s image of a traditional family: the hardworkingdad, the stay-at-home mom, two kidsand a dog, who meet at the table every morningand evening for family meals. Today’s economyoften requires both parents to work, often forlong hours and on nights and weekends, andsometimes even to travel frequently. Couplethose circumstances with kids’ afterschool andweekend activities, and you have very little timeto have everyone together in one place.The onus is on us, the parents, to maintain thefamily structure. Above all, we need to stay intouch with our kids. No matter how hard a fatheror mother has to work, no matter the stress andthe long hours, a parent has to make the time tobe there. All it takes is a simple time commitment:a standing appointment to spend time withyour children. If you can’t always be there inperson, take advantage of the technology at ourfingertips and make a phone call or send a text80th Birthday CelebrationDr. David Globus celebrated his 80th birthdaysurrounded by family, friends and colleaguesof more than 50 years at the HarmonieClub in New York City. Dr. Globus practicesinternal medicine at the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Hewas born in Kansas City, Missouri. He graduatedfrom Washington School of Medicine inSt. Louis in 1954. Dr. Globus and his wife,Suellen, have a family of 7 children and 12grandchildren. Mrs. Globus is pursuing abachelor’s degree in psychology and sociologythrough the Hunter BA Program, which shedescribed as a “life changing” experience. #message to let your kids know you’re there andyou care. Write down on the household calendarspecific times you’ll connect with your kids, ormark the time in your planner or smart phonejust as you would with a business meeting. Thiswill show your child that you take these appointmentsseriously and are intent on keeping them.Kids are usually more understanding of our jobdemands than we may think, but they also needto know that they can always reach out to us, andthat we, in turn, will always make the time andeffort to reach out to them as well.One helpful way to encourage deeper conversationis to ask your child to jot down the thingshe or she wants to tell you about. Kids can dothis by keeping a list on their computers or cellphones, or by writing them down the old fashionedway, on paper. This way, even if they haveto wait until late at night or the next day to spendtime with you, their thoughts can still be fresh intheir mind. Parents can do the same!Above all, be creative. Even if you are limitedto a few minutes, make the most out of yourtime with your kids. Instead of limiting the conversationto what they did in school, try sharingfun stories or coming up with games that cancarry over from one conversation time to thenext. Your children will appreciate the effort,and you can both look forward to spending timetogether again. #Dr. Carole Hankin is the superintendent ofSyosset Schools, Long Island, N.Y.Abeles uses profiles of individual students toillustrate the rigors of today’s educational climate.One particularly heartbreaking story was of a youngwoman; she was a straight-A student and talentedmusician, endowed with beautiful blond hair andsparkling eyes — a portrait of perfection in herparents’ and society’s eyes. But her story takes ashocking turn when, without any warning to family,friends or teachers, she takes her own life in order toescape her feelings of inadequacy after failing a test.In subsequent interviews, the parents’ claims to haveseen no signs of their child’s distress are mystifying.Another story documents the steady decline of astudent whose grades begin to suffer as she strugglesto cope with pressure. Overwhelmed by her imperfections,the young woman trades in the demands ofschool for the structure and safety of a treatment centerto recover from the debilitating anxiety she feels.Sadly, these stories are all too common. Studentstoday face pressures to excel not only in the classroom,but also in sports, in music, and in a host ofother spheres, all at a frantic pace. Our children’sexternal achievements have become a blanketdisguising the subtle yet serious symptoms of ourchildren’s deteriorating emotional health.If the creation of this destructive environmentwere a crime, then the culprit, according to the film,is the policies of No Child Left Behind and Raceto the Top, which consider test scores the primarybarometer of successful learning. The emphasis onstandardized tests to define student success has sacrificedlifelong learning in exchange for immediategratification for education bureaucrats and politicians.The film cites experts at Stanford Universitywho challenge the philosophy that more homeworkand increased standardized tests are a substitute fordeeper, more personal learning. Today’s studentsare taught to value memorization and regurgitation,and the associated pressures lead them to shortcuts,medical stimulants, and even cheating as means topass tests and get good grades.Students sprint their way through the academicrace to succeed, but this race, as the film’s titlesuggests, is a race to nowhere. The race to get goodgrades, excel on tests, and become successful students,community leaders, and star athletes compromisesboth the emotional and physical wellbeingof today’s children. The film exposes theneed for today’s educators, parents, administratorsand teachers to step back and re-evaluate the directionand philosophies of our educational system.As a first-time filmmaker, and motivated by herown concerns as a parent, Vicky Abeles deliversher message with compassion and honesty. Bysharing her personal experience as a parent, sheallows her message to touch not only the teachersand students who confront these conflicts butparents as well. The film conveys a powerfulmessage to today’s educators and will resonatewith both a national and international audience. #For more information and upcoming screeningsplease go to www.RaceToNowhere.com

NOV/DEC 2010 ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ spotlight on schoolsThe Missing Voicesstudents, and to better prepare young people fortheir future.A paradigm shift is needed. It requires that weradically transform the way we think about childhood,education, human capacity, learning andeven standardized testing.We must begin by working in partnership- teachers, parents, administrators – studentsthemselves – to make school a place that emphasizesthe whole child. A place that offers physical13education, showcases the arts, fosters talents,develops citizen skills, develops lifelong learnersand encourages individual growth of students andteachers and a respect for both. #Vicki Abeles is a New York attorney turned documentaryfilmmaker whose film, Race to Nowhere, isscreening in theaters, schools and community venuesnationwide. Race to Nowhere will play at the92nd Street Y, Saturday, Nov. 13 at 7PM and willbe followed by a facilitated dialogue with Abeles.Good schoolsare the cornerstone of astrong communityby Vicki Abeles &Sara Truebridge, Ed. D.Discussions about quality education and adequatelypreparing students for the future havebecome deafening. Yet the voices from those onthe front lines - teachers, students and parents –are often missing. What would they be saying ifwe could hear them?In the documentary Race To Nowhere, thosein the forefront shed light on how the currentdialogue on education reform. Its narrow definitionof achievement and myopic one-dimensionalfocus on test scores and competition is holdingup a one-size-fits all approach to reform that ishaving crushing, unintended consequences. Kidseverywhere, regardless of their background, areunder a new kind of pressure to perform, the kindof pressure that impacts physical and emotionalhealth and hampers their development.High-stakes testing has taken the place ofmeaningful teaching and learning. The tests satisfythe desire for a simple, quantifiable way tomeasure our schools, teachers and students. Butthe scores tend to reflect parental income and zipcodes rather than how our schools are doing, andthe tests have the effect of narrowing the curriculumand the way it is taught. Testing encouragesa type of thinking that trains students to seekquick results and only a superficial knowledge ofthe material. It ignores those subjects not testedand creates students who have been trained tolook for the right answer instead of developingproblem solvers.Teachers are pressured to teach to a script ratherthan to teach for engagement and understanding.They are forced to cover a broad range ofmaterial quickly and without regard to what theyknow as professionals about education and thedevelopmental needs of the children. Many arefeeling unsupported and leaving the profession.Testing also ignores the importance of activeand engaged participation of students in thelearning process. Motivation to learn for pleasureor even to continue in school at all is alsoimpacted. As our classrooms have been turnedinto test prep centers, an increasing number ofstudents are becoming disengaged, checking outand dropping out.And this environment promotes fear withinyoung people preventing them from taking risksand from involving themselves with learning.Today’s students need room to make mistakes—mistakesprovide important opportunitiesfor growth.A toll is also exacted on the health and wellbeingof our youth. There’s an epidemic ofyoung people who are anxious, depressed andsleep deprived, exhibiting psychosomatic symptoms,abusing performance medications, andcompromising values because of the pressure toget the grade or simply to get through the quantityof material.Accustomed to a regime of memorizing, crammingand regurgitating information, many entercollege lacking effective problem-solving orthinking skills. Over 40 percent of college freshmenhave to take remedial courses. And mentalhealth offices on campuses are overflowing.Business leaders tell of young people who lackthe skills needed most to thrive in the adult world–working together cooperatively, communicatingand solving complex problems. Having beentrained, instead of educated, in such a narrowmanner, young people are afraid to take risksneeded for innovation and they also lack thecreativity of previous generations. Industry isspending billions retraining these graduates.Much of the attention given to improvingschools has focused on raising standardized testscores and promoting the latest program, keepingstudents in school for longer hours and increasingtime devoted to homework and studying. Ratherthan doing more of what we’ve always done,improving educational success must be groundedin a deeper understanding of how schools canbe restructured to make learning more relevantand engaging, to provide access to quality educationfor all children, to provide opportunitiesfor experiential learning, to allow time formeaningful relationships between educators andIn times like these, we need to build up our communities by investingin public education, rejecting shortsighted gimmicks that hurt studentsand challenging naysayers who lack the facts.A recent poll showed what we already knew: New Yorkers overwhelminglysupport their schools. Working together, we can face the challenges ahead,give our kids a brighter future and build stronger communities.Quality public educationA great investment for our statePaid for byNew York State United Teachers.Discover MarymountMarymount School of New York1026 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10028 212.744.4486 WWW.MARYMOUNTNYC.ORG

14www.EducationUpdate.com | NOV/DEC 2010 WHERE IS SMcGraw-Hill HoldsFirst Education SummitTesting ObsessionShould End NowBy Judith Aquinon a nod to the rising demand forschool reform, the McGraw-HillResearch Foundation recently heldits first Innovation in EducationSummit, which emphasized the need for ideas tohelp drive student achievement.Held at the McGraw-Hill headquarters in NewYork City, educators and intellectual leaders discussedways to save failing schools, the purposeof high school, the role of technology in highereducation and other issues.Approximately only 70 percent of Americanstudents receive a high school diploma, reportedthe EPE Research Center, a division ofthe non-profit organization Editorial Projectsin Education.“I’m absolutely convinced our nation is inperil because of what’s happening in our publicschools,” said keynote speaker Geoffrey Canada,president and CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone.“We can no longer accept the status quo of the last30 years. The situation today demands increasedaccountability for the success of our students.”Canada shared with the audience his experiencesas an education reformer and how his organizationused social innovation and a data-driveneducational approach to transform one of NewYork City’s most troubled neighborhood schools.Canada, whose Harlem Children’s Zone servesas a national model for educational reform, isfeatured in the documentary about the stateof the American education system, “Waitingfor Superman.”The summit consisted of a series of panel discussionsand breakout sessions focused on therole of leadership in school turnarounds and thepurpose of high school, as well as K-12 instructionand assessment, the adoption of CommonCore State Standards, and the use of teachingand learning technology in higher education.The panelists included Carol Carter, nationaland international student success author andspeaker; Christopher Cerf, a key creator ofSesame Street; Yvonne Chan, principal of theVaughn Next Century Learning Center charterschool in California and James P. Comer, professorof child psychiatry at the Yale UniversitySchool of Medicine’s Child Study Center.Also on the panel were Jordan Goldman, founderand CEO of Unigo, a Web site that allowsstudents to rate and review colleges; N. GerryHouse, president and CEO of the Institute forGeoffrey Canada, CEO,Harlem Children’s ZoneStudent Achievement, and Larry Rosenstock,CEO and founding principal of High Tech High,a network of charter schools.“Meeting student needs, providing trainingand precise teacher evaluations as well asinvolving parents and the community is whathelped us to be successful,” said Chan who converteda public school into a successful charterschool that serves 2,500 pre-school through 10thgrade students living in poverty. “Think of it asthe wheels on a car. If you take away any of thewheels, the car won’t run.”Arthur Griffin, Jr., who served as the moderatorfor the panel discussion on turning aroundunderperforming schools, noted the increasingneed for improvements to the U.S. schoolsystem. “We all recognize that the situationinvolving America’s most challenged schools isquickly approaching a crisis,” said Griffin, whois senior vice president of the Urban AdvisoryResource for McGraw-Hill Education and codirectorof the new Center for ComprehensiveSchool Improvement. “We also appreciatethe federal government’s commitment to turnaround 5,000 of the nation’s lowest performingschools within five years and to lead the worldwith the most college graduates by 2020. Thatsaid, we need to turn our attention to innovativesolutions that begin and end with strong districtwideleadership and involve clear goal-setting,a rigorous curriculum, the use of digital anddata-driven instruction and the implementationof measurable outcomes.” #The Perils andPossibilities ofTeacher Evaluationby AAron Pallas, ph.d.n the film Waiting for Superman,Harlem Children’s Zone founderGeoffrey Canada talks about hisexperiences as a beginning teacher inBoston. After completing a master’s degree atHarvard’s Graduate School of Education, Canadataught at a private alternative high school fortroubled youth. His naïve bravado—expectingthat it might take him a year or two to “straightenout” education in the U.S.—invariably draws anappreciative chuckle from the audience, as doeshis admission that he was a terrible teacher duringhis first few years of teaching.Canada is so charismatic, and obviously caresso deeply about the children in his charge, thatit seems ungracious to point out that we haveonly his word that he became a good teacher.It’s not hard to imagine that even someoneas intelligent and motivated as Canada mighthave struggled at the outset; the term “rookiemistake” is commonly used to describe thelearning curve of novices in many occupations.But what evidence do we have that he became askilled teacher?Until recently, judgments about whether ateacher is “good” or “bad” have rested on vaguecriteria and evidence. In many school districts,nearly all of the teachers who have chosen tostick it out for three years or more have beenrated satisfactory, which is the key step inachieving the due process protections of tenure.By Michael Mulgrewhe instructional strategy of the NewYork City public school system —prepping children for a now-discreditedseries of state tests — has failed.Particularly now that the state has won nearly$700 million in new federal funds in the Race tothe Top competition, we need to be honest aboutthat failure so that we can finally focus on strategiesthat will make a difference for our kids.This summer, the state Department ofEducation, responding to widespread suspicionthat state test standards were too low and thatthe test had become too predictable, redefined“proficiency.” The result was a dramatic plungein scores. Under the new scoring regimen, fewerthan half of the city’s 3rd- through 8th-gradersare considered proficient in reading, down fromtwo-thirds last year, and just over half are proficientin mathematics, down from 82 percentlast year.This should not have been a surprise. Whilethe city’s 8th-grade reading scores on the statetest were soaring, the National Assessment ofEducational Progress, the gold standard for suchtests, showed that 8th-grade reading scores forNew York City fell from 2003 to 2007 andhave only now recovered to their 2003 level.Meanwhile, out of approximately 500 “scalescore” National Assessment points, New YorkCity’s 4th-grade math scores have gone up 11points, and two other categories have gone up 7points each. Many other big cities have done atleast as well overall, and some — particularlyAtlanta, L.A. and Boston — have done substantiallybetter.New York has to take some important lessonsfrom this debacle.First: Test prep isn’t instruction. In virtuallyevery school I have gone into in recent years,teachers complained about instructional timelost to prepping students for tests. Art and musicfell by the wayside years ago in most schools,but many schools were also shortchanging keysubjects like history and science because readingand math tests were the only ones that counted.New state tests are going to be designed to be lessvulnerable to this kind of “gaming.” To the extentpossible, test prep should be strictly limited.Second: The racial achievement gap stilllooms large. Boasts by the administration thatits strategies were closing the proficiency gapbetween white/Asian students and black/Hispanicyoungsters turned out to be baseless. Underthe new scoring regimen, the math proficiencygap between white and black students doubledSome critics wonder howthe vast majority of teacherscan be rated wholly satisfactorywhen many studentsare not meeting their state’sstandards for academic proficiency.The answer lies in ouruncertainty about how tomeasure good teaching.Clearly, it’s inadequate tojudge good teaching basedon what a principal might seeupon dropping by a classroomfor a few minutes a fewtimes a year. But how arewe to judge who is a goodteacher? Currently, there aretwo main thrusts. The first focuses on the ideathat a good teacher is one who contributes to herstudents’ learning.This idea is more challenging than it sounds,for two reasons. First, Americans expect andovernight, to 34 points from 17. Meanwhile, theadministration’s insistence on a standardizedtest for entrance into gifted programs has meantthat the percentage of minority children in suchenriched programs has declined.Third: Thousands of youngsters now inhigh school are in real danger of not graduating.The promotion gate established by theDepartment of Education for 8th-graders was sowide that almost everyone got through it. Onlystudents in the lowest achievement category(Level 1) were denied promotion, and because ofthe score inflation on the state tests, only about3 percent of 8th-graders fell into this category.The result was that thousands of children gotinto high school who were unprepared for highschool work.Fourth: Live by the scores, die by the scores.Mayor Bloomberg once said, “In God we trust.Everyone else, bring data.” The school systemvastly expanded its testing and monitoring operationsand pressured principals and teachers tofocus all attention on state tests that producedreams of data. Because the tests were so flawed,most of it is now useless.The United Federation of Teachers workedwith the state on its Race to the Top applicationbecause we believe that a rich curriculum forevery student — not test prep — is the only wayto bring real progress to our schools. Now that wehave won these new funds, the state must deliveron that promise. It must develop, based on thatcurriculum, a more reliable assessment of thesuccess of both students and teachers than anystandardized test. #Michael Mulgrew is president of the UnitedFederation of Teachers.Reprinted from The New York Daily News.demand a great deal fromour schools and teachers;and although the learningof school subjects such asreading and mathematics isa central goal, it’s not theonly one that we think isimportant. New York CitySchools Chancellor JoelKlein, commenting on hismost memorable teacher,science teacher SidneyHarris at Bryant HighSchool, once said, “Mr.Harris’s expertise was inphysics but what he taughtme went far beyond science.He pushed me. He shapedthe way I thought about my future. And he setexpectations for me that were, before then,unimaginable.” Chancellor Klein, like manyof us, valued the way in which a teacher mightcontinued on page 18

