Presenters

Lauren Baum is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College's Art of Teaching Program in elementary education. She worked for many years in 1st - 4th grade public elementary classrooms in New York City and New Jersey. Her work teaching science through project-based curricula at Central Park East II is the foundation of much of her thinking and practices around progressive education in science. In 2008, she pursued her interest in nature education as a science professional developer and educator in a South Bronx public school through Bank Street College's Tiorati Workshop for Environmental Learning. Lauren has taught graduate classes for science and multicultural education at Bank Street College and Teachers College. She has begun work on her doctorate at Teachers College in the Math, Science, and Technology department. 

Indhira Blackwood is the Director of the Child Development Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. Areas of special interest include public health and children, youth health education programs, and cultural influences on child development. She received a BA from Emory University and MPA from Syracuse University.

Sarah Blos, a native New Yorker, grew up in the city's robust progressive school milieu of the 1960's. After receiving her Bachelor's degree at Brown University and teaching in Mexico for several years, she returned to New York and earned her Masters and Doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University. For 25 years, she was a teacher and then director of award winning Satellite Academy High School on the Lower East Side (a NYC alternative, public high school for students who have been kicked out or have dropped out of other public high schools). She now works within one of the Department of Education's Networks, supporting principals and teachers in a variety of ways. Sarah believes strongly that the principles of progressive education are more essential but also more threatened today than ever before.

George Burns is the Principal of the Fieldston Lower School of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. A graduate of Bank Street College of Education, he taught at its School for Children for many years before coming to Fieldston Lower, and has many areas of pedagogical interest including the teaching of mathematics.

Lorayne Carbon is the Director of the Sarah Lawrence College Early Childhood Center. She is a former early childhood teacher and adjunct professor at Westchester Community College. Lorayne is a workshop leader at seminars and conferences on early childhood education. Her areas of interest include social justice issues in the early childhood classroom and creating aesthetic learning environments for young children. She received her BA from SUNY Buffalo and MSEd from Bank Street College of Education.

Jane Clarke has been Director of the Lower School at City and Country School for 7 years, working closely with teachers planning curriculum and overseeing a program for 2-7 year old children. Her previous experience includes being Co-Director of Studio in a School's Early Childhood program, Teacher-Director of a nursery school in the East Village, and an Early Childhood Teacher in New York, Los Angeles and London for many years.

Ronald L. Cohen, a social psychologist (PhD, University of Michigan) with particular interest in understandings of justice and silence, is co-author of the book Political Attitudes over the Life Span, and editor of three books on justice. His work has been published in a variety of scholarly journals, and he has presented work at conferences throughout the US and Western Europe, as well as the Netherlands, Poland, Israel, and Turkey. He has served on the Bennington County Reparative Board for the State of Vermont's Department of Corrections since 1997. He has taught at Bennington College since 1971, and also served as Dean of Studies and Dean of Faculty. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and received the Undergraduate Teaching Award from The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues in 1998.

Ann Cook, Sarah Lawrence College alumna, is the Executive Director of the New York Performance Standards Consortium, a coalition of 28 New York State public high schools, that has developed and implemented a performance-based system of assessment in lieu of high stakes testing. She is also co-founder of Urban Academy Laboratory High School, located in the Julia Richman Education Complex in New York City. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence, Brooklyn and Queens Colleges and has written numerous articles on educational reform, schools and teaching. She has authored several children's books including Meet Monster (Cavendish/Amazon) and is the parent of three children who graduated from New York City public schools.

Jim Cullen, who chairs the History Department at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York, holds a PhD in American Civilization from Brown University. He is the author of a dozen books, including Sensing the Past: Hollywood Stars and Historical Visions (Oxford University Press, 2013), The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation (Oxford, 2003), and Essaying the Past: How to Read, Write, and Think about History (second ed, Wiley-Blackwell 2013). He is also a book review editor at the History News Network and blogs at American History Now.

Charlotte Doyle is on the Psychology Faculty at Sarah Lawrence College and teaches courses in the creative process, child development, and children's literature. Her publications include articles about the creative process in adults and children, general psychology texts, and seven picture books for young children. Her PhD is from the University of Michigan.

Jan Drucker, PhD, is a member of the Psychology Faculty and Child Development Institute Faculty Advisory Group, Director of the Empowering Teachers Program, and Consultant to the Early Childhood Center at Sarah Lawrence College. She is a clinical and developmental psychologist with teaching and research interests in the areas of developmental and educational theory, child development and play and other imaginative activities in early childhood and their implications for later development.

