University of Oklahoma | College of Education | Voices

Jonathan Kozol: Hearts of Children and the Obligations of Our Nation's Schools

educationinformation@ou.edu (Scott Watkins) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:23:33 CDT

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Photo Courtesy of Keppler Speakers

In 1967, at the height of the civil rights movement, Jonathan Kozol lost his teaching position for reading a Langston Hughes poem to his class of fourth graders. The event resulted in the publishing of the first of his several acclaimed and highly influential books, "Death at an Early Age," which catapulted the state of America's schools into the national and political consciousness. He published "The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America" in 2005.

He is a past winner of the National Book Award in Science, Philosophy, and Religion; Robert F. Kennedy Book Award; and Conscience in Media Award of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

Kozol is an eloquent spokesperson for the disenfranchised and homeless, and he explores the reflections of children who have survived and thrived in America's most violent communities. His solid, qualitative research and expertise in education in America has made him a definitive voice on the subject.

A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard and a Rhodes Scholar, today Kozol lives in Massachusetts.

He visited the Norman campus to deliver an address as part of a College of Education Dream Course, co-sponsored by the Office of the President's Dream Course initiative.

President David L. Boren launched the Dream Course program in 2004-2005 to provide funds to enhance four to six undergraduate courses already scheduled during the academic year. The funding provides up to $20,000 in one-time funds per course to bring in experts to interact with students and for a public lecture or presidential roundtable discussion to include other undergraduate students and faculty.

Charlene Schiff: The Holocaust in the Words of a Survivor

educationinformation@ou.edu (Scott Watkins) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:03:54 CDT

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Shulamit Perlmutter, known as Musia, was the younger of two daughters born to a Jewish family in the town of Horochow, Poland, 50 miles northeast of Lvov. Her father was a philosophy professor who taught at the university in Lvov, and both of her parents were civic leaders in Horochow. Shulamit began her education with private tutors at the age of 4.

In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and three weeks later the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland, where her town was located. Hordes of refugees fleeing the Germans streamed through the town. Soviet rule didn't change her family's daily life much, as they remained in their home and her father continued to teach in Lvov. The most important change for Shulamit was at school; she was now taught in Russian.

In 1941, the Germans invaded the USSR and set up a ghetto in Horochow. In 1942, with rumors that the ghetto was about to be destroyed, Shulamit and her mother fled. They were hiding in the underbrush at a river's edge when shots were heard. The two hid, submerged in the water all night, as machine guns blazed in the ghetto. By morning, others were hiding in the brush, and a Ukrainian guard was heard screaming, "I see you there Jews; come out!" Most obeyed, but Shulamit and her mother hid in the water for several more days as the gunfire continued. At times they would doze; once she woke to find her mother had vanished.

Shulamit never saw her mother again and never found out what happened to her. She would spend the rest of the war living in the forests near Horochow and surviving on her own. She is the only survivor of her family.

Following the war, she emigrated to the United States, married and took the name Charlene Schiff. As a Holocaust survivor, she is a living testament to the atrocities of that period. She also is a member of a vanishing group, as fewer survivors remain alive to tell their stories and preserve for history first-hand accounts of this dark period for humankind.

Charlene spoke on the Norman campus during the spring 2007 semester as part of an annual seminar dealing with the teaching of the holocaust in the classroom. The seminar, organized locally by College of Education Professor John Chiodo in conjunction with a wider national event sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, assists classroom teachers in better understanding and utilizing the materials available through the museum.

While in Norman, Charlene sat for an interview with Bill Moakley, the college's director of communications, and described her experiences during the Holocaust and her dedication to giving a voice to both those who perished and those who survive.

Charlene Schiff's appearances are made possible by the museum's Survivors Affairs/Speakers Bureau. For information about the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, please visit http://www.ushmm.org/ .

Marilyn Cochran Smith: Teaching for Social Justice

educationinformation@ou.edu (Scott Watkins) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 09:06:45 CDT

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Marilyn Cochran-Smith holds the John E. Cawthorne Millennium Chair and directs the Doctoral Program in Curriculum and Instruction at Boston College's Lynch School of Education. She is Chair of the Evidence Team for BC's Teachers for a New Era project, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She served as the inaugural C.J. Koh Distinguished Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore during the summer of 2006.

Cochran-Smith, who is Past President of the American Educational Research Association, co-chaired the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education. The report of the panel, Studying Teacher Education, received AACTE's Outstanding Book Award for 2005.

Dr. Cochran-Smith's two most recent books are Walking the Road: Race, Diversity and Social Justice in Teacher Education (Teachers College Press, 2004) and Practice, Policy and Politics in Teacher Education (Corwin Press, 2006). Cochran-Smith was the editor of the Journal of Teacher Education from 2000-2006 and is currently Co-Editor of the Teachers College Press series on Practitioner Inquiry as well as Co-Editor of the Third Handbook of Research on Teacher Education: Enduring Questions in Changing Contexts (in preparation).

She visited the Norman campus to deliver an address as part of a College of Education Dream Course, co-sponsored by the Office of the President's Dream Course initiative.