15UPERMAN? NOV/DEC 2010 | www.EducationUpdate.comExclusive Interview withGeoffrey CanadaPaul MobleyBy Joan Baum, Ph.D.iven the sensational response to DavidGuggenheim’s film, “Waiting forSuperman,” which the New Yorkercalled a “hot-under-the-dollar documentaryabout the failings of the American schoolsystem,” and given, as well, the subsequent mediablitz visited on the New York City-based educatorand social activist Geoffrey Canada, who isfeatured in the film as a kind of miracle worker,Education Update was fortunate to have beenable to catch up with Canada. In “Waiting forSuperman,” he is shown as one of the country’seducation heroes, a leader who turned aroundlow expectations for the young urban poor in hisdistrict, mostly minorities, especially boys, andbecame for them a kind of Superman, the mythicalsavior of Canada’s own childhood fantasies.The 58-year-old Canada was born in the SouthBronx and was raised by his mother in an area hedescribed in his recently revised book “Fist StickKnife Gun: A Personal History of Violence inAmerica” as full of crime, decay, chaos and disorder.His second book is also significantly titled —“Reaching Up For Manhood: Transforming theLives of Boys in America.” He made it, gettinga B.A. from Bowdoin College and a master’s ineducation from the Harvard Graduate School ofEducation. And then he was on the move, eventuallyconceiving of and implementing an academiccharter school mission that would encourage pooryoungsters to make it also — through high schooland college.Since 1990 Geoffrey Canada has been thepresident and CEO of the now-famed HarlemChildren’s Zone (HCZ). Originally an area covering24 blocks, it now includes 97 blocks andserves close to 10,000 kids in and out of the zone.The data and testimony have been so impressivethat President Obama late last year declaredthat HCZ should be a model for 20 other cities.Indeed, to extend the Superman metaphor,Canada’s hope for the next decade is that HCZwill fly — if not yet in every state, at least, as inRace to the Top, in enough states to show that itsinnovative ideas and strategies can be replicated.In ten years, enough HCZ youngsters will havemoved through the pipeline, data will prove thesuccess of the “experiment” and HCZ will beconsidered the “grandfather of the field.”Canada has heard the nay-sayers on charterschools (and related social services), and heresponds, “I can’t accept that.” Imagine, he says,if the world’s first heart transplant in 1967 hadbeen dismissed as an experiment that could not beduplicated. The charter school says let us try. Nota day passes, he adds, that he does not get callsfrom individuals who have seen the film and wantDon’t Blame MeBy Geoffrey CanadaThe girls mother said, “Don’t blame me.Her father left when she was three.I know she don’t know her ABCs, her 1,2,3s,But I am poor and work hard you see.”You know the story, it’s don’t blame me.The teacher shook her head and said,“Don’t blame me, I know it’s sad.He’s ten, but if the truth be told,He reads like he was six years old.And math, don’t ask.It’s said you see.Wish I could do more, but it’s after three.Blame the mom, blame society,blame the system.Just don’t blame me.”The judge was angry, his expression cold.He scowled and said, “Son you’ve been told.Break the law again and you’ll do time.You’ve robbed with a gun.Have you lost your mind?The young man opened his mouth to beg.“Save your breath,” he heard instead.“Your daddy left when you were two.Your momma couldn’t take care of you.Your school prepared you for this fall.Can’t read, can’t write, can’t spell at all.But you did the crime for all to see.You’re going to jail, son.Don’t blame me.”If there is a God or a person supreme,A final reckoning, for the kind and themean,And judgment is rendering on who passedthe buck,Who blamed the victim or proudly stoodup,You’ll say to the world, “While I couldn’tsave all.I did not let these children fall.By the thousands I helped all I could see.No excuses, I took full responsibility.No matter if they were black or white,Were cursed, ignored, were wrong or right,Were shunned, pre-judged, were short or tall,I did my best to save them all.”That you can state proudly,“Don’t blame me.”to get involved. What can be done and how can itbe done, they ask. Canada interprets the challengethis way: what must be done differently?Contrary to some impressions, HCZ is notsolely a charter school operator. It also supportsseven public schools in the zone by supplyingteacher assistants during the day and for afterschoolprograms that work with traditional publicschool kids. Failing schools tend to continue todo the same old thing, he observes. Individualsmust become educated about their schools andbecome politically connected to organizationsdedicated to change – not just in the schools butin the communities. “It’s our responsibility to gointo the schools and say, “I expect my child tobecome an A student,” not a passing student, butan excellent one. What can schools working withcommunities do better?Canada is pleased that “Waiting for Superman”has attracted so much attention because it is “elevatingthe discussion on education from the locallevel to the national” and because it suggests that“there are solutions.” People tend to regard educationfrom the narrow perspective of their owncommunities; indeed, some question, that if theirlocal schools are doing well, why they should careabout those that are failing. His answer is that educationin the United States is a “national crisis”that affects “the health of the entire country.” Heis, for example, an advocate of longer hours andmore days, pointing out that The United States iswoefully behind every other industrialized countryin the world in providing sufficient school timethat also allows for arts, sports and addressingmedical and societal issues such as obesity. Thefilm has awakened the nation’s conscience indramatic ways. “It was designed to be entertainingin an educational way, it has plot, drama, humor.”As for those who cannot afford to see it, Canadapoints out that organizations, such as the RobinHood Foundation, have already worked out waysof ensuring that families get tickets. #

16 Education update ■ For Parents, Educators & Students ■ NOV/DEC 2010Marcy Syms Among Honorees atManhattan Chamber of Commerce AwardsBy Dr. Pola RosenThe Manhattan Chamberof Commerce, headed byPresident Nancy Ploeger,held its annual distinguishedBusiness Awards Breakfastcelebrating excellent entrepreneurs.Among the high profileNew Yorkers to receive accoladesfrom the sold-out breakfastwere composer StephenSondheim, restauranteur Jean-Georges Vongerichten, radiopersonality Joan Hamburgand Marcy Syms, CEO of theSyms discount stores, whosemantra has reverberated since her father foundedthe stores in 1959: “An educated consumer is ourbest customer.”Marcy Syms is a stylish, attractive brunettewho took the time to sit with me after the awardsceremony despite her busy schedule shepherdingBy Judith AquinoNew York State Regents ChancellorMerryl Tisch shed light on plans toimprove the state’s public educationsystem, including how it will spendthe nearly $770 million allotted to thestate by the “Race to the Top” federalschool-improvement competition.Hosted by the Women’s City Club,Tisch explained to members and guestsof the civic organization what changeslie in store for current state educationstandards and tests. She also spokeabout the effect that the federal Raceto the Top funds are expected to haveon New York’s public schools.“I hate to use the word reform,because every chancellor has a newreform that falls by the wayside,”Tisch said. “ I’d like topostulate for you that what we’regoing to do is take the $770 millionand we’re going to spend iton a few expensive things thatwill yield results in this state forgenerations to come.”In accordance with the requirementsof the $4 billion federalgrant competition, New Yorkwill open more charter schools,said Tisch, as well as set upan evaluation system that tiesteachers to students’ test scores.“I will tell you that the teachersunion came through for us ina very big way to help us designan evaluation system that willultimately allow school districtsto base 40 percent of the teachers’yearly evaluation on studentachievement,” Tisch said.Tisch expressed her supportfor charter schools, although sheacknowledged they were onlyan “option” and not a “panacea”for improving public schools.The Regents Chancellor alsosaid the state plans to builda statewide data system thatwill strengthen the accountabilityeducational institutions havetoward its students.“We are going to allow theentire network - city universities,state universities, schoolsof higher education in the privatesector - to talk to eachother about the teachers they’returning out and the quality ofthe students that their teachersare turning out,” Tisch said.50 stores, which now includeFilene’s Basement.A graduate of Finch Collegeand Boston College, Marcykeeps up with changes inclothing brands, customers’needs, and even changes inhealth care by reading 15newspapers daily. Currently,she is combining distributioncenters for greater economy inoperations since taking overthe bankrupt Filene’s in 2009.The “educated consumer”slogan was first televised in1974 and has been a hit eversince. Marcy’s advice to young women is to giveserious sacrifice to your job, have a work ethicthat includes working seven days a week, setgoals, have a passion for what you do, and havea five-year plan.Marcy Syms is a true New York success story! #Another area where the statewill spend money, Tisch said, willbe on turning around low performingschools.“If you are a schools superintendentand you come to us with a plan thatsays, ‘I would like to tell you howI’m going to improve these 20 schoolsover the course of three years,’… eachone of those schools will get $2 milliona year from the federal governmentfor 3 years,” Tisch said. “Thebig difference here is they’re goingto have to get approval for the typeof work they’re going to do and Ican sure assure you neither DavidSteiner or myself are going to sign offon mediocrity.” #Ruth Messinger, Presidentof AHWS is HonoredRecently, a gala was held by the venerableAmerican Jewish World Service (AJWS),a faith-based international human rightsorganization that works to alleviate poverty,hunger and disease in the developing world.Among the attendees was Carolyn Everett,a philanthropist and activist.In addition to its grantmaking to over400 grassroots projects around the world,AJWS works to promote global citizenshipand social justice through activism, volunteerservice and education. Ruth Messinger,assumed the role of president in 1998 followinga 20-year career in public servicein New York City, where she served for12 years on the New York City Counciland eight as Manhattan borough president.Messinger is continuing her lifelong pursuitof social justice at AJWS, helping peoplearound the world improve the quality oftheir lives and their communities.#(L-R) Carolyn Everett & Ruth MessingerNYS Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch Announces Plans for Education FundsYork Preparatory School(L-R) Dorothy Wilner, Eleanor Stier, Co-Chairs of the Education Committee & Merryl Tisch40 West 68th StreetNew York, NY 10023www.yorkprep.orgYork Preparatory School“An Intimate Place to Learnin the Heart of a Great City”40 West 68th StreetNew York, NY 10023www.yorkprep.org“An Intimate Place to Learnin York the Preparatory Heart of a School Great City”Dear Parents:You are cordially invited to attend one of ourOPEN HOUSES at York Preparatory School.York Preparatory 40 West 68th School StreetYork PreparatoryNew 40 York, West 68th NYSchool10023 StreetDear $ Thursday, York Parents: September PreparatoryNew 40 www.yorkprep.org30th York, West 68th NYSchool 9:30 10023 Street AM – 11:00 AM$ Wednesday,York PreparatoryOctoberYou are cordiallyNew 40 6thinvited www.yorkprep.orgYork, West 68th NYSchool9:30to attend10023 Street AM – 11:00 AMone of our$ Wednesday, October New 40 www.yorkprep.org13th York, West 68th NY 10023 Street 5:30 PM – 7:00 PMOPEN HOUSES at York Preparatory School.“An Intimate Place to Learn$ Tuesday, October 19th New www.yorkprep.orgYork, NY 10023 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM$ “An Wednesday, Intimate Octoberwww.yorkprep.org27th Place 9:30 to AM Learn – 11:00 AM$ “An Thursday, in the Intimate November September Heart 4th 30th Place of Great 9:30 to 5:30 AM Learn PM City” –– 11:00 7:00 AM PM“An in the IntimateOctober Heart Place6thof Great to Learn$ Wednesday, November 10th9:30 AM City”– 11:00 AM PM“An Wednesday,in the IntimateOctoberHeart Place13thof Great to Learn$ Tuesday, November 16th5:30 PMCity”– 7:00 PMDear in Parents: the Heart of Great City”$ Tuesday, October 19thYou Dear in Wednesday, are Parents: theNovemberHeart30thof a Great5:30 PMCity”– 7:00 PM$ Tuesday, cordially January October 11th invited 27th to attend 9:30 5:30 AM PM one –– 11:00 of 7:00 our AM PMOPEN You Dear Thursday, are Parents:HOUSES cordially November at invited York 4th Preparatory attend one School. of ourOPEN You Dear $ Tuesday,are Parents: January 25th5:30 PM – 7:00 PM$ Wednesday, HOUSES cordiallyNovember at invited York 10th Preparatory attend one9:30 AM – School. of our11:00 PMOPEN You Dear are Parents:$ Tuesday, HOUSES cordiallyNovember at invited16th York Preparatory attend one5:30 PM – School. of our7:00 PM$ OPEN You RSVPThursday, are toHOUSES cordially the AdmissionsSeptember at invited Office30th York Preparatory attend at:9:30 AM one – 11:00 School. of our AM$ Tuesday, November 30th 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM$ OPEN 212-362-0400 Thursday, Wednesday, HOUSES September ext.October at 1336th 30th York admissions@yorkprep.orgPreparatory 9:30 AM – 11:00 School.AM$ Tuesday, January 11th5:30 PM – 7:00 PM$ Thursday, Wednesday, September October 6th 13th30th9:305:30 AMPM –– 11:007:00 AMPM$ Tuesday, January 25th5:30 PM – 7:00 PM$ York Thursday,Tuesday, Wednesday, Prep isOctobera September coeducational October 19th6th 13th30th college preparatory 9:30 5:30 AM school PM – – for 11:00 7:00 grades AMPM6-12.$ Thursday,Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, SeptemberOctoberOctoberOctober 19th6th27th13th30th9:309:30 5:30 AMAM PM – – 11:0011:00 7:00 AMAMPMRSVP to the Admissions Office at:$Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday,OctoberOctoberNovember October 19th6th27th13th 9:304th 9:30 5:30 5:30 AMAM PM PM – – 11:0011:00 7:00 7:00 AMAM PMPM212-362-0400 ext. 133 or admissions@yorkprep.org$Wednesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, OctoberNovember OctoberOctober 19th27th13th4th 10th9:309:30 5:30 5:30AMAM PM PM– –11:0011:00 7:00 7:00AM PMPM$Wednesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, OctoberTuesday, NovemberNovember October 19th27th16th4th 10th9:309:30 5:305:305:30 AMAM PMPMPM – – 11:0011:00 7:007:007:00 AMPMPMYork Prep is a coeducational college preparatory school for grades 6-12.$Wednesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, NovemberNovember October 27th30th 16th4th 10th9:309:30 5:305:30 AMAM PMPM – – 11:0011:00 7:007:00 AMPM$ Wednesday, Thursday, Tuesday, NovemberNovember January 11th 30th4th 10th 9:30 5:305:30 AM PMPM – – 11:00 7:007:00 PM$ Wednesday, Tuesday, November November January 25th 11th 30th 16th10th9:30 5:30 AM PM – – 11:00 7:00 PM$ Tuesday, November January 25th 11th 30th 16th5:30 PM – 7:00 PM$ Tuesday, November January 25th 11th 30th5:30 PM – 7:00 PM