Cecilia M. Espinosa was born in Ecuador, South America. She worked in Phoenix, AZ as a bilingual/multiage teacher and Title VII Director at a progressive school, W.T. Machan School. She is a graduate from Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. She is now an Associate Professor in the Early Childhood/Childhood Department at the School of Education at Lehman College/CUNY. Her areas of concentration are bilingualism, literacy/biliteracy, English as a second language, teacher research. It was at the W.T. Machan School that Cecilia first encountered the profound value of the Descriptive Processes developed by Patricia Carini and her colleagues from Vermont. She has continued to deepen her understanding of these processes over the last several years. Cecilia is a member of the Descriptive Inquiry Study Group, which meets in NYC once a month.

Beverly Falk, Sarah Lawrence College alumna, is Professor and Director of the Graduate Programs in Early Childhood Education at the School of Education, The City College of New York. Having served over the years in many roles as an educator, her current focus as a teacher educator, researcher, and advocate for children, is on finding ways to stay focused on how children learn in the context of today's high-stake accountability environment. She is a Senior Scholar at Stanford University, the founding and current editor of The New Educator (a quarterly journal about educator preparation), and the author/co-author/editor of many books and articles. Her most recent books are Defending Childhood: Keeping the Promise of Early Education; Teaching Matters: Stories from Inside City Schools, co-authored with Megan Blumenreich; and Teaching the Way Children Learn.

Joseph Featherstone is a poet, writer, and educator. Education Week once cited him as one of the 100 most influential educators of the twentieth century. Featherstone has taught at Harvard and Brown universities. He served as the Principal of the Commonwealth School in Boston. For over a decade, he was a faculty leader at Michigan State University of one team in a school-based teacher education program. For the last few years, he has been part of a group launching a K-8 charter school with an arts orientation in Gloucester, MA. He is the author of many books and articles on education, including Dear Josie: Witnessing the Hopes and Failures of Democratic Education, and is one of several co-authors of Transforming Teacher Education, Reflections from the Field. His many poems and literary and political writings have appeared in such varied publications as the Harvard Review, Ploughshares, The New Republic, Green Mountains Review, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Many Mountain Moving.

Kim Ferguson is a developmental and cultural psychologist at Sarah Lawrence College with special interests in sustainable, community based participatory action research, cultural-ecological approaches to infant and child development, children at risk (children in poverty, HIV/AIDS orphans, children in institutionalized care), health and cognitive development, development in African contexts, and the impact of the physical environment on child development. Author of articles and book chapters on African and American infants' language learning, categorization and face processing, the built environment and physical and mental health, and relationships between the quality of southern African orphan care contexts and child development and health. She received her BA from Knox College and her MA and PhD from Cornell University.

Margery B. Franklin is Professor Emerita at Sarah Lawrence College (psychology faculty from 1965-2002) and a former Director of the Child Development Institute. Areas of interest include language development, psychology of art and play, educational theory and practice. Author of articles and book chapters on children's language, play, artistic development, developmental theory; co-editor of Development and the Arts: Critical Perspectives; Developmental Processes: Heinz Werner's Selected Writings; Symbolic Functioning in Childhood; and Child Language: A Reader. Fellow of the American Psychological Association and past president of the APA division, Society for Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. She received her BA from Swarthmore College and MA and PhD from Clark University.

Laura Garcia is Principal of the Ella Baker School located in Manhattan serving pre-K to 8th grade children. She has served as a principal in small progressive schools in NYC for 15 years. For over thirty years as a teacher, supervisor of Special Education, and school administrator, Ms. Garcia has participated in conversations regarding school reform and worked to create learning communities founded on the democratic principles of inclusion, access and equity. Ms. Garcia believes deeply that an exceptional education not only challenges each individual child but also provides curriculum that respects children's interests. She works on behalf of children and teachers towards building inclusive and dynamic learning communities that value the strengths and interests of each individual child.

Ayla Gavins, born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, entered the fields of education and art in Boston through her years at Boston University. After teaching children ages 7 to 14 for twelve years in public schools, suburban and urban, she took on her first role of administrator in a startup Boston public school that was founded by the school's surrounding community. In 2006, she became Principal of Mission Hill School, where she taught for 6 of her 12 years in the classroom, and attained her administrative license with Deborah Meier as her mentor. Creating, teaching, inspiring, and viewing art is still a major part of her life and work.

