Tag Archives: Columbia University Teacher’s College

Deb Sawch Teaches The World About Education

Posted on December 7, 2016 | 1 comment

Chances are you won’t read Educating for the 21st Century: Perspectives, Policies and Practices from Around the World.

It’s a scholarly book, thick with macro and country-specific perspectives on teaching today, plus “granular/classroom based approaches to what it means to educate in our complex, technological, interconnected world.” Contributors hail from Japan, Singapore, Kuwait, China, Finland, South Korea, Australia and the US.

Fifty Shades of Grey it ain’t.

But if you curl up by the fire with this 490-page, $119 tome, you’ll find Chapter 10 fascinating.

deborah-sawch-book-coverTitled “Exploring the Transformative Potential of a Global Education Framework: A Case-Study of a School District in the United States,” it focuses on a place called “Westfield.”

That’s the thinly disguised alias of Westport.

Our district’s inclusion in the book is not happenstance. One reason is that one of the 4 editors is Deb Sawch. An independent education consultant and faculty member of Columbia University’s Teachers College, she spent 3 years as a Staples High School English instructor (after beginning her career in the private sector).

Sawch is married to Staples alumnus Chris Sawch. Their kids are Staples grads too.

The 2nd reason that Westfield Westport is featured in the book is that our school district is doing some pretty noteworthy stuff, 21st-century-education-wise.

Sawch knows all about it. Through Teachers College, she’s been involved with “Westport 2025.” The K-12 initiative — launched in 2010, with 65 teachers and administrators — aims to develop students’ critical thinking, creative, communication and problem-solving skills.

Non-cognitive (emotional) skills, including ethical thinking, have since been added to the program.

Deb Sawch

Deb Sawch

“Westport is a forward-thinking district,” Sawch explains. “Educators here really want to share ideas about what it means to be a fully engaged global citizen.”

Our town’s journey through that 2025 initiative is at the heart of Chapter 10.

Sawch’s book has taken several years to edit. Re-reading it today, she realizes the importance of the role of educated, interconnected citizens. “There’s no going back now,” she says.

Sawch recently returned from Singapore, where she gave a presentation about collaboration by international students.

On December 13 she gives another talk — this one at nearby Sacred Heart University.

All over the world — from Asia to Westfield Westport — Deb Sawch is educating all of us for the 21st century.

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Posted in Education, Media, People, Staples HS

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Westport Teachers Teach The World

Posted on February 20, 2014 | 5 comments

For 3 days in April Columbia University’s Teachers College will be the site of an international event. Educators from around the world will participate in the Global Learning Alliance‘s 2014 conference, on 21st-century education.

Hundreds of presentation proposals were submitted, from China, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Australia, Finland, England, Canada and the US. Only 40 were selected.

But of those 40, an astonishing 5 came from Westport teachers. They represent all levels: high school, middle school and elementary.

Bedford Middle School 6th grade instructor Jeremy Royster will present “Truth- Sleuthing to Develop Global Solutions.”

Jeremy Royster

Jeremy Royster

That’s “a fun way to describe the search for evidence in conflicting reliable sources to support a reasoned conclusion about a given topic,” he says. Throughout the year, his students use their “truth-sleuthing” skills to challenge Dr. Jared Diamond’s claims that geography is the key to unearthing the causes of wealth and poverty in the world.

Participants in Royster’s workshop will study a region of their choice, using resources linked to his website to support or refute Diamond’s argument. They’ll also use his own students’ proposals intended to help some of the poorest countries in the world.

The goal of truth-sleuthing, Royster says, is to “encourage people to think more critically, deeply and broadly so that they will be better poised to improve our global society.” To that end, his students are well versed in critical thinking, global awareness, online research, presentation skills, creative thinking, innovation, entrepreneurship, and problem-solving.

He looks forward to sharing what he’s doing with educators from around the planet. He hopes too that they will offer him “a different cultural perspective on teaching in general.”

Other presenters from Westport include:

  • Staples math teacher Trudy Denton and grade 6-12 math coordinator Frank Corbo: “Transforming a High-Performing Mathematics Program to Meet the Needs of the 21st Century.”
  • Kings Highway Elementary School assistant principal Anne Nesbitt: “Elementary Math Education for the 21st Century: Transitioning From the Concrete to the Abstract.”
  • Bedford Middle School teachers Courtney Ruggiero and Alison Laturnau: “Bringing the  Common Core into the 21st Century.”
  • Elementary school teacher Hannah Schneewind: “Persuasive Writing and 21st Century Skills in a First Grade Classroom.”

Top educators from around the globe will be at Columbia in April. They come from places like Singapore and Finland — countries regularly ranked atop the lists of “best educated.”

And they’ll all learn from 7 of Westport’s finest.

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Posted in Education, People, Staples HS

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At Risk, And In Westport

Posted on May 12, 2013 | 15 comments

A provocative article in the New York Times suggests that the massive money today’s “economic elite” spend on their kids may not have the desired effect.

“Being groomed for the winner-take-all economy starting in nursery school turns out to exact a toll on the children at the top,” writes Chrystia Freeland, editor of Thomson Reuters Digital.

That’s not exactly rocket science. But what makes this story “06880” blog-worthy is that some of the research was done right here in 06880.

In other words: the “children being primed for that race to the top from preschool onward” are not just anyone’s kids.

They’re ours.

Dr. Suniya Luthar

Dr. Suniya Luthar

The researcher cited — Suniya S. Luthar, professor of psychology and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College — has studied a generation of Westport students. The oldest are now in their 20s.

One of her first discoveries was that “substance use, depression and anxiety, particularly among the (affluent) girls, were much higher than among inner-city kids.”

Dr. Luthar’s research has led her to conclude that the children of privilege are an “at-risk” group, Freeland writes. “What we are finding again and again, in upper-middle-class school districts, is the proportion who are struggling are significantly higher than in normative samples,” (Luthar) said.

“It is an endless cycle, starting from kindergarten. The difficulty is that you have these enrichment activities. It is almost as if, if you have the opportunity, you must avail yourself of it. The pressure is enormous.”

Freeland writes:

Increasingly, we live in individualistic democracies whose credo is that anyone can be a winner if she tries. But we are also subject to increasingly fierce winner-take-all forces, which means the winners’ circle is ever smaller, and the value of winning is ever higher.

Life is not always easy in the 06880.

Life is not always easy in the 06880.

Luthar’s research subjects wonder, “What happens to me if I fall behind? I’ll be worth nothing.”

When we read stories “research,” we tend to think of nameless, faceless people in sterile labs.

In this case, the at-risk children we read about are very, very familiar. We see them every day.

They might even be here, next to us — looking safe and secure — as we read this disturbing story about their worrisome, insecure future.

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Posted in Children, Economy, Education, Organizations, People, Teenagers

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