NOV/DEC 2010 ■ For Parents, Educators & Students ■ Education updatePersonal Genomics for Maine High School StudentsOne of the benefits of the course was bringingstudents with a common interest in sciencetogether. Susan Rundell, a student at ScarboroughHigh School, said that, for her, “the personalexperience was fantastic, connecting me to otherMaine high schoolers with similar interests aswell as professionals whom none of us wouldnormally get a chance to learn with, let alonesocialize with. I found that in my short time here,everyone began to feel like a family away fromhome, and that made the experience very enjoyable.”MDIBL intends to offer the course annually.It is free to all participants and funded by theMaine IDeA Network of Biomedical ResearchExcellence, a network of Maine research institutions,colleges, and universities led by MDIBLwith the common goal of enhancing biomedical17research and research training in the state ofMaine. The network is funded by the NationalCenter for Research Resources, part of theNational Institutes of Health.MDIBL is an independent, nonprofit marinelaboratory located in Bar Harbor, Maine. Thelab’s twelve resident research groups and 60visiting scientists study marine and other simpleorganisms to learn about the basic biology oflife, with a particular focus on development andregeneration and how organisms interact withtheir environment. MDIBL offers hands-on educationalprograms at all levels, from high schoolto medical school and for professionals. At everylevel, MDIBL students learn in real laboratorieswhere they experience the challenges andrewards of scientific research. For more information,see http://www.mdibl.org. #Chris Smith, Supervisor of MDIBL’s DNA Sequencing Center,shows high school students Dacie Manion and Margaret Hohow to load DNA into an agarose gelBy Shannara Gilman, MDIBLFifteen high school students from across Mainelearned how to analyze human DNA samplesduring the new, one-week “Summer Academy ofGenomics” at the Mount Desert Island BiologicalLaboratory (MDIBL). In addition to learningadvanced research techniques, students had theopportunity to live in an active scientific community.They interacted daily with scientists andstudents who come to MDIBL from around theworld and had unparalleled opportunities to discusseducation and careers in science.Charles Wray, Ph.D., director of scientificresources at MDIBL, designed and led the course.“The course was quite a whirlwind and a hugesuccess,” he says. “I was energized by workingwith extremely curious and capable high schoolstudents, covering everything from bioinformaticsand ethics to fluorescent PCR genotyping.”The course was designed for students whohad an interest in science or medicine but littleor no laboratory experience. Students testedsamples for mutations in a gene that affects howpatients respond to common medications such asPlavix and Nexium and utilized bioinformatics,or computational analysis tools, to interpret theirresults. A bioethicist from the Harvard MedicalSchool led a workshop for the students on theethical, legal, and social issues involved withpersonal genetics.Preschool(212) 229-9340247 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011Accepting applications forthe 2010/11 school year.• Open year round 8 am-6 pm daily• Part time & full time• Licensed by NYC Dept. of Health• established 1993NAEYC AccreditedCelebrating 16 YearsLimited spacesavailable for2010-2011Tomorrow’seducaTion leadersaTTendwagner Today.Wagner College challenges students to:• Think critically• Write insightfully• Communicate powerfully• Apply their knowledge in high-needschools, innovative charter schools,and creative after-school programsWagner students excel in the classroom,give back to their communities, andbecome the leaders who can createmeaningful reform in schools. Programaccredited by NCATE.www.wagner.edu • 718-390-3464

18 spotlight on schools ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ NOV/DEC 2010Wallace Foundation Finds Out-of-School Programs Are a SuccessStudents Shine AtVoyages Prep H.S.By Adam BlochOver the past several years, the WallaceFoundation has undertaken major projects infive American cities to improve and monitorout-of-school time (OST) activities. In October,the first results and reactions were revealed ina three-volume, 255-page study by the RANDCorporation, titled “Hours of Opportunity.”The goal of the project was to figure out howall municipal and community resources couldbest be organized and administered to providechildren with high-quality after-school, weekendand summer programs. The RAND reportprovides an affirming evaluation, concludingthat Wallace’s efforts were successful and thatcities can effectively marshal their myriad OSTactivities to provide better and more enrichingservices.“The RAND study found improvements inaccess to programs and in program qualitybecause of the citywide changes implemented,”said Edward Pauly, director of research andevaluation at the Wallace Foundation, a privatecharitable foundation that promotes educationaland cultural programs. “We take particularpleasure in the RAND finding that all five citiesmade important progress. They did it in differentways and in very different contexts, but allfive cities were able to build a citywide level ofsupport for out of school programs, and othercities can do the same.”The five cities in question were Providence,New York (which both joined the study in2003), Chicago, Boston and Washington, D.C.(which joined in 2005). Each city offered differentchallenges and frameworks. The populationrange, Pauly pointed out, from roughlya couple of hundred thousand in Providenceto eight million in New York, offers usableexamples for other cities across the countryto follow. Each city was awarded grant moneyranging from $5 million to $12 million.Among the major findings was that thereis no single best method of improving OSTprograms. Rather, different approaches workbetter in each city because of local conditions.Providence, for example, focused on expandingand improving existing activities whileadding transportation and coordination. NewYork, on the other hand, emphasized improvingprograms in high-need areas, increasingdata collection and adding better staff training.Outcomes were measured in different ways ineach city: for example, Chicago used schoolrecords, while New York relied on participantevaluations. The RAND study also foundthat “management information systems” wereessential in organizing programs more effectively,monitoring outcomes and directing fundsin an efficient manner.By Richard KaganTeacher Evaluationcontinued from page 14Edward Pauly, Wallace Foundation“In New York, attendance and participationdata were used to trigger check-ins by cityagencies for quality control purposes,” Paulysaid. “Having the first clear reliable data sourceson the number of kids enrolled, their attendance,which programs they attended, and howlong they were in those programs was essentialin allocating funding. Data doesn’t cause moremoney to be allocated, but if you don’t have thedata the people who do the allocating are goingto be more skeptical.”Support from school and city leaders, especiallyfrom mayors, was also an essentialcharacteristic of successful programs. “Supportfrom mayors was sustained throughout thestudy,” Pauly said. “One of the findings wasthe central role that mayors play on this issue.”Challenges remain for the five cities inWallace’s project and others around the countrythat would implement similar programs.Pauly acknowledged that logistical difficultieslike transportation, safety and liability are stillbarriers. And the seed money provided by thefoundation is not something easily replicatedon a wide scale, especially in a time of budgetcutbacks.But RAND’s report affirms the study’s successand offers other cities a path to achievesimilar results. #incite a sense of curiosity about a subject, instilla sense of purpose and direction to one’s life,and spark creativity and commitment. There’slittle reason to think that these important typesof learning would be picked up by a standardizedtest of mastery of physics, or of any other schoolsubject. Without doubt, it might be difficult todetermine how to assess how teachers contributeto these kinds of longer-term outcomes; butthat’s not a reason to ignore them.Second, the notion that a teacher contributesto her students’ learning of school subjectsimplies that we have some sense of what thosestudents knew before they came into contactwith that teacher. In recent years, a statisticaltechnique called value-added measurementhas sought to isolate the impact of a particularteacher on student achievement, using the standardizedtests which students in the elementaryand middle school grades take annually. Butsuch measures, which are the basis for the controversialTeacher Data Reports in New YorkCity, are an imprecise method for identifyinggood teachers, and in any event are only applicableto teachers who teach subjects which aretested each year. Moreover, they tell us nothingabout the nature of good teaching. Experts agreethat value-added measures of teacher effectivenessshould not be used as the primary basis forevaluating teachers, especially for high-stakesdecisions like tenure.The second approach to identifying good teachersis focusing on their practices. Teaching is anextraordinarily complex activity, and becauseclassrooms and students differ in so many unpredictableways, no two instances of teaching areever identical. There is, nevertheless, a growingconsensus about the teaching practices associatedwith planning, instruction and assessmentwhich maximize the likelihood that students willlearn. Observing and rating classroom practiceis thus another strategy for identifying goodteachers. With proper training, school principalsand teachers can observe classroom teaching andTo fully appreciate Voyages Preparatory HighSchool in Elmhurst, Queens you need to talk tothe students.One student said, “It’s a fun school. It makesyou want to come here. If you don’t want to getup, they call you.” Another student, Diane Lopez,of Ozone Park, Queens, noted, “We know everybody.We’re small, we are on one floor.” Lopezis also enthusiastic about going to school. “Theymake it fun”, she said. “It’s not, oh my God, Ihate school. We just wake up and come here.”These are statements from students who hadtrouble getting to school and who put their educationin jeopardy. But they found the 3-year-oldVoyages High School, transferred in, and becameengaged in the learning process.Andy Mikhail graduated last June and nowplays basketball at Hudson Valley CommunityCollege in Albany, New York. Mikhail playedvarsity basketball on the new basketball team atVoyages, got bitten by the basketball bug, anddreams of playing in a Division 1 program, thehighest competitive level of college basketball.He said of Voyages, “It’s a very good school. Itbenefits a lot of people.”Voyages stands for Viable Options for YoungAdults to Grow, Excel and Succeed and is led bythe passionate and dedicated principal, Dr. JoanKlingsberg. Dr. Klingsberg has more than 25years of experience as a teacher, teacher trainer,and specialist in professional development in theNew York City Department of Education. Shereceived her Doctor of Education degree fromColumbia University’s Teachers College. Shewanted to lead a school that served students whowere overage and under-credited. She developed aproposal and pitched it to the Board of Educationand her idea was approved. Space was found in arefurbished building which houses other schools.Voyages occupies the entire second floor of alarge building on 94th Street in Elmhurst.For many students, it is a place that helpsthem get back on track after years of failure andfrustration. Voyages reaches those who were theoutcasts, the ones who flunked courses, or whosimply didn’t show up for class. They accept thestudent who had given up on school and didn’timagine having a future, much less going to college.“They have been on their own a really, reallylong time and perfected bad habits,” Dr.Klingsberg said. “We’re about undoing thosehabits.”This is being done with a concerted effort byteachers, parents, merchants in the communityand non-profit groups who assist with personnelor funds.Teachers come to the school and because ofthe peer support and the general positive attitudefrom Dr. Klingsberg, they grow and becomebetter teachers. In three years, only one teacherhad left the school after deciding not to continueteaching. The faculty consists of the same coregroup, including the principal. New teachersare asked to give a demonstration class, whichis critiqued by students. A new teacher mustalso present a letter of recommendation from anadolescent.What helps attract teachers to Voyages is theintense professional development that they frequentlyreceive. When the school breaks forlunch, 225 kids leave the building, and the teachersare involved in learning how they can improveas an educator. “Quite honestly, it’s the highlightof everybody’s day,” said Dr. Klingsberg.Teachers look forward to helping each otheragree on what they see and what it means.Both approaches to identifying good teachersare in their infancy, although there is good reasonto think that we can get better at both of them.Neither approach is likely to be satisfactory inisolation from the other. If we are willing toinvest in the development of better measures ofDr. Joan Klingsbergbecome better communicators, to assessing eachother’s lesson plans, and looking for strategies toreach out to their students.Voyages makes an effort to communicate withparents and keep them in the loop.A parent-teacher conference is planned for theentire school in late October. Parents can come toschool and learn what their child is doing in classand meet their teachers.A day is also being planned to have parentssit in with their child in class. The students areaware of this, and some feel anxious, but overall,the feeling is that they want their parents to seehow well they are doing academically and thatthey like being in school.Dr. Klingsberg and the staff have created anatmosphere of openness, trust and self-responsibility.Once a student has been accepted intothe program, they may feel wary and defensive.“You have to prove to them that you genuinelycare,” said Dr. Klingsberg.“Once they know that someone genuinelycares, they will do whatever you ask to levels thatyou never thought possible.”Students took this reporter on a tour of classroomsand proudly showed the art room, whichlooked like an artist’s studio, and their weightroom, which had brand new equipment.Voyages also has a Learning to Work program,which funds 90 students to intern at an hourlyrate. The Queens Community House, a local nonprofitgroup, has been instrumental in providingprofessional support and funds to make this aviable program.Dr. Klingsberg made it clear that students mustpass five Regents Exams to earn their diploma.Students do their assigned homework and meettheir goals, and get rewarded with a “star student”award. She notes the school is big on celebrationsand acknowledging achieved goals.Denea Fleary, a student who plans to graduateafter the November trimester, hopes to work withanimals. Earning a high school diploma will bringher dream closer to reality. “You get a diplomaand get to go on with your life,” she said. #student learning and of good teaching practice,we can do much better than simply asserting,with a minimum of evidence, that a particularteacher is either good or bad at his job. #Aaron Pallas, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociologyand Education at Teachers College, ColumbiaUniversity.