Milagros Harper is the Fours/Fives Morning Class Lead Teacher in the Boulder Building at the Sarah Lawrence College Early Childhood Center. She has an A.A.S. in Early Childhood Education from Westchester Community College and a BA and MSEd from Sarah Lawrence College. Ms. Harper also interned at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a summer children's art program. She is currently completing a four year Hand Work Teachers Program through the Fiber Craft Studio in Chestnut Ridge.

Robbin Hawkins has been engaged in early childhood education for nearly two decades. Since 1998, she has served as a Lead Teacher at the Early Childhood Center at Sarah Lawrence College. She has previously worked as a teacher at the Riverdale Presbyterian Church Nursery School and as an Assistant Teacher at the Early Childhood Center. She is a 1998 graduate of Sarah Lawrence College.

Mary Hebron is a founding teacher and Associate Director of the Art of Teaching Graduate Program at Sarah Lawrence College. Ms. Hebron has taught in the program since its inception in 1985, teaching courses in Observation and Documentation, Language and Literacy, and Emergent Curriculum. To support her work in teacher education, Ms. Hebron stays close to children and teachers, observing and advising on a regular basis in the Ella Baker School. Ms. Hebron developed the SLC Saturday Seminar Series in the Art of Teaching: Teaching and Learning for the Classroom Professional, which invites alumnae/i of the Art of Teaching program, their colleagues and host teachers into a collaboration of on-going professional development. The philosophic ideas and descriptive practices on which Ms. Hebron has formed her pedagogy were developed at the Prospect Center and School in VT. She served as a board member on the Prospect Board for many years and will be contributing to the third Prospect book in the TC Press Practitioner Inquiry Series. Ms. Hebron holds most dear the time she spent teaching children. Working alongside graduate students and following them into their classrooms has allowed her commitment to children to be sustained.

Cameron Johnson is the Head Teacher for the Universal Prekindergarten program at Harbor Child Care. He is responsible for integrating the high scope curriculum and common core standards. Cameron received his BA in Educational Services from Concordia College in 2007 and his Masters from Sarah Lawrence College's Art of Teaching program in 2012.

Shirley Kaplan, painter, director, and playwright has worked extensively in theatre and community collaborations within the United States and Europe. At Sarah Lawrence College, she is a member of the Theatre Faculty and directed the Theatre Program for sixteen years. A Founder and Co-Director of Sarah Lawrence College's Theatre Outreach that works with schools, community groups of all ages in interdisplinary techniques towards developing personal material. She is one of the co-founders, of the OBIE-Award winning Paper Bag Players. She is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre where she has directed many new American plays.

Philip Kassen has worked at Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School for 28 years. He began as a part time science teacher, was Middle School Principal for 12 years, and Deputy Director for 5 years. Phil has a BS in Biology from Oberlin College and an MA from the Klingenstein Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Tim Lively is a native of Louisville, Kentucky where he started teaching art: first as a para-professional and then as a licensed teacher. After completing his graduate work in art education at Pratt Institute he remained in NYC where he has taught art for the past 30 years; eighteen years in middle school and presently is completing his twelfth year at Central Park East I Elementary. In addition, he has directed arts programs at summer camps and has taught art education at Parsons School of Design.

Nancy Mann is a founding teacher and Principal of Fannie Lou Hamer High School in Bronx, New York.

Margaret Martinez-DeLuca teaches Math and Technology in the Art of Teaching Graduate Program at Sarah Lawrence College. She teaches and is Director of Urban Education Semester at Bank Street College. She provides professional development for PreK-12 teachers in math, science, social studies, literacy, and creating student-centered classrooms in New York City and other districts. She received her BA from College of Mount St. Joseph and MSEd in Math Leadership from Bank Street College of Education.

Sarah Phillips Mathews is currently Lead Teacher in the Fours Class and the Twos and Parents Program at Sarah Lawrence College's Early Childhood Center, where she has taught for 20 years. Her previous experience includes researching early brain development at Children's Hospital in Boston, as well as teaching at the Harvard Law School Childcare Center and Bank Street School for Children. Sarah is a graduate of Vassar College and holds an MA (Art of Teaching Program) from Sarah Lawrence College.