NOV/DEC 2010 ■ For Parents, Educators & Students ■ Education updateTeachers College Calls Attention to Nutrition EducationPresident Susan FuhrmanBy Judith AquinoThis year’s Dewey Circle Reception— a ceremony honoring donors toTeachers College, Columbia University— shined a spotlight on healthy eatingand the value of nutrition awareness.“Teachers College invented nutritioneducation a century ago,” said SusanFuhrman, president of Teachers College.“In the 1970s and ’80s, long before thecurrent food movement came to globalconsciousness, TC faculty memberswere sounding the cry for a sustainablefood system that supported humanhealth and local environments.”Childhood obesity (a body mass indexabove the 95th percentile) has more thantripled in the past 30 years, accordingto the Centers for Disease Control andPrevention. The prevalence of obesityamong children aged 6 to 11 increasedfrom 6.5 percent in 1980 to 19.6 percentin 2008. The prevalence of obesityamong adolescents aged 12 to 19increased from 5 percent to 18.1 percent.Surrounded by edible displays ofcarrots, celery, peppers and other vegetables,guests at the Dewey CircleReception mingled on the rooftop gardenof Tishman Speyer headquarters atRockefeller Plaza. The event was hostedby Tishman Speyer Senior ManagingDirector, Steven Wechsler.Guest speakers and Teachers Collegegraduates Dr. Isobel Contento andDr. Pamela Koch spoke about theirefforts to encourage healthy eatingduring the evening’s program,“Eating Well: From Personal Health toGlobal Sustainability.”Koch and Contento recently receiveda $1.5 million grant from the U.S.Department of Agriculture to developa science education and nutrition curriculumand evaluate its effectivenessin preventing obesity in about 2,000fifth-graders at 20 New York City publicschools. #Steven Wechsler19My College — My FutureNYSCASASSOCIATE AND BACHELOR DEGREES:Business Management and Administration • Human Services • Psychology • EducationSocial Sciences • Computer Science • Desktop and Web Publishing • Liberal Arts and Sciences** also in conjunction with the School of Health Sciencesnot all programs can be completed at all sitesNEW!Associate in Science in PARALEGAL STUDIES877.369.7227 x1043BACHELOR OF SCIENCE/DOCTOR OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINESCIENCE HONORS TRACK 212.463.0400 x5440a 7 year track leading to B.S. and D.O. Degrees at NYSCAS divisionof Touro College and Touro College of Osteopathic MedicineCERTIFICATE PROGRAMS:• DMX—Digital Media Arts | 212.463.0400 x5588• Desktop and Web Publishing | 718.336.6471 x119Other Professional Opportunities: Pre-Law, Pre-Medical, Pre-DentalMANHATTAN: 212.463.0400 x5500 Midtown212.722.1575 x101 UptownBROOKLYN: 718.265.6534 x1003Bensonhurst, Kings Highway, Flatbush,Brighton, Starrett City, Sunset ParkQUEENS: 718.520.5107 Forest Hills718.353.6400 x107 Flushingwww.touro.edu/nyscasTouro College is an equal opportunity institution

20 COLLEGES & GRADuate Schools ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ NOV/DEC 2010The DEAN’S COLUMNTreasures in thePythagorean TheoremBy Alfred Posamentier, Ph.D.When the Pythagorean theorem is mentioned,one immediately recalls the famous relationship:a2 + b2 = c2. Yet, how many adults can rememberwhat this equations means? This question motivatedme to write a book on this most famoustheorem (The Pythagorean Theorem, the Story ofits Power and Glory – Prometheus Books, 2010)to show off the many aspects of this relationshipin a wide variety of contexts and applications.However, for the classroom, teachers should notbe limited to merely show its geometric applicationand then in the most trivial fashion. To much“good stuff” is lost that way.After introducing the Pythagorean theorem,teachers often suggest that students recognize(and memorize) certain common ordered triplesthat can represent the lengths of the sides of aright triangle. Some of these ordered sets of threenumbers, known as Pythagorean triples, are: (3,4, 5), (5, 12, 13), (8, 15, 17), (7, 24, 25). Thestudent is asked to discover these Pythagoreantriples as they come up in selected exercises.How can one generate more triples without aguess and test method? This question, often askedby students, will be answered here and, in theprocess, will show some really nice mathematics,all too often not presented to students. This is anunfortunate neglect that ought to be rectified.Ask your students to supply the number(s) thatwill make each a Pythagorean triple:1. (3, 4, __)2. (7, __, 25)3. (11, __, __)The first two triples can be easily determinedusing the Pythagorean theorem. However, thismethod will not work with the third triple. Atthis point, your students will be quite receptive tolearning about a method to discover the missingtriple. So, with properly motivated students asyour audience, you can embark on the adventureof developing a method for establishingPythagorean triples.However, before beginning to develop formulas,we must consider a few simple “lemmas”(these are “helper” theorems).Lemma 1: When 8 divides the square of an oddnumber, the remainder is 1.Proof: We can represent an odd number by2k + 1, where k is an integer.The square of this number is (2k + 1)2 = 4k2 +4k + 1 = 4k (k + 1) + 1Since k and k + 1 are consecutive, one of themmust be even. Therefore 4k (k + 1) must be divisibleby 8. Thus (2k + 1)2, when divided by 8,leaves a remainder of 1.The next lemmas follow directly.Lemma 2: When 8 divides the sum of two oddsquare numbers, the remainder is 2.Lemma 3: The sum of two odd square numberscannot be a square number.Proof: Since the sum of two odd square numbers,when divided by 8, leaves a remainder of 2,the sum is even, but not divisible by 4. It thereforecannot be a square number.We are now ready to begin our development offormulas for Pythagorean triples. Let us assumethat (a,b,c) is a primitive Pythagorean triple.This implies that a and b are relatively prime.*Therefore they cannot both be even. Can theyboth be odd?If a and b are both odd, then by Lemma 3:a2 + b2 ≠ c2 . This contradicts our assumption that(a, b, c) is a Pythagorean triple; therefore a andb cannot both be odd. Therefore one must be oddand one even.Let us suppose that a is odd and b is even.This implies that c is also odd. We can rewritea2 + b2 = c2 asb2 = c2 – a2b2 = (c + a)(c – a)Since the sum and difference of two odd numbersis even, c + a = 2p and c - a = 2q (p and qare natural numbers).By solving for a and c we get:c = p + q and a = p – qWe can now show that p and q must be relativelyprime. Suppose p and q were not relativelyprime; say g>1 was a common factor. Then gwould also be a common factor of a and c.Similarly, g would also be a common factor ofc + a and c ‐ a. This would make g2 a factorof b2, since b2 = (c + a)(c ‐ a). It follows thatg would then have to be a factor of b. Now if gis a factor of b and also a common factor of aand c, then a, b, and c are not relatively prime.This contradicts our assump tion that (a, b, c) is aprimitive Pythagorean triple. Thus p and q mustbe relatively prime.Since b is even, we may represent b asb = 2rBut b2 = (c + a)(c ‐ a).Therefore b2 = (2p)(2q) = 4r2, or pq = r2If the product of two relatively prime naturalnumbers (p and q) is the square of a natural number(r), then each of them must be the square ofa natural number.Therefore we let p = m2 and q = n2, where mand n are natural numbers. Since they are factorsof relatively prime numbers (p and q), they (mand n) are also relatively prime.Since a = p – q and c = p + q, it follows thata = m2 – n2 and c=m2 + n2Also, since b = 2r and b2 = 4r2 = 4pq = 4m2n2,b = 2mnTo summarize, we now have formulas for generatingPythagorean triples:a = m2 - n2 b = 2mn c = m2 + n2The numbers m and n cannot both be even,since they are relatively prime. They cannot bothbe odd, for this would make c = m2 + n2 an evennumber, which we established earlier as impossible.Since this indicates that one must be evenand the other odd, b = 2mn must be divisible by 4.Therefore no Pythagorean triple can be composedof three prime numbers. This does not mean thatthe other members of the Pythagorean triple maynot be prime.Let us reverse the process for a moment.Consider relatively prime numbers m and n(where m > n), where one is even and the otherodd.We will now show that (a, b, c) is a primitivePythagorean triple where a = m2 – n2, b=2mnand c = m2 + n2.It is simple to verify algebraically that (m2 –n2)2 + (2mn)2 = (m2 + n2)2, thereby making it aPythagorean triple. What remains is to prove that(a, b, c) is a primitive Pythagorean triple.Suppose a and b have a common factor h > 1.Since a is odd, h must also be odd. Because a2+ b2 = c2, h would also be a factor of c. We alsohave h a factor of m2 – n2 and m2 + n2 as well asof their sum, 2m2, and their difference, 2n2.Since h is odd, it is a common factor of m2 andn2. However, m and n (and as a result, m2 andn2) are relatively prime. Therefore, h cannot bea common factor of m and n. This contradictionestablishes that a and b are relatively prime.Having finally established a method for generatingprimitive Pythagorean triples, studentsshould be eager to put it to use. The table belowgives some of the smaller primitive Pythagoreantriples.Pythagorean Triplesm n a b c2 1 3 4 53 2 5 12 134 1 15 8 174 3 7 24 255 2 21 20 29Mens Sana En Corpore SanoPhysical Fitness and Academic SuccessBy Brooks O’BrienWhen was the first time you heard praise forthe concept of “a sound mind in a sound body”?Like me, however, maybe you listened more tothe drumbeat of media advertising for junk foodwhile reclining in the couch potato position. I’mthe guy in the before and after picture and, no,this is not trick photography. The elapsed timebetween “before” and “after” was just over ayear. “No way,” you say; but I’m here to tellyou that I did it and that you can do it too. And,although you can’t see it in the picture, the bestpart of my story is that there is now a sound mindin that Arnold-like physique.Last year I said to myself, “no more time, itis now or never.” Mr. Before was 28 and hadfinished Landmark College several years beforewith an Associate of Arts degree, a momentousachievement for me at the time; but this job marketwas screaming at me: “got to have a full, fouryear degree or you are not in the game.” So, Iapplied and was accepted at Marymount Collegein McLean,Virginia with a major in graphicdesign. Knowing how difficult school had alwaysbeen for me, I made the crucial decision of workingon my body at the same time. I became anexperienced master of the art of bodybuilding, and5 4 9 40 416 1 35 12 376 5 11 60 617 2 45 28 537 4 33 56 657 6 13 84 85I embarked on a journey toward physical fitness.Here is what I learned: discipline from withinis the only kind that works for me. Self-disciplineand countless hours of gym work led me down apath that found me last summer as a competitorfor the title “Mr. Maryland.” I didn’t win, butwatch out for me next time.Here is the best part: all of this self-disciplineand the self-esteem that smiled back at me frommy mirror translated directly into my performanceas a student. At last I understood what somany people had told me for so long: I can dothis stuff just like the other kids. Feeling goodand doing well are now in an endless feedbackloop. If you think that this can’t happen to you,then just take another look at that picture. If I cando it, so can you. Set an objective, be tough onyourself, and develop a taste for ground turkey.Good luck! #Brooks O’Brien is a senior at MarymountCollege where he majors in graphic design.Prior to returning to college in 2009, he spentthree years in the founding group of Cyren CallCommunications, a start-up based in TysonsCorner, Va. He is training for next summer’sbodybuilding competition in his home stateof Maryland.A fast inspection of the above table indicatesthat certain primitive Pythagorean triples (a, b,c) have c = b+1. Have students discover the relationshipbetween m and n for these triples.They should notice that for these triples m = n+ 1. To prove this will be true for other primitivePythago rean triples (not in the table), let m = n +1 and generate the Pythagorean triples.a = m2 – n2 = (n + 1)2 – n2 = 2n + 1b = 2mn = 2n(n + 1) = 2n2 + 2nc = m2 + n2 = (n + 1)2 + n2 = 2n2 + 2n + 1Clearly c = b + 1, which was to be shown!A natural question to ask your students is tofind all primitive Pythagorean triples which areconsecutive natural numbers. In a method similarto that used above, they ought to find that theonly triple satisfying that condition is (3, 4, 5).Students should have a far better appreciationfor Pythagorean triples and elementary numbertheory after completing this unit. Other investigationsthat students may wish to explore arepresented below. Yet, bear in mind the applicationsof this most ubiquitous relationship haspractically endless applications!1. Find six primitive Pythagorean tripleswhich are not included in the above table.2. Find a way to generate primitive Pythagoreantriples of the form (a, b, c) where b = a + 1.3. Prove that every primitive Pythagorean triplehas one member which is divisible by 3.4. Prove that every primitive Pythagorean triplehas one member which is divisible by 5.5. Prove that for every primitive Pythagorean triplethe product of its members is a multiple of 60.6. Find a Pythagorean triple (a, b, c), whereb2 = a + 2.* Relatively prime means that they do not have anycommon factors aside from 1.Dr. Alfred Posamentier is dean of the School ofEducation and professor of mathematics educationat Mercy College. He is also author of over45 Mathematics books, including: MathematicalAmazements and Surprises (Prometheus,2009) Math Wonders to Inspire Teachers andStudents (ASCD, 2003), and The FabulousFibonacci Numbers (Prometheus, 2007), andmember of the New York State MathematicsStandards Committee.

NOV/DEC 2010 ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ COLLEGES & GRADuate Schools 21City Tech Marks Kristallnacht, End of WWII AnniversariesSala Kirschner & Dr. Ann Kirschner Jerry Jacobs Dr. Gunter BlobelNew York City College of Technology markedthe 72nd anniversary of Kristallnacht and the65th anniversary of the end of World War IIrecently with Ann Kirschner, Ph.D., author of“Sala’s Gift: My Mother’s Holocaust Story,”and the presentation of humanitarian awards toNobel Prize winner Günter Blobel, M.D., Ph.D.,and Interfaith Committee of Remembrancefounder and chairman Jerry Jacobs. The eventtook place in the college’s Atrium Amphitheaterin Downtown Brooklyn.Gary V. Ellis, M.D., co-founder and executivedirector of Brooklyn-based Inner ForceStudent Leadership Institute, introduced Dr.Kirschner. Joel Levy, director of developmentat the Vera Institute for Justice and former NewYork regional director at the Anti-DefamationLeague, presented the JFSA DistinguishedHumanitarian Award to Dr. Blobel and Mr.Jacobs. Borough President Marty Markowitzgave greetings and presented proclamations.Other dignitaries attending the event, whichis sponsored by City Tech’s Jewish Faculty& Staff Association, included Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka, New York Consul General of Poland,and Dr. Horst Freitag, New York Consul Generalof Germany.Günter Blobel, M.D., Ph.D., is the John D.Rockefeller, Jr. Professor and an investigatorat the Howard Hughes Medical Institute(Laboratory of Cell Biology) at RockefellerUniversity. Dr. Blobel was the 1999 recipientof the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicinefor his discovery that proteins have intrinsicsignals that govern their transport and localizationin the cell. He also received the King FaisalInternational Prize in 1996, the Albert LaskerAward for Basic Medical Research in 1993,the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize in 1989 andthe Gairdner Foundation International Awardin 1982.Dr. Blobel is a member of the NationalAcademy of Sciences, the AmericanPhilosophical Society, the Pontifical Academyof Sciences and the German Order of Merit.Born in a small Silesian village in what wasthen the eastern part of Germany, Dr. Blobelfounded (in 1994) Friends of Dresden, Inc., acharitable organization with the goal of raisingfunds to support the reconstruction of thatGerman city decimated during World War II.He donated the entire sum of his Nobel Prize tosupport the rebuilding of Dresden, including theFrauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), built in the18th century, and the building of a new synagoguein the city. The synagogue was destroyedon Kristallnacht in 1938.Dr. Kirschner, City University of New Yorkdean of Macaulay Honors College, says in herbook, “For nearly fifty years, my mother kept asecret. After surviving five years of Nazi slavelabor camps, Sala Garncarz Kirschner came toAmerica as a war bride and raised our familywithout ever speaking of her wartime experiences.I grew up in a happy and safe home, andbecame a scholar, writer, and a mother myself,but always wondered about the black hole in mymother’s past.”Among the topics Dr. Kirschner covered isthe role of public education and what it hasmeant to her family. “New York City schoolsnot only educated me, but my mother, too,”she explained. “And my family has a closeCUNY connection.”Dr. Kirschner began her career as a lecturerin Victorian literature at Princeton University,where she earned a Ph.D. in English. Her subsequentcareer as an entrepreneur in media andtechnology included the creation of Internetbusinesses for the National Football League andColumbia University. She is a frequent contributorto conferences and publications on highereducation and interactive media.Jerry Jacobs is founder and chairman ofthe Interfaith Committee of Remembrance andexecutive producer of the annual InterfaithHolocaust Remembrance Concerts at theCathedral of St. John the Divine. The son of aviolist and assistant conductor of the pre-warLodz Symphony who died in the Holocaust,Jacobs was a child survivor of Auschwitz andBuchenwald. #Harvard Makes Case for Closing Gender GapNew and compelling evidence documentingthe economic benefits of gender equality tookcenter stage at a recent two-day conference atHarvard University. “Closing the Gender Gap:The Business Case for Organizations, Politics andSociety,” hosted by the Women and Public PolicyProgram (WAPPP) at the John F. Kennedy Schoolof Government in collaboration with the WorldEconomic Forum and the Council of WomenWorld Leaders, brought together scholars andbusiness leaders from across the globe.“Unequal rights to work, political participation,education and health violate human rights and mayalso negatively affect societal development, politicaloutcomes and corporate performance,” saidIris Bohnet, professor of public policy at HarvardKennedy School and director of WAPPP. “WAPPPis defining a new research agenda based on theeconomic value of gender diversity. An efficiencylens opens a new perspective on the issue — it isno longer only about constraints but also aboutmissed opportunities; not only about rights butalso about returns; not only about sameness aboutalso about difference, benefitting from women’sand men’s comparative advantages that can makeeveryone better off.”Conferees presented evidence on a range oftopics to advance the business case for closinggender gaps. Some of the more compelling findingsincluded:• Development: The returns on investment inwomen can be higher than investments in menbecause women tend to have preferences andmake choices more aligned with general developmentgoals, such as decreasing the number ofchildren or spending income on children’s nutrition,Mayra Buvinic of the World Bank showed. Atthe same time, Professor Abhijit Banerjee of MITreminded the audience that microfinance has likelybeen overrated in its impact on poverty alleviationand the empowerment of women.• Politics: Women politicians provide more publicgoods that women care about and that are alsoaligned with general development goals, ProfessorEsther Duflo of MIT argued. For example, womenvillage leaders in India focused more on the provisionof clean water than men.• Education: The gender gap in education hasreversed with women now being better educatedthan men in many countries. Thus, the opportunitycost of not hiring and retaining talented womenhas increased. Business has more incentives thanever to design organizational practices inclusiveof women. For example, Ricardo Hausmann,professor of the practice of economic developmentat the Harvard Kennedy School, discussedevidence on the impacts of the reversal of thegender gap in Latin America on women’s laborforce participation and other societal developments,such as marriage patterns. In particular, hehighlighted the need for making work compatiblewith motherhood.• Demography: Due to demographic change,the current fertility rates in developed countriesin particular imply that the labor force is shrinking.Competition for talent is stiffer than ever, andclosing gender gaps in economic opportunity isparamount to replenishing the labor force. LaraWarner of Credit Suisse and the Harvard KennedySchool’s Women’s Leadership Board described thedemographic change as a “demographic tsunami.”• Diversity: There is strong evidence for adiversity premium, with diverse teams performingbetter than homogenous teams, research byProfessor Scott Page of the University of Michigandemonstrates. However, diverse teams also “meanwork,” as Associate Professor Katherine Philipsof the Kellogg School of Management remindedthe conference participants. Remarks offeredby representatives of Carlson, Credit Suisse,Daimler, Deloitte, Deutsche Telekom, ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, Heidrick & Struggles,McDonald’s, Pfizer, and Temin and Companyemphasized that corporations increasingly takethese benefits seriously and create organizationalstructures to enable diverse teams to live up totheir potential. Indeed, diversity in senior managementis related to organizational performance, theresearch by Assistant Professor David Ross ofColumbia Business School showed. Gender equalitynudges, a concept developed by Bohnet, helporganizations become more diverse. #

22 Music, art & Dance ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ NOV/DEC 2010Juilliard String Quartet WelcomesNew First Violinist Joseph LinPlaywright UsesTheater to EducateJoseph LinSteve J. ShermanJuilliard President Joseph W. Polisiannounced recently that 32-year-old violinistJoseph Lin, an alumnus of Harvardand The Juilliard School Pre-College,will join the Juilliard String Quartetas first violinist beginning in 2011. Healso becomes a member of the Juilliardviolin faculty beginning with the fall2011 semester. Mr. Lin currently is onleave from his position as a professor atCornell, spending time in Asia to studyChinese music. He returns to the US tocomplete the spring semester at Cornellbefore joining the other members of theJuilliard Quartet — violinist RonaldCopes (Quartet member since 1997),violist Samuel Rhodes (1969), and cellistJoel Krosnick (1974) — as a fulltimemember. Mr. Lin follows violinistNick Eanet who has resigned from theQuartet because of health issues.In announcing Mr. Lin’s appointment,President Polisi stated, “The Juilliardcommunity is delighted to continue thegreat tradition of the Juilliard StringQuartet through the appointment ofJoseph Lin. Joe brings extraordinaryartistry, intellect, and a vision to his newpost. We all welcome him as a member of theensemble and of our faculty.”The Juilliard String Quartet was founded64 years ago as the School’s resident quartetby then-Juilliard President William Schuman.Since then, the JSQ has encompassed twelvedifferent members, with changes happeningsingly during that time. (A complete chronologicalroster appears at the end of this release.)The Quartet’s international career has encompassedperformances throughout Europe, Asia,Australia, and North and South America.The continuing members of the Quartetunanimously commented on the search andsubsequent choice of Mr. Lin to become theensemble’s lead violin, recounting that, “Duringthe spring, summer, and early fall of 2010, weconducted a careful search for a new colleaguewho could help us to continue the high artistrywhich the Quartet has represented for more than60 years, and to help lead the Quartet into thefuture. During that time we played with a numberof brilliant violinists and musicians. Outof that process, Joseph Lin, who has participatedfor the past several years at the MarlboroFestival, emerged as the natural choice as ournext colleague.”Mr. Lin is an active solo and chamber musicianwho has performed in major halls throughoutthe world. He is a Concert Artists Guildwinner who also was a founding member of theprize-winning Formosa Quartet. His new colleaguescontinued comment on his versatilityand accomplishments by saying, “Mr. Lin is avirtuoso violinist of the highest order, as wellas a superb chamber musician. Further, he is amost serious artist with wide-ranging intereststhat include Chinese music and culture. Wefirmly believe that his deep thoughtfulnessabout music will add a remarkable voice, thatwill embrace and complement the ongoing dialoguethat always has been a strong characteristicof the Juilliard Quartet.”On being selected as the first violinist ofthis historied quartet, Mr. Lin remarked, “I amdelighted to have the opportunity to join theJuilliard String Quartet, an ensemble whoseartistry and leadership has touched the livesof audiences and musicians around the world.My relationship with my new colleagues hasalready been marked with generosity, bothmusically and personally. As we continue adialogue that has welcomed many voices overthe past six decades, I look forward, with mycolleagues, to building on the ensemble’s venerablehistory, weaving our individual experiencestogether to carry the Juilliard String Quartet intoa new and fruitful era.” #By Lisa K. WinklerSitting five to seven hours every day inStarbucks can be hazardous to one’s health,playwright Layon Gray discovered — but it canalso provide the ideal atmosphere for writing. Afew weeks before he was to board a plane fromLos Angeles to New York for the opening ofhis play “Black Angels Over Tuskegee,” Grayexperienced swelling in his leg. Thinking it wasa sprained muscle, he applied topical ointmentsand took ibuprofen. A later diagnosis of a bloodclot led to a regimen of blood thinners and selfinjections,but didn’t waylay the award-winningwriter, director, and actor from his New Yorkdebut. Gray shared his story in an interview withEducation Update.Growing up in a small town in Louisiana, Grayknew he wanted to play professional football. Hisfather had groomed him from early on, enrollingthe now 30-something in peewee leagues andattending his high school games wearing his onlyson’s football jersey. Gray attended college on afootball scholarship, playing quarterback.Seeing a touring theater company’s productionof the musical “Grease” changed his life. “I waslike, wow. This is where I want to be.” Muchto his father’s chagrin (he was convinced Graywouldn’t make any money as an actor), Graychanged majors at the expense of his scholarship.“I had always done acting imitations before myfamily,” Gray said, and he began auditioning forcollege productions. After graduating in 1995,he wrote and produced his own shows for a fewyears and then moved to Los Angeles, where heacted in “sleazy vampire horror” movies, beforeturning to writing, and his “office” at Starbucks.“I love watching people and listening to conversations,”said Gray, adding how being in NewYork and riding the subways also provide excellentfodder for his writing.Though not all his plays focus on aspects ofAfrican-American history, Gray’s two productionsin New York highlight topics he believesfew know little if anything about. “I didn’t learnabout the Tuskegee Airmen until my sophomoreyear of college, and I went to an all black highschool. Black airmen? Tell me more.” SeeingAmerica’s first black military airmen receive theMedal of Honor in 2007 further inspired Gray.“I saw these men on television, in their 80s and90s, some in wheelchairs, and I was awed,” saidGray. The play, initially intended for a limited runof a few weeks, has been extended many times.School groups have attended matinees, and GrayLayon Grayhas produced 30-minute versions of his plays tobring to schools. “I get e-mails from hundreds ofkids, saying how much they loved the play andwish their teachers would give them more information.”The play was performed at the Airmen’s nationalconvention, and a second cast will open inAtlanta in a few weeks. For Gray, its success ismore than he ever imagined. “It’s a simple storyabout guys who wanted to do something great.The audiences seem to relate to it and the Airmenlove us,” he said, his Louisiana accent draggingout “love.” When he knows an Airman is attendinga performance, he invites him on stage toshare his experiences.The second play, “All American Girls,” featuresthe women in the Negro baseball leaguesduring World War II. Gray wanted to try writinga murder mystery, so the plot unfolds when thecoach, a tough-love woman modeled after Gray’shigh school football coach, goes missing.Gray lists playwrights August Wilson, LorraineHansberry, and Tennessee Williams as mentors,but insists he’s developed his own style. “I usemusic and light as characters. And while he’sadamant that he “loves my people and lovestelling our stories,” his writing takes him in differentdirections. “I don’t want to be labeled as awriter who only writes about educational things,”he said, adding he’s working on a play about animmigrant Irish family.To relax, Gray takes what he calls a “Lay Day”where he sleeps late, turns off his phone, eats out,and then watches movies into the early morninghours. He plays flag football and is an avidSteelers and Saints fan.His two sisters aren’t in theater, but his youngnephew thinks he wants to be like Gray. “I tellhim, ‘do something else.’ You have to have astrong mindset for this. You’re constantly out ofwork, constantly looking for your next job. Thereare times when there’s no money coming in andyou scrounge around looking for pennies so youcan buy Ramen noodles to eat.”He attributes his own luck to his parents. Hismother always told him, “You can do whateveryou want to do.” His father instilled in him tohustle. “He’d tell me: ‘Don’t wait for anybody.You go out and get it. A lot of people dream,you have to be a doer.’ I relate that to everythingin life.” #Layon Gray’s plays are running in repertoireat the Actors Temple Theatre. For more information,visit http://www.layongray.com

NOV/DEC 2010 ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ Music, art & Dance23Town Hall Honors Merryl Tisch and Elaine StritchMarvin Leffler, CEO of Town Hall, has done aspectacular job of revitalizing this venerable venuefor music performances and education programs forschool children. Each year Town Hall recognizesoutstanding artists and philanthropists for their contributionsto the arts. There are also graduate musicstudents who play or sing during the ceremony,underscoring the contributions of the next generation.In recognition of her contributions to the arts,Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the New York StateBoard of Regents was recently awarded the TownHall Friend of the Arts Award at the Town Hall 89thAnniversary Celebration. She has served on theBoard of Regents since 2001. She became a teacherin 1977 and has since dedicated her career to education,community service and philanthropy.Also receiving an award at the event was ElaineStritch, a multi-talented actress who is currentlystarring in the Broadway revival of “A Little NightMusic.” She has been in show business for over40 years. She received a Tony award for her rolein “Elaine Stritch at Liberty” in 2004 and anEmmy award for her role in “30 Rock” in 2007.Stritch continues to entertain New Yorkers on filmand Broadway. #By Joan Baum, Ph.D.Trio con Brio Copenhagen is well named:the group plays “con brio,” with great vigorand enthusiasm, and the Danish capital ishome base, though the three musicians met inVienna in 1999 and achieved prominence firstin Germany. Shortly after receiving highly competitiveand coveted chamber music awards,including the Kalichstein-Laredo-RobinsonInternational Trio Award in 2005, the trio setoff on a concert tour in the United States.Education Update was fortunate in catching upwith the group recently in New York, wherethey performed at Rockefeller University aspart of the Peggy Rockefeller Concert Series,renowned for attracting prestigious performersand sophisticated audiences.To judge by the sustained applause, delivered“con brio,” the evening was a total success andmight have occasioned an encore, were noteveryone understandably almost wiped out bythe group’s last number, Tchaikovsky’s unusuallylong and challenging “Piano Trio in A minor”(1882), with its slow thematic development anddramatically lush and tragic lyricism — hellofuture film directors looking to score another“Anna Karenina.” Not that the performers werenot temporarily drained by the earlier pieces onthe program — “Traumlieder for Piano Trio”— a difficult partly minimalist six-part pieceby contemporary composer Hans Abrahamsen(oh that last movement with its jazzy syncopations!),followed by a stirring performance ofBeethoven’s “Ghost” (1808) with its “explosivebeginning” and daring second movement full ofbass line trills.Speaking for the trio, pianist Jens Elvekjaertalked about what it means to be in a chambermusic group, about performance and aboutmusic education. The group’s much-lauded“color and shape” have been described as aconvergence, in part, of “family ties, culturalblending and music.” Elvekjaer is married to thetrio’s cellist, Soo-Kyung Hong, with whom hehad been playing duos for three years, and she isthe sister of the group’s violinist, Soo-Jin Hong.The two have been playing together since childhood.The result? “There are so many thingsthey don’t have to talk about,” says Elvekjaer,which makes it “easier” and also makes it possibleto take liberties, when you have bonded,“which takes a long time.” Soo-Kyong Hong,incidentally, plays on a Testore cello from 1731and Soo-Jin Hong plays on a 17th-centuryGuarneri. And Mr. Elvekjaer? A Steinway.The group performs approximately 70 concertsa year, a challenging schedule which actuallysparks their creativity. When you do thesame piece repeatedly on tour, Elvekjaer says,Trio con BrioSoren Svendsen(L-R) Merryl TIsch &Marvin Leffler, Pres.you don’t want to repeat yourself. Pause. Heproffers that the highly abstract Abrahamsen“was the best performance” they had done todate. It’s not a piece that’s readily accessibleto audiences, he points out, but it’s importantto attend to contemporary music — especiallysomething from Scandinavia — along withthe traditional crowd pleasers (even so, theTschaikovsky was hardly typical). Although thegroup devotes only 10 percent of its programmingto modern music, Elvekjaer says howdelighted they are when they feel they havepersuaded an audience to listen and learn. Hewould like to do more in the line of explainingunusual pieces. American audiences, hesuggests, seem more receptive than audiencesabroad to such introductions. He also likesgoing into schools and getting youngsters excitedabout music.Elvekjaer cites Cologne’s Alban Berg Quartetas a particularly important influence, encouragingthe group to think about “how a performancereally works on stage.” By that is meantemphasizing for an audience, depending onits degree of sophistication, of course, whatwill make a piece truly resonate. For example,it there’s something melodic in an otherwiseatonal work, play out the melody. Emphasizethe dynamics in the classical repertoire. Andno matter what tensions emerge in rehearsal,resolve them for the performance, have an attitudethat is good for the group. And stay withthe announced program. Concert organizers arenot exactly thrilled when players make changes.Another important mentor Elvekjaer citesis the Hungarian pianist Ferenc Rados, whostill gives master classes, an “amazing musicalinspiration,” whose playing was like listening toa composer at work.For further information on Trio con BrioCopenhagen go to http://www.trioconbrio.dk.And be sure not to miss their next New Yorkappearance in 2011. #(L-R) Marvin Leffler, Pres.& Elaine StritchThe Boston Conservatory:President Richard OrtnerBY JOAN BAUM, Ph.D.(L-R) Dr. David Steiner, NYS EducationCommissioner & Dr. Charlotte Frank,Sr. VP, McGraw-HillRichard Ortner, at the helm of The BostonConservatory for twelve years, sounds as thoughhe’s just sailed in to realize his life’s passion —to be at the center of one of the most remarkableinstitutions in the country devoted to music,theater and dance. Articulate, energetic, upbeat,especially about TBC’s next 143 years (theinstitution began as the Boston Conservatory ofMusic in 1867), the president also evinces a winningmodesty about the conservatory’s accomplishments,especially under his direction. Heis also gracious in his acknowledgment of sisterschools, though, of course, he is proud of howTBC defines and distinguishes itself, especiallyin the competitive Northeast corridor and theBoston area, with its embarrassment of riches inthe arts and higher education.For one, The Boston Conservatory is modernand American. It includes contemporary work,emphasizing American musical theater, whilestill paying respect to the classical repertoire —Sondheim along with Sibelius. Even its foundingis distinctive. In the 19th century it was rare notto follow a European model, which meant havinga top-down administrative ethos and a traditionalcurriculum. At TBC, the faculty rules. And whata faculty it is, the president notes. His years inadministration at Tanglewood and on variousboards and advisory committees connected himto many of the best and the brightest artist-teachers,some of whom now work at the conservatory.It was also rare in the 19th century — not tomention much of the 20th — to open educationalopportunities to African-Americans and women,something TBC was among the first to do.Another distinction of The Boston Conservatory— its main one — is its multidisciplinary environment,though each of the tripartite divisions— music, theater, dance — has a director. Atother institutions that embrace these disciplines,it tends to be the case that students concentratingin one area have little chance to interact withthose concentrating in another. The conservatory’srelatively small student body (700) andconcise geographical area (eight buildings allwithin a two-block radius) allow for ready andheady student encounters and conversation.Of course, TBC students are fiercely competitive,but the close quarters are meant to encouragestudent interaction, a goal particularly importantfor the school. The multi-disciplinary environmentalso works to expose students in one disciplineto the other disciplines. Who’s to say, forinstance, that a theater major will not feel his orher “inner trombone” emerge? In regard to whatthe Web site says about a continuing “revitalization”of both facilitiesand programs, thepresident notes that anew facilities buildingstrikingly shows in itsdesign and constructionthe desirability ofpromoting interchangeamong the disciplines.Enrollments at lastcount show approximately80 students indance, 220 in theaterand 380 to 400 in music, 15 to 18 percent ofwhom are international students. His own job,President Ortner says unassumingly, is to “setthe bar” for standards. A new academic dean ison board, as part of the conservatory’s enhancedvision. Coursework already includes some hightechneuroscience courses and classes in anatomyand physiology, studies intended to show what isdistinctively human about performers in the arts.Still another distinction, says the president, isTBC’s “intimate and supportive” atmosphere,which freshmen sense immediately, an importantcorrective to the highly competitive arts world.Connections in the TBC world run wide anddeep: everyone at the conservatory “performs,”by which the president means ensuring that “performance”is understood as something beyondthe stage; that it embraces the classroom and thesurrounding community; that professional educationincludes not just preparing future artists butartist citizens.The Boston Conservatory has fully accreditedgraduate as well as undergraduate programs,though it’s basically the music students who goon for further study, enrolling, some of them, inthe conservatory’s impressive music educationprogram dedicated to training the next generationof teachers and music therapists, for example.Overall, TBC graduates become “core membersof regional, national, and international theater,dance and opera companies, orchestras, andchoruses.Richard Ortner’s bio reflects wide and deepeducational experience and friendships (LeonardBernstein, Leon Fleisher, Gunther Schulleramong them). His resume testifies to a diverselife as a performer (piano), architecture student(Cooper Union) and, of course, a music and artsadministrator. He earned a B.A. in Music fromNYU, studied with Richard Faber at Juilliardand, heeding Bernstein’s advice, learned about“every facet of orchestra operations, from concertproduction and finance to facilities managementand programming.” #