Deborah Meier is a Senior Scholar at NYU's Steinhardt School, and Board Member of the Coalition of Essential Schools, FairTest, SOS and Dissent and The Nation magazines. She spent 45 years working in K-12th grade public schools in New York City (East Harlem) and Boston (Roxbury) including leadership of several highly successful small democratically run urban schools - the Central Park East schools and Mission Hill. Her books include The Power of Their Ideas and In Schools We Trust. In 1987 she was the first educator to receive a MacArthur "Genius" Award and currently blogs for Ed Week with Pedro Noguera.

Steven J. Nelson has been Head of the Calhoun School in Manhattan since 1998. He speaks and writes regularly about education issues, including a regular blog in the Huffington Post. He is also a professionally-trained violinist, a speed-skater, a former college vice president, and a columnist for a daily newspaper in Vermont.

Debra Riessen is a Lead Teacher at Sarah Lawrence College's Early Childhood Center. She teaches the Twos and Parents Program and the Threes. Previously, she taught Twos, Threes, and Fours at Larchmont Temple Nursery School. Debi received her Masters in Education from Hunter College.

Todd Rolle, a native New Yorker, works kitty corner to the hospital in which he was born. Todd was a show business kid, doing TV, commercials, and theatre. Some may remember him from 3-2-1 Contact produced by the Children's Television Workshop. Mr. Rolle holds degrees in Theatre, Performing Arts, and Social Development and a Master of Science degree in Children with Disabilities. Todd has been the Movement/Theatre teacher at Central Park East 1 Elementary School since 2000.

Kathleen Ruen, PhD, is a faculty member of Sarah Lawrence College's Art of Teaching Graduate Program. She started her teaching career at Central Park East Elementary School, where she developed a Movement/Theater program and taught in it for 8 years. Her doctoral thesis focused on three teaching artists' experience in the same elementary school. She has been working with pre-service and in-service teachers since 2002. Her research interest is the close relationship between the arts and pedagogy.

Sonna Schupak has been the Lead Teacher of the 5/6's Class at the Sarah Lawrence College Early Childhood Center since 1989. She has taught college level courses, supervised graduate students and student teachers, written articles, and delivered numerous educational workshops in a variety of settings. Sonna's passion in teaching is to support in-depth learning about things that are of interest to the children in her group. Her classroom is designed in a way that facilitates emergent curriculum through research, creative art activities, and games.

Susan Schwimmer has been teaching at Sarah Lawrence College's Early Childhood Center (ECC) since 1989 and is also the ECC art archivist. She is one of the founding teachers of Fieldston Outdoors camp and has worked there for 25 years in a variety of roles - teacher, assistant director, trip coordinator, and trip leader. She has spent many summers leading hiking and paddling trips with children throughout the Hudson Valley. She holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MS from Bank Street College.

Rima Shore, PhD, has served as the Adelaide Weismann Chair in Educational Leadership at Bank Street College since 2003. At Bank Street, Rima has expanded the Educational Leadership Department and led school reform projects in New York City and Newark. An early childhood education researcher, she has served as a consultant to the U.S National Academy of Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, White House Conference on Children, United Nations Development Program, and many other organizations. In recent years, Rima has written about PreK-3rd grade policy for the Foundation for Child Development and about children and digital media for Sesame Street Workshop.

Lyde Cullen Sizer teaches U.S. Cultural and Intellectual History and Women's History at Sarah Lawrence College. Her interests center on the Civil War Era. Her publications include The Political Work of Northern Women Writers and the American Civil War Era, which won the Avery O. Craven award in 2000; an edited volume, The Civil War Era, with Jim Cullen (2005), and numerous articles, the most recent "A Dynamic Process of Remapping: New Work on Women and the Civil War," in the Journal of the Civil War Era (Dec. 2011). She received her BA from Yale University in 1984 and MA/PhD from Brown University in 1993. Before graduate school she taught middle school in Los Angeles, and she currently pro bono tutors high school students working on their writing. Questions of teaching and learning are at the center of her life, especially since one of her sons was diagnosed with PDD-NOS in 2005.