24 BOOK REVIEWS ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ NOV/DEC 2010A Young-Adult Pirate Story ThatEntertains and EducatesFishby Gregory MoneScholastic. 241 pp., $16.By Joan Baum, Ph.D.Arguably, books for young adults are difficultto conceive and market because the agerange 12 to 20, as defined by the AmericanLibrary Association, covers such a wide period ofphysiological and psychological change. Writingfor the young-adult set these days can alsoprove challenging for authors who choose notto follow the increasing tendencytoward edge — theinclusion of content that issexually explicit and topicallyraw (drugs, alcohol,violence), even employingrough language. Thus, whatGregory Mone has done in“Fish,” an engaging historicaltale about piracy offthe coast of Ireland, wouldseem to go against the current.It does, and it shouldmake a number of parentsand teachers happy.Mone’s young protagonist,Maurice Reidy,who’s known as Fishbecause he is the onlyone in his family who’slearned to swim, isalmost 12 when the narrativeopens. The farmingfamily is dirt poor.Their only horse hasdied, and Fish, who isthe least agriculturallyadept sibling, is sent to thecity to work for his father’s brother as a messenger,delivering money. He works hard until oneday, when he is about to deliver a purse of goldcoins to someone at the dock, he is waylaid androbbed. In an attempt to recover the package, hefinds himself in the water — trying to save thepurse but also a ne’er-do-well who’s threatenedhim. And thus begins Fish’s adventure aboarda pirate ship, otherwise known as a paperlessprivateer, until out on the high seas.Fish’s forced stay aboard the ship allows Moneto offer nuggets of history, along with humor andinventive fun. One pirate loves to make up wordssuch as “putrocious” (a combo for putrid andatrocious), a word game that might spur youngreaders to make up their own. The tale’s not justfor boys. A 13-year-old orphan girl befriendsFish, and he wins the affection and admiration ofthe other boys on board. Mone draws on youngpeople’s desire for buddies in a way that nicelyshows the difference between allies and booncompanions. By way of an intelligent and kindlypirate captain, Fishalso comes tosee that a goodcaptain does notcontrol his menbut leads them,and that thosewho seek treasurewith patienceand care will berewarded over thewild and restlessof the world. Goodlessons all for thepre-teen crowd.Mone, whoseIrish immigrantgrandparents furnisheda few ofthe story’s details,attributes the sparkof his tale to summersspent on theNorth Shore of LongIsland when he andcousins went roamingfor sunken treasure,map and cluesin hand. At one time a competitive swimmer,Mone is a contributing editor at Popular Science.This is his first young-adult book, and thoughit’s obvious that all’s well that ends well will bethe conclusion, the story moves along at a livelypace and with an age-appropriate regard for thegrowing adolescent mind. A fine counterbalanceto so many vicious video games. #Logos Bookstore’s RecommendationsBy H. Harris Healy, III,President, Logos Bookstore1575 York Avenue(Between 83rd and 84th Sts.)New York, NY 10028(212) 517-7292 Fax (212) 517-7197www.logosbookstorenyc.comAs November and December come to pass, itbecomes the time of year for holiday gift shopping,and Logos Bookstore is the place to come.Logos has attractive 2011 wall and desk calendarsof New York City, the world, art, flowers, spiritualityand religions as well as children’s favoritessuch as Peanuts, Curious George and Dr. Seuss’zany characters. In addition Logos sells the 2011Manhattan Diary, a most comprehensive compactfit-in-your-pocket calendar diary with store, club,restaurant, and museum listings as well as maps.For those people who observe Advent, Logos willhave lovely traditional image Advent calendars.Holiday greeting cards, boxed and individual(Christmas and Hanukah), will be available fromNovember 5 onward. Currently there are individualThanksgiving cards for purchase. Booksabout Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukahare also available. Perennial Christmas favoritesinclude The Night Before Christmas, The TwelveDays of Christmas, The Polar Express, The GiftOf The Magi, Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer,A Child’s Christmas In Wales and A ChristmasCarol, among others.Logos now has “Tintin” books in both Frenchand English, as well as “Asterix” books inEnglish, so now one can follow up on the Frenchspeakingyoung adventurer Tintin and his dogMilou as well as the last Gauls, Asterix, Obelixand their compatriots (and their secret potion), asthey hold the Romans at bay through some mosthilarious adventures. In addition to the regularParent to Parent:The College Searchby Sybil MaiminStudents involved in the “craziness” of the collegeapplication process get lots of sympathy andadvice. Receiving less attention and care are theparents; those cheerleadingadults who share the rollercoasterride are variouslydepended upon or kept outof the loop and, ultimately,are required to accept theirchild’s independence andcollege decision. Comingto the aid of anxious andfrustrated moms and dads,Jennifer Delahunty, deanof admissions at Ohio’sKenyon College, has puttogether an anthology of27 personal essays bythose who have beenthrough the process, titled“I’m Going to College— Not You!” Sharingtheir experiences, parentto parent, the writersgive the encouragingmessage that, in the end,“Everything will be allright.” Rather than a “howto” manual for parents, the book is about “how tosurvive.” The essays are wise, often witty, sometimespoignant, and delightful to read. Whileeach story is as unique as each student, readerswill recognize aspects of themselves, theirchildren, and their families in these tales. Theauthors are a stellar assemblage that includesnovelists, poets, playwrights, journalists, educators,and a hefty dose of admissions counselorsand directors. The group boasts an Emmy- and aPulitzer Prize-winner, a New York Times columnist,the author of an Oprah Book Club selection,and a reporter for Education Update. But, mostimportant, they are all parents.Delahunty reminds us that college choice is abig business generating billions of dollars annually.Test preparation companies (e.g., Kaplan,Princeton Review), testing agencies (CollegeBoard, ACT), and independent counselors thrivein this fiercely competitive, unpredictable reality.“A meritocracy it is not,” states Delahunty.“The mysterious nature of the process frustratesand infuriates.” Millions of dollars are availablein financial aid, but a specific amount isnot offered until four weeks before “a majorpurchasing decision must be made.” Collegechoice coincides with the tense time in lifewhen a child seeks independence and parentswant control. “It is the last great act of parenting,”advises the Kenyon admissions director,comparing it to letting your child drive a car onhis or her own even though you know you havemore experience. Compiling a “list” (usually 10to 12 schools) is the first challenge. Should itTintin stories there are now books devoted toyounger readers focusing on numbers, transportand simple stories about Tintin and the elephant,lion and llamas.Holiday music at Logos includes different classicalmusic compilations from the MetropolitanMuseum of Art, lovely contemporary instrumentalrenditions of carols and songs, and jazz andworld music versions to complement the richcollection of world, classical, jazz, religious andGregorian music.Gift items for the holidays include Central andSouth American nativities, straw angels, ornamentalballs and bells, Christmas crackers withparty hats and surprises, and other ornaments anddecorations as well as menorahs and plush toytie-ins to such children’s books as Go Dog Goand Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman, the“Five Little Monkeys” series, the “Little Quack”series, and Knuffle Bunny and other Mo Wihelmcharacters as well as games based on Curiousinclude a parent’s beloved alma mater? How faraway? What if proximity to a high school sweetheartis insisted upon? (See essay, “When LoveGets in the Way.”) College visits can be helpful,but can also produce seeminglyirrational observationsand reactions.While some applicantshave the advantage ofbeing “shoo-ins” (legacies,development, topathlete or talent), mostare “hopefuls” and mustfind an angle, or “hook.”At a recent reading from“I’m Going to College —Not You!” at Bloombergheadquarters, 10 contributorsshared insights. Theydescribed strong needs forteen independence, dissimilarexperiences withdifferent children within afamily, and summers andholidays devoted to collegevisits. A mother of aspecial-needs son spoke ofbringing medical records tocollege interviews and theanguish of rejections. Laurie Kutchins, whoaccepted the role of “Application Coach andDeadline Enforcement Officer,” remarked, “It isa powerful and indelible moment when parentscatch a first glimpse of mature adulthood emergingin their teenager.” Sean Callaway, the fatherof six home-schooled children, learned that,“quality without salesmanship is just anotherword for oblivion,” and took a job counselinghigh school students about college as a result ofthe search experience. Lisa K. Winkler, motherof three, noted eloquently, “The college hunttaught us that we should listen to our kids. …We learned about each child in ways we nevermay have otherwise.” Anna Duke Reach admittedit wasn’t until the college search with herthird child that she finally “got it” and realizedher parental role was like Sancho Panzato Don Quixote: “listening hard and believingthe impossible until I share a vision of eachchild’s dream.” In the book, Anna Quindlen,who went on to become a trustee and chair ofthe board of her alma mater, Barnard College,spoke of being very unhappy as a freshman, but“growing into the place.” She suggests it is notalways best to feel at home immediately becausecomfort allows no room for growth. She advises,“College should be aspirational, designed not toreinforce who a student is but to elevate her tothe point at which she dares to be the best selfshe can become, intellectually and personally.”The book’s underlying message to anxious parents:Be helpful, but do not interfere. The searchdoes end..#George and The Cat In The Hat.For those people who like food and possiblycooking, Logos has a well-stocked cookbooksection of all kinds of cuisines. Happy Holidays!Upcoming Events At Logos Bookstore• Wednesday, November 3, 2010 at 7 p.m., KillYour TV Reading Group will discuss The SpyWho Came In From The Cold by John Le Carre.• Monday, December 8, 2010 at 7 p.m., theSacred Texts Group led by literary agent RichardCurtis will discuss the book of Acts and theTalmud.• Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 7 p.m.,KYTV Reading Group will discuss The Lacunaby Barbara Kingsolver.• Every Monday at 11 a.m., is Children’s StoryTime led by Lily.Transit: 4, 5, 6, Subways to Lexington Ave. and86th St., M86 Bus (86th St.),M79 Bus (79th St.), M31 Bus (York Ave.) M15Bus (1st and 2nd Aves.)

NOV/DEC 2010 ■ EDUCATION UPDATE ■ museums as educatorsExhibit DramatizesInsulin Discoveryby Jan AaronSince the hormone insulin was first isolatedin Toronto and produced in Indianapolis, Iwondered why the New-York Historical Societychose to feature an exhibit called “Breakthrough:The Dramatic Discovery of Insulin.” There’sa scant connection: An exhibit is devoted toElizabeth Hughes, one of the earliest and mostfamous insulin patients; she was the daughterof Charles Evans Hughes, the onetime secretaryof state, New York governor, and supreme courtjustice. Still, why should we quibble about localrelevance? The show is expertly researchedand handsomely presented. It is relevant to ourtimes, and we can be proud that it’s here.Combining graphics, easy-to-read text, artifactsand illustrations, it offers a clear explanationfor novices to this subject: what diabetesis, how deadly it was, and who made it less so.Those with more experience (diabetics, or thosewith diabetic friends or family) will be mesmerizedby the historical objects in the show: letters,research notes. There is a telegram telling Dr.Frederick Banting, one of the co-discoverers ofinsulin, that he and his colleague had won theNobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Alsoriveting are objects such as syringes, ampoules,and early kits to test sugar in urine and blood.“That’s Like Me!”: Stories About AmazingPeople with Learning Differencesby Jill Lauren, MAPublished by Star Bright Books, New York: 2009NY HISTORICAL SOCIETY“Daughter of U. S. Secretary of StateTries New Toronto Discovery,” TorontoDaily Star, August 17, 1922. (Fromthe Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library,University of Toronto.)BOOK REVIEWThat’s Like Me!Photograph of Elizabeth Hughes withher mother, summer, 1918. ( From theThomas Fisher Rare Book Library,University of Toronto.)The new book “Breakthrough” by Thea Cooperand Arthur Ainsberg, which inspired this show,offers readable explanations. But the exhibitsdivulging personal stories bring the insulin storyto life. Pages from a doctor’s registry before thediscovery of insulin lists patients’ names, datesof diagnosis, and dates of death; post-discovery,the death rates change drastically. My favoriteexhibit shows a letter from Teddy Ryder, anearly insulin patient. Scrawled in pencil andclumsy capital letters, he tells Dr. Banting: “I’ma fat boy now and I feel fine. I can climb a tree.”Photos adjacent juxtapose a skinny, sickly Ryderin 1922 with a plump, smiling one a year laterand 23 pounds heavier.Text reminds the viewer that insulin transformeddiabetes from a fatal disease to a chronicone. The show emphasizes that insulin is nota cure; it’s a treatment, and diabetics are sick.You’ll also learn that in the 90 years since insulinwas discovered, no further advances have beenmade, and, more depressingly, diabetes rateshave remained steady or rising worldwide. #The exhibit is displayed through January 31,2011 at the New-York Historical Society, locatedat 2 West 77th Street. For more information,call (212) 873-3400, or visit http://www.nyhistory.orgBy Merri RosenbergA trapeze artist, fire fighter, veterinarian, inventor,event producer, dancer, award-winning illustrator— there’s not much that would seem to linkthese disparate people.What they share, as revealed in Jill Lauren’ssurprisingly brave touching children’s book,“That’s Like Me!”, is a common history ofstruggling with school and academic pursuitsbecause of learning differences. Some of theselearning disabilities were recognized early inthe subjects’ school careers, with several speakingabout their positive experiences in smallresource room classes, or the encouragementthey received from teachers and parents. Othersstruggled through school, only finding their waywhen they received an appropriate diagnosis incollege or beyond.As illustrator Jerry Pinkney writes in his foreword,“My learning disability was not recognizedor considered, thereby making it invisible, whichcaused me to find ways of keeping in unseen. Ilearned to excel in areas where I was strong andhide those places where there was a challenge.”One of the author’s goals in writing this bookand sharing these stories — which interspersethose of the adults with poignant stories fromchildren currently in school, who define themselvesas an artist, scientist, wrestler and EagleScout — is to offer inspiration and hope to childrenand their parents.‘That’s Like Me!’ is designed to inspire, educateand empower children with learning disabilities,”writes Lauren, a teacher who specializesin the field and works with children and adults.“Finally, some of your child’s connections to thestories may be emotionally based, and reading theprofiles may lead to important discussions aboutfeelings related to learning differently.”For a slender volume, this packs quite a powerfulpunch, one that I’m sure will resonate withspecial education teachers as well as parents andchildren who deal, daily, with the challenges ofthese learning differences. #Holocaust Center Makes aDifference in Life of CommunityBy Joan Baum, Ph.D.Coincidentally, the very day Education Updatepaid a visit to the Holocaust Memorial andTolerance Center of Nassau County, a leadingregional newspaper with national reach rana front-page piece on bullying in schools. ToBeth Lilach, the senior directorof education at the center, theheadlined feature underscoredthe mission of HMTC, which,despite its name and nearbyChildren’s Memorial Garden,does not restrict itself to tellingthe tragic story of Jews murderedduring World War II, orof state-sanctioned antisemitismin history. Indeed, the center hasalso taken on a broader charge— to depict, explain and preventbehavior such as bullyingthat all too frequently erupts asracial, homophobic and ethnicintolerance and genocide. In thewords of center chairman Howard S. Maier,“the Holocaust did not begin with concentrationcamps and killing. It started with stereotyping,intolerance and prejudice.” This theme is impressivelyon display in gallery rooms along withHolocaust artifacts and mixed-media testimonials,not just to the Holocaust but to those whostood up against oppressors.Located in an elegant neo-Georgian mansionset deep in the woods of Welwyn Preserve inGlen Cove, the center, the former home of oilindustrialist Harold Irving Pratt, still seems to berelatively unknown even though it has been inexistence for 16 years, reopened several monthsago after extensive renovation, and has beenengaged for some time in significant communityoutreach. And not just in Nassau County. HMTCserves the greater New York City area, includingQueens and Suffolk Counties, by providing freeon-site programs and tours for schools, sponsoringlectures and conferences for adults, and offeringtraveling exhibitions.The connection between memorializing Jews— and non-Jews, such as people with disabilitiesand the Roma — as well as others murdered byvicious regimes in the last century — and morerecent victims of genocide in Cambodia, Burma/Myanmar, Bosnia, Sudan, Rwanda, Iraq — is atthe heart of the lessons the center would teach.This theme is only one feature that differentiates— and distinguishes — the center fromother museums and educational institutions withsimilar goals. Another is its choice of teachers:survivors and liberators come to the center to talkabout their experiences and to provide, by theirvery existence, inspiration. As Beth Lilach pointsout, however, time is running out. These eyewitnesseswere children when history cast them intheir roles, but of course their indelible stories areThe U.S.-Israel Citizenship ThroughSports Exchange is a program sponsoredby the America-Israel FriendshipLeague, a non-profit organization. Theprogram, which was founded by Drs.Cedric and June Dempsey, offers activitiesthat promote skills in communication,conflict resolution and goodsportsmanship to young American andIsraeli student-athletes. Nearly 100high schools in Israel have added theprogram to its extracurricular activitiesand efforts are being made to introducethe the Citizenship through SportsExchange program to schools in theUnited States. For more information,visit http://www.aifl.org. #Chairman Howard Maier25part of the center’s permanent exhibit of films,photographs and written accounts.Begun in 1994 in response to a felt needexpressed by survivors and their families wholived in Nassau County, the 2,500-square footcenter has the advantage of scale. It is smallenough to engage children andadults in manageable time periods.HMTC is essentially aneducational institution, servingpublic, private and parochialschools, and to that end it hasassembled an impressive arrayof age-appropriate curriculummaterials that teachers can borrowfor free. It also providesclassroom space for toleranceworkshops that follow presentationsand tours. For example,the center has two DVDs formiddle school and high schoolstudents that focus on survivorsdiscussing how they sufferedintolerance in their childhoods. Their narrativesare set against a background of archival footage.One DVD is 14 minutes long, the other 15.Why the one-minute difference? Because a verygraphic scene has been edited out for 5th-graders,Ms. Lilach says. Even so, as she notes, when sheand Howard Maier look in on presentations, theycan often hear collective gasps, even crying. Thepoint, however, is not to terrify youngsters butto educate them, to hope that being at the centerwill constitute “life-changing moments” for themand to encourage their continuing interest (thecenter sponsors literary and art competitions), animportant consideration as staff members discussprogram plans for K through 4.Another unique feature of HMTC of NassauCounty is its offering of professional developmenttolerance programs for employers, educators,law enforcement and other professionals,such as school superintendents, curriculumdirectors, the North Shore-LIJ Health Systememployees, attorneys and physicians. The centeralso provides full-day training to every newrecruit class in the Nassau and Suffolk CountyPolice Academies.It is important, Ms. Lilach points out, that thelast gallery all visitors go through is one thatemphasizes two critical lessons: 1) that liberationof the concentration camps in 1945 did not endtyranny, racism, antisemitism or genocide; and2) that there were, are, and can continue to be“upstanders” — those who refuse to be passive inthe face of intolerance and violence. Awarenessis fine, action is finer. “There is no such thingas neutrality in terms of genocide.” HMTC ofNassau County is an important resource that allpeople should put on their must visit list. Now. #100 Crescent Beach Road, Glen Cove. (516)571-8040. http://www.holocaust-nassau.orgU.S-Israeli Program PromotesGood Sportsmanship(L-R) Rina Mosseri, AIFL representative;Tomer Israeli; Gal Geva; Dr. Charlotte Frank

y David J. Kahn(kibbe3@aol.com)k”ds from26 Education update ■ For Parents, Educators & Students ■ NOV/DEC 2010ACROSSDOWN32 Not too smart1 Tina’s co-star on “30 Rock”1 Some fine wools33 Stop acting like an amateur?5 Folk singer Phil2 Be careful35 Beehive State nativeHerman Rosen, MD,Education Update9 Hold responsiblea New 3 “Apollo York marathon 13” actor36 Polecat’s relativeMailing Address:14 Mother ___physician 4 Animation the still acute37 Gambling game695 Park Avenue, Ste. E1509medical 5 Decline care tent an invitation near38 It’s found in CAT scannersNew York, NY 1006515 Pique performance?Email: ednews1@aol.com6 Soup the or finish dessert line.41 Bows (to)16 Baseballer in 1974 newswww.EducationUpdate.com7 Impresario Sol42 Most like Caspar Milquetoast Tel: 212-650-3552 Fax: 212-410-059117 Sci-fi writer Frederik ___8 Nasdaq buy: Abbr.43 Wal-Mart rivalPUBLISHERS:18 Ragtime danceJuvenile red-tailed hawk9 Dark horses44 Not at all eagerPola Rosen, Ed.D., Adam Sugerman, M.A.found somewhat dazed on20 Nicknamed, briefly10 Shaping tool45 Take turnsADVISORY COUNCIL:17th Street and Second AveMary Brabeck, Dean, NYU Steinhardt School21 Pamplona runnerin NYC. NYPD 11 Traffic Emergency directors47 Golden ___of Culture, Ed., and Human Dev.; Dr. Christine22 Having missed the boat? Division brought 12 Anchored the Cea, NYS Board of Regents; Shelia Evans-DIG bird IN! to48 Online newsgroup systemTranumn, Assoc. Comm. of Education Emeritus,23 Nebraska football player an animal rescue 13 Punches by center. David in J. Kahn49 Part of a chorus line?NYS; Charlotte K. Frank, Ph.D., Sr. VP,Photo by H. Rosen, McGraw-Hill; Joan Freilich, Ph.D., Trustee,26 Washstand vessel19 Nocturnal (kibbe3@aol.com)MD insect51 Phileas Fogg portrayer, 1956Barnard College & College of New Rochelle;27 Golden21 Jennifer Lopez remix album 53 Jungle vineAndrew Gardner, Technology Teacher &“J to ___ L-O!”Advisor, The School at Columbia U.; CynthiaACROSS 28 ___-night doubleheader DOWN32 Not 55 too Strong smart cleanersGreenleaf, Ph.D., Sr. Assoc., Heidrick &24 DIG “Phooey!” IN by David J. Kahn (Kibbe3@aol.com)1 Tina’s co-star on “30 Rock”1 Some fine wools33 Stop 59acting Studio like that an amateur? made “Suspicion”Struggles; Augusta S. Kappner, Ph.D., President30 ’60s college org.David J. Kahn has been dazzling crossword puzzle fans with his creations for many years. Almost 150 of his puzzles have Emerita, Bank St. College; Harold Koplewicz,5 Folk singer Phil2 Be 25carefulSchool near Windsor35 Beehive 60 Pointed State native commentM.D., Exec. Dir. NKI, Pres., Child Mind31 Move a littleappeared in the New York Times, with many others in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Sun and other newspapers and magazines.29His Bach’s 13” actor9 Hold responsible3 “Apollobooks include Mass Baseball ___ Crosswords, Minor 36 Polecat’s relativeSit & Solve Hard Crosswords and Sit & Solve Movie Crosswords.Institute; Ernest Logan, Pres., CSA; Cecilia32 “Nothing ___!”4 Animation still37 Gambling gameMcCarton, M.D., Dir., The McCarton Center;14 Mother ___1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 135 Decline an invitation38 It’s found in CAT scannersMichael Mulgrew, Pres., UFT; Eric Nadelstern,1534 Pique Device performance? that prevents fluids fromDeputy Chancellor for School Support andleaking6 Soup or dessert41 Bows (to)16 Baseballer in 1974 news14 15 16Instruction, NYC Dept. of Education; Alfred7 Impresario Sol42 Most like Caspar MilquetoastS. Posamentier, Ph.D., Dean of Education,1739 Sci-fi It may writer be Frederik let off ___8 Nasdaq Mercy College; Jerrold Ross, Dean, School of17 buy: Abbr.18 43 Wal-Mart 19 rival18 Education, St. John’s University; David Steiner,40 Ragtime Hyde Park dancesight9 Dark horses44 Not at all eagerPh.D., Commissioner of Education, NYS; Adam2043 Nicknamed, Blacken briefly10 Shaping 20 tool21 45 Take turns 22Sugerman, Publisher, Palmiche Press21 Pamplona runner11 Traffic directors47 Golden ___46 Muff oneASSOCIATE EDITORS:22 Having missed the boat?12 Anchored 23 24 48 Online 25 newsgroup system 26Heather Rosen, Rob Wertheimer47 Beat at a marathon23 Nebraska football player13 Punches in49 Part of a chorus line?SPECIAL EDITOR:27 28 29 3050 Company calling?Barbara Lowin26 Washstand vessel19 Nocturnal insect51 Phileas Fogg portrayer, 1956ASSISTANT EDITORS:2752 Golden Big wheel’s wheels21 Jennifer Lopez remix31DIG album IN!53 Jungle vine32 33“J to ___ L-O!”Daniel Lewis, Judith Aquino2854 ___-night Fix a floor, doubleheaderby David J. Kahn 55 Strong cleanersin a way24 “Phooey!”GUEST COLUMNISTS:34 35 36 37 383056 ’60s Brainstorm college org.(kibbe3@aol.com) 59 Studio that made “Suspicion”Vicki Abeles, J.D.; Mark Alter, Ph.D.;25 School near Windsor60 Pointed commentShannara Gilman; Jay Gottlieb, Ph.D.; Anthony-31 Move a little57 William Shatner’s “___War” 29 Bach’s Mass ___ Minor 39 40 41 42Michael Harris; Michael Mulgrew, Pres. UFT;32 “Nothing ACROSS ___!”DOWN32 Not too smartBrooks O’Brien; Dr. Jennifer Raab, Pres. Hunter58 Source of easy money1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13College; Sara Truebridge, Ed.D.;34 Device 1 Tina’s that prevents co-star on fluids “30 Rock” from43 1 Some 44 fine 45 wools 46 3347Stop 48acting 49 like an amateur?Randi Weingarten, Pres. AFT60 leaking Guy 5 Folk in a singer Beatles Philsong14 2 Be careful 15 35 Beehive 16 State nativeSENIOR REPORTERS:3961 It may Big name in cosmetics50 51 52 539 Holdbe letresponsibleoff3 “Apollo 13” actor36 Polecat’s relative17 18 19Joan Baum, Ph.D., Sybil Maimin, Martha40 Hyde Park sight4 Animation still37 Gambling gameMcCarthy, Ph.D., Emily Sherwood, Ph.D.,62 14 Cap Mother location ___54 55 56 5743 Blacken20 5 Decline an invitation 21 22 38 It’s found in CAT scannersLisa Winkler63 15 Five-dollar Pique performance? bills, slangilySTAFF WRITERS:46 Muff one6 Soup or dessert41 Bows (to)16 Baseballer in 1974 news 23 58 24 59 25 26 60Jan Aaron, McCarton Ackerman, Jacob Appel,64 Much of the cast of “Glee”7 Impresario Sol42 Most like Caspar Milquetoast47 Beat17atSci-fia marathonwriter Frederik ___J.D., Judith Aquino, Adam Bloch, Alberto65 Brewery fixture27 618 Nasdaq buy: Abbr.62 28 43 Wal-Mart 29 rival 3050 Company 63Cepeda, Dorothy Davis, Gillian Granoff, Richard18 Ragtimecalling?dance9 Dark horses44 Not at all eagerKagan, Marylenna Mantas, Rich Monetti,5266 Big20 Tops wheel’sNicknamed,wheelsbriefly31 32 33Katerzyna Nikhamina, Yuridia Peña, Giovanny64 10 Shaping tool65 45 Take turns 6654 Fix Pinto, Joy Resmovits, Marisa Suescun21a floor,Pamplonain a wayrunner11 Traffic 34 directors 35 36 37 47 Golden ___ 3856 BrainstormBOOK REVIEWERS:22 Having missed the boat?12 Anchored48 Online newsgroup systemFor puzzle answers VISITHarris Healy III, Merri Rosenberg,57 William Shatner’s “___War”39 40 41 4223 Nebraska football player13 Punches in49 Part of a chorus line?Selene Vasquez58 Source www.EducationUpdate.com/puzzle26 Washstandof easy moneyvessel19 Nocturnal insect51 Phileas Fogg portrayer, 1956MEDICAL EDITOR:43 44 45 46 47 48 4960 Guy Herman Rosen, M.D.27inGoldena Beatles DIG song IN!21 Jennifer Lopez remix album 53 Jungle vine61 Big name in MODERN LANGUAGE EDITOR:by cosmetics50 “J to ___ 51 L-O!” 52 53David J. Kahn55 StrongIncleaners28 ___-night doubleheaderThis Issue24 “Phooey!”Adam Sugerman, M.A.62 Cap location59 Studio that made “Suspicion”30 ’60s college (kibbe3@aol.com)org.54 55 56 5725 School near WindsorGuest Editorial ..................2 MOVIE & THEATER REVIEWS:63 Five-dollar bills, slangily60 Pointed comment31 Move a littleJan AaronDIG IN!58 29 Bach’s Mass ___ Minor 5964 Much of the cast of “Glee”Letters to 60the Editor ..............2DOWN 32 “Nothing 32 Not too smartMUSIC EDITOR:by David ___!” J. Kahn1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1365 Brewery College Presidents ................4 Irving M. Spitz34 1 Some Devicefixturefine that wools prevents fluids from 61 33 Stop acting like an amateur? 62 63(kibbe3@aol.com)66 TopsSPORTS EDITOR:2 Be leaking careful35 14 Beehive State native 15Colleges &1664 65 66Grad Schools ..6, 19, 20-21, 27 Richard Kagan39 3 “Apollo It may be 13” let actor off36 Polecat’s relative17 18 Special 19 Education .............8-10 ART DIRECTOR:DOWN40 4 Animation Hyde Park still sight32 Not 37too Gambling smart gameNeil Schuldiner1 Some43 5 Decline Blackenfine wools an invitation33 Stop 38 20 acting It’s found like in an CAT amateur? scanners 21 Medical 22 Update .................11CROSSWORD:2 Be 6carefulSoup or dessert35 Beehive 41 Bows State (to) native46 Muff oneSpotlight on Schools .... 12-13, 16-18 David J. Kahn23 24 25 263 “Apollo 7 Impresario 13” actorSol36 Polecat’s 42 Most relative47 Beat at a marathonlike Caspar MilquetoastINTERN:4 Animation COVER STORY ............14-158 Nasdaq stillbuy: Abbr.37 Gambling 43 27 Wal-Mart gamerival28 29 30Marissa Schain, Brooklyn College50 Company calling?5 Decline 9 Dark an horses invitation38 It’s 44found Not at in CAT all eager scannersMusic, Art & Dance ...........22-2352 Big wheel’s wheelsEducation Update is published bimonthly by6 Soup 10 Shaping or dessert tool41 Bows 3145 Take (to)32 33turnsEducation Update, Inc. All material is copyrightedBooks ........................247 Impresario 54 Fix a floor,11 Traffic Sol in a waydirectors42 Most 47 like Golden Caspar ___ Milquetoastand may not be printed without express consent34 35 36 37 388 Nasdaq 56 BrainstormMuseums As Educators ...........25 of the publisher.12 Anchored buy: Abbr.43 Wal-Mart 48 Online rival newsgroup system9 Dark 13 57 horses Punches William Shatner’s in “___War” 44 Not 49at Part all eager 39 40 41 42of a chorus line?Crossword .....................26 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to:10 Shaping 19 58 Nocturnal Source tool of insect easy money 45 Take 51 turns Phileas Fogg portrayer, 1956Education Update43 44 45 46 47 48 4911 Traffic695 Park Avenue, Ste. E150921 60 Jennifer Guy directors in a Lopez Beatles remix songalbum47 Golden 53 Jungle ___ vineNew York, NY 10065-5024.12 Anchored 61 “J Big to name ___ L-O!” in cosmetics 48 Online 55 50 Strong newsgroup cleaners 51 system 52 53 Education UpdateSubscription: Annual $30.13 Punches 24 “Phooey!” in49 Part is an independent59 of Studio a chorus that line? made “Suspicion”Copyright © 2010 Education Update62 Cap location54 55 5619 Nocturnal 25 School insect near Windsor51 Phileasnewspaper. 5760 Pointed Fogg portrayer, comment 195663 Five-dollar bills, slangily21 Jennifer 29 Bach’s Lopez Mass remix ___ album Minor 53 Jungle 58 vine59 60“J64to ___MuchL-O!”of the cast of “Glee”1 2 3 4 5 6557Strong8cleaners9 10 11 12 1324 “Phooey!” 65 Brewery fixture61 62 6359 Studio that made “Suspicion”