Nancy Faust Sizer, widow of Ted Sizer, has been involved in education for over fifty years, partly through Ted's work in a variety of jobs and settings, but also as a high school classroom history teacher for twenty-five years. She has taught in public and private schools, and in middle schools, high schools, a college, and, with Ted, in a college and a graduate school. Also with Ted, she acted as a co-principal in The Parker Charter Essential School in Devens, Massachusetts, which they also helped to found as Trustees. Her books are China: Tradition and Change, Making Decisions: Cases for Moral Discussion and Crossing the Stage: Redesigning Senior Year; with Theodore R. Sizer, The Students are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract; and with Deborah Meier and Theodore R. Sizer, Keeping School: Letters to Families from Principals of Two Small Schools. She was married to Ted for fifty-four years, and they have four children and ten grandchildren.

Michéle Solá has been the Director of Manhattan Country School since 1997. She joined the faculty in 1982, teaching Spanish and directing professional development and outreach projects. She was selected as a Visiting Fellow at the Klingenstein Center at Columbia University in 2008.

William Stokes, EdD, (Boston University 1977) Applied Psycholinguistics. Before graduate school, he taught math and reading in an all-black high school in NY as one of two white teachers. After graduate school, he worked in schools mostly focusing upon younger children with language difficulties, deafness, language learners (ESL), and reading problems. Among his assignments upon joining Lesley University's education department was to teach philosophy of education, which prompted a more formal exploration of progressive education that became the foundation of all his teaching. In 1991, while directing a literacy institute, Dr. Stokes hosted Paulo Freire for a series of meetings and a scholars conference. Dr. Stokes' writing on critical pedagogy followed upon that occasion. In the past decade, he took on two deanships, including a two year term as Interim Dean for Lesley's School of Education.

Rose Anne Thom, BA, McGill University. Faculty, Sarah Lawrence College since 1975, teaches courses in dance history, criticism, Labanotation, and pedagogy for graduate and undergraduate students within the dance department, and teaches courses in dance history as part of the humanities curriculum. Joseph Campbell Chair in the Humanities 2008-2013; Labanotator and reconstructor; writer/critic for Dance Magazine, Collier's Encyclopedia, Society of Dance History Scholars, The Forward; oral historian for the Dance Collection at the New York's Public Library for the Performing Arts and the School of American Ballet; consultant, New York State Council on the Arts Dance Program; guest faculty, Princeton University, 2003 & 2012, former teacher at SUNY Purchase, Southern Methodist University and American Ballet Theatre School.

Kate Turley is in her 14th year as Principal of the City and Country School. She serves in numerous roles on the NYSAIS (New York State Association of Independent Schools) Board of Commissioners, as well as the NYC Guild of Independent Schools and also sits on the boards of Lycee Francais de New York and the Barnard Foundation of New York.

Roberta Valentine has been teaching in both private and public school settings for twenty-seven years. She has been teaching for eighteen years at the East Village Community School where block work is an integral part of her classroom teaching. She is currently writing a book on blocks for teachers.

Salvatore Vascellaro is a member of the graduate faculty at Bank Street College of Education. He teaches courses in curriculum in early childhood education, block building and dramatic play, and children's literature; consults in NYC schools with teachers, administrators, and families; and oversees the fieldwork of apprentice teachers. Before joining the Bank Street faculty, he was Principal of the New Lincoln Elementary School. As a teacher of children he taught ages three through eleven in Head Start, Day Care, and elementary schools. His focus on the essential role of trips as a vital force in the education of children and teachers is developed in his recent book, Out of the Classroom and into the World. He earned his doctorate at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Allison Webster has been a dedicated member of the faculty at Shady Hill School in Cambridge, MA for many years, currently serving as Assistant Director. Following college and law school, she turned to education and studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, becoming a central member of the Shady Hill community.

Sara Wilford, MsEd, EdM, is the Director of the Art of Teaching Graduate Program at Sarah Lawrence College. She began her career as an early childhood and public elementary school teacher. She is a keynote speaker and workshop leader for seminars and conferences on early childhood education. She is a member of the editorial advisory board for Child magazine, a contributor to Scholastic, Inc. publications and an author, Tough Topics: How to Use Books in Talking with Children about Life Issues and Problems, What You Need to Know When Your Child is Learning to Read and Nurturing Young Children's Disposition to Learn.

Alexis Wright has served as Dean of Children's Programs at the Bank Street College of Education and the Head of the School for Children since 2009. He taught middle school science at Rye Country Day School and served as middle school principal. From there he became principal at University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, and was Assistant Head of School back at Rye Country Day School before moving to Bank Street.