NOV/DEC 2010 ■ For Parents, Educators & Students ■ Education updateMy College Application ExperienceBy Anthony-Michael HarrisI am a senior at Robert F. Kennedy CommunityHigh School in New York City, and for thepast four years I have been working on variousaspects of the college application process. Theexperience has been quite interesting and at timesoverwhelming. I have had some ups and downsbut I continue to make the best of it. In retrospectI have always wanted to go to college even beforeI started secondary school. However I wasn’treally sure of the process. I honestly believed thatthe college application process would not beginuntil my junior year in high school. However, assoon as I began high school I realized it wouldbegin much sooner.When I began my first year in high school, myteachers talked about the importance of schooland getting a college degree. As a freshman Iwent on local college tours with the school andI found some of the presentations interesting.However I really didn’t understand the full conceptof what was happening aside from going ona school trip. As part of this initial experience,my ninth-grade writing teacher had every studentin her class write a sample of a college essay. Atfirst I looked at this experience as being similar towriting a standard essay like I had done in middleschool. I wrote the essay and I turned it in to myteacher. After my teacher marked my essay, shereturned it to me and told me that what I had writtenwas not acceptable. She did give me tips onimproving my essay and she told me to rewrite it,which I did. I went through the process of rewritingthis one essay at least five times throughoutthe year. The process of revision ultimatelytaught me how to write on the college level.In the beginning I felt everything I did for myteacher was wrong. I didn’t quite understand theintricacies of the college process at that time. Atthe end of my ninth-grade year, I finally received adecent grade on the final version of my first collegeessay. For me it was a worthwhile process and I feltI had completed a major task. However, little did Iknow that at the end of my first year it was just thebeginning of the college application process.In my sophomore year I continued with mystudies and assumed that it was business as usual.Go to school, take mini vacations during theschool breaks and go back to school to completethe tasks assigned by my teachers. However as Isoon experienced, there would be no real relaxingwinter breaks because I would be visiting collegeswith my mom. My first college visit withmy mother was quite memorable. It was freezingcold and raining. I was not thrilled with thistour since it was self-guided and my mom didn’treally know the lay out of the campus. I also feltuncomfortable with her asking random questionto people who were walking on the campus.We eventually left this particular university andwe were off to another one in the freezing rain.The second tour wasn’t as bad since we had asemi-tour guide but I really wasn’t interested inthat particular school and the weather seemed tohave gotten worse.During that break I visited five schools in two differentstates. By the time I got to the fourth schooland I had had an opportunity to speak to some of thestudents, I realized at that moment that college wasvery different. I began to look at the college experiencemore seriously. I also realized that this processand the experience itself was going to be a differentjourney. At that point in my life I began to realizethat whatever college I had planned to attend wouldaffect me for the rest of my life. I also knew I wouldhave to try and get into a good college and I decidedto explore occupations that were of interest to me.As my sophomore year ended, I decided toget involved in different summer programs thatfocused on various types of employment. I wantedto attend programs that also offered the collegeexperience. This summer became another experiencethat focused on the college applicationprocess. My experiences were great and I lookedforward to my junior year in high school.I knew the pressure was on to do the best that Icould do now that I was in my junior year. Therewere state exams, SAT preps and athletic practices,etc. One would assume there might be a littletime for a break here and there, However duringthe school breaks, I was off to visit colleges. Thetraveling wasn’t bad, but it was hectic.During this series of college tours I began todifferentiate between those colleges I desired toattend and those colleges my parents preferred.“Overwhelming” is an understatement, and Ibegan to feel as if I was running out of time. I alsowanted to have an opportunity to participate insome of the programs the colleges of my choicewere offering during the summer.I was able to attend some programs, which gaveme more insight into some of the schools I wasinterested in attending. This summer vacationwas not the same as the last. I actually beganthe application process. At first it wasn’t bad,but then I had deja vu when I began writingthe essays. I must admit, I completed all fourtopics before the start of my senior year and inretrospect I appreciate my writing teacher for hertenacity in getting the freshman class to writetheir first college essay. I am still rewriting essaysto make sure they exemplify my best.This process has been overwhelming at times, andit is probably the same for most of my peers. Asidefrom participating in the college visits, informationalsessions and tours, there are also the collegefairs, open houses, and interviews. There is also theadjustment of a new schedule that begins each year.As a senior my schedule includes some early morningAP classes along with late afternoon varsityfencing practices and matches. There are also theweekend community service activities, additionaltest prep classes, and commitments to outside organizations.The senior year, which includes the finalphases of the college application process, is a bitoverwhelming, but I know it’s worth it in the endwhen you get to attend the college of your choice.Just as running in a marathon can be overwhelmingand exhausting, the goal is inspiringand in the ultimate analysis, at the finish line, itbecomes worthwhile. #®®SAT®in a Day Boot CampFeel unprepared for the SAT?®• Learn • Learn to Tackle to Tackle the SAT the ® exam SAT ® exam• Learn from the Best How to Ace the TEST• Intense • Learn SAT from ® Prep the Designed Best How Especially to for theBusy Ace Student the TEST Who Seeks a Top SAT ® CourseBooks, • Intense Materials SAT and ® Prep Lunch Designed will be provided2011 Especially Boot Camp for Dates: the Busy StudentSunday, Who January Seeks a 3 Top (10 am SAT to ® Course 6 pm)Sunday, January 16 (10 am to 6 pm)Sunday, Books, March Materials 6 (10 and am Lunch to 6 pm)Sunday,will beMayprovided1 (10 am to 6 pm)Sunday, May 29 (10 am to 6 pm)Pay 2011 by credit Boot card Camp or Dates: check: $399AskSunday,about ScholarshipsJanuary 3 (10 am to 6 pm)Held Sunday, at Marymount January Manhattan 16 (10 am College to 6 pm)221 Sunday, East 71st March Street 6 (btwn. (10 2nd am & to 3rd 6 pm) Aves)New Sunday, York, NY May 10021 1 (10 am to 6 pm)Sunday, May 29 (10 am to 6 pm)Intercultural Open University:Alternative EducationBy Sandra Hurlong, Ph.D.,President of the InterculturalOpen University FoundationI am committed to Intercultural Open UniversityFoundation. I am a product of traditional and nontraditionalhigher learning in the U.S. I receivedmy B.A. and M.A. in anthropology from theUniversity of Pennsylvania, and I received myPh.D. in cultural anthropology from the UnionInstitute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio, thefirst university without walls in the U.S.I met the IOU Foundation’s founders, ProfessorDr. J.R. Hakemulder and Professor Dr. FayA.C. Hakemulder, in 2005. Discovering that weshared a philosophy of education, we began along discussion about alternative education, distanceeducation, culturally and socially relevanteducation, and the role of IOU Foundation inglobal education.IOU Foundation is one of a small number ofalternative education institutions, which has itsbeginnings in the open education movement ofthe 1960s. This learner-centered, self-directedorientation of education emerged in the U.S. andU.K. in the mid-1960s. Roy P. Fairfield, a HarvardUniversity professor of education, was among thefounders of the movement. His book, “PersonCentered Graduate Education” (1977), chronicleshis pioneering efforts at the Union GraduateSchool to create a self-directed graduate programand explores the paths and pitfalls of alternativemodes of education. Much of the non-traditionaleducational philosophy in the 1960s incorporatedthe ideas of humanistic psychology, such as thoseof Carl Rogers’ client-centered therapy, ArnoldMindell’s process-oriented psychology, and ClarkMoustakis’ transpersonal psychology.The beliefs of the pioneers in non-traditionaleducation were that study is more an attitude• Learn Everything You Need to Perfect Your Score• Learn Everything You Need to Perfect•YourAdvanced,Scorefast paced, successful strategies• Advanced, Top 1% fast paced, successfulstrategies• Taught by SAT ® Test Experts WhoScored in the Top 1%• Taught by SAT ® Test Experts Who Scored in thePay by credit card or check: $399Ask about ScholarshipsHeld atMarymount Manhattan College221 East 71st Street(between 2nd & 3rd Avenues)New York, NY 10021Not affiliated with Columbia University.SAT is a registered trademark of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse this product.For more information:27than a system. That attitude puts the learner firstand the institution second. It concentrates moreon the learner’s need than the convenience of theinstitution. It encourages individual opportunityrather than uniform prescriptive learning, and deemphasizestime, space, and even course requirementsin favor of competence and performance.Among the most prominent U.S. graduateinstitutions founded on these principals werethe Union Institute and Graduate School,Fielding Institute, Saybrook Institute, CaliforniaInstitute of Integral Studies, The New Schoolin California, and Antioch University. Regionalaccrediting associations eventually accredited allof these institutions.Accrediting bodies are generally capable ofunderstanding the language of non-traditionaleducation. Government bodies have more difficultydoing so. They prefer external evaluation,grades, and commonly accepted standards ofprogress. In the U.S., learners are forced to seekgovernment grants to pay the high cost of universitytuition. The need for government money hasled to greater conformity among U.S. educationalinstitutions and less emphasis on alternative educationphilosophy.IOU Foundation remains one of the few globalinstitutions still supporting self-directed, nontraditionaladult graduate education. I believethe foundation is positioned to play an importantrole in contemporary adult education. Part ofIOU Foundation’s philosophy is to maintainmodest tuition fees and to have tuition fees fromthe developed world subsidize tuition fees forthe developing world. By emphasizing adulteducation, concentrating on specific programsand continuing appropriate accreditation, IOUFoundation will continue to consolidate its rolein alternative education. #Register online at:www.ColumbiaScholarsPrep.comFor more information:Call: (212) 650-3552 Cell: (917) 375-0497

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