Speakers

Alfie Kohn   |   Roland S. Barth   |   Eleanor Duckworth   |   Patricia Carini   |   Katherine Schultz   |   Penny Colgan

Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and social theory.  His nine books include PUNISHED BY REWARDS (1993), THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE:  Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" (1999), THE CASE AGAINST STANDARDIZED TESTING (2000), and, most recently, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WELL EDUCATED? And More Essays (2004).

Kohn was recently described by Time magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores." His criticisms of competition and rewards have helped to shape the thinking of educators -- as well as parents and managers -- across the country and abroad. Kohn has appeared on numerous TV and radio programs, including the "Today" show and two appearances on "Oprah."  He lectures widely at universities and to school faculties, parent groups, and corporations, as well as speaking at staff development seminars and keynoting national education conferences.

Among Kohn's other books are BEYOND DISCIPLINE: From Compliance to Community (ASCD, 1996), which he describes as "a modest attempt to overthrow the entire field of classroom management"; and NO CONTEST:The Case Against Competition (1986).  He lives (actually) in the Boston area and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org.

Roland S. Barth

Roland S. Barth is a consultant to schools, school systems, state departments of education, universities, foundations and businesses in the United States and abroad.

After receiving his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University and master's and doctoral degrees in education from Harvard University, he served as a public school teacher and principal for fifteen years in Massachusetts, Connecticut and California.

Barth received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976 and joined the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for thirteen years. During that time, he was Director of the Study on the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Schools, founding Director of the Principals' Center and of the International Network of Principals' Centers, and Senior Lecturer on education. He has been an Academic Visitor at Oxford University and a member of the National Commission on Excellence in Educational Administration.

He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Lewis and Clark College and is the recipient of the 2002 Alumni Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He serves as a trustee of Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, of Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, a member of the board of Micro-Society Inc., Chairman of the Board of the Principal Residency Network and a member of the Board of Editorial Advisors of the Phi Delta Kappan.

Roland Barth is the author of many articles and of six books: LESSONS LEARNED (2003), LEARNING BY HEART (2001), CRUISING RULES (1998), IMPROVING SCHOOLS FROM WITHIN (1990), RUN SCHOOL RUN (1980), and OPEN EDUCATION AND THE AMERICAN SCHOOL (1972). His particular fields of interest are school leadership, school improvement from within, and the personal and professional development of educators. Central to his thinking is the concept of the school as a community of learners and leaders.

The father of two accomplished daughters, Joanna and Carolyn, Barth is also an avid sailor in Maine and Florida salt waters and a dedicated farmer. He and his wife Barbara live in Maine, Florida and Boston.

Eleanor Duckworth

A former student and translator of Jean Piaget, Eleanor Duckworth grounds her work in Piaget and Inhelder's insights into the nature and development of intelligence, and in their research method, which she has developed as a teaching/research approach, Critical Exploration in the Classroom. She seeks to bring a Freirean approach to any classroom, valuing the learners' experience and insights. Her interest is in the experiences of teaching and learning of people of all ages both in and out of schools. Duckworth is a former elementary school teacher and has worked in curriculum development, teacher education, and program evaluation in the United States, Switzerland, Africa, and her native Canada.

Patricia Carini

For twenty-six years, the work of Patricia Carini and her colleagues at the Prospect School in North Bennington, Vermont transformed the lives of children and their families. Though the school closed in 1991 when the fragile financial base finally gave way, the work at Prospect continues, and the bold vision of Pat Carini continues to fire the imaginations of all who have ears to hear, voices to describe and encourage, hands to help, and minds to remain forever open and alive and curious. We cannot love our children unless we know them; we cannot nuture their unique interests and gifts unless we allow ourselves to watch them with absolute attention and wonder. Teachers and parents who visit the Prospect School, who read Carini's and Himley's work, who embrace the difficult and rewarding endeavor of Descriptive Review, will be forever changed. There is great hope in this–for all of us.

Katherine Shultz

After working as a classroom teacher and principal in Philadelphia elementary schools for 10 years, Dr. Schultz received her Ph.D. in Reading, Writing and Literacy at the University of Pennsylvania. As a post-doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, she investigated workplace literacy and worked on a project on literacy and identity for young women making the transition from an urban high school to the workplace, funded by the Spencer Foundation and the National Academy of Education. She was an assistant professor for three years at the School of Education at the University of Delaware, where she initiated a project on race relations in a post-desegregated middle school. In 1997, Dr. Schultz joined the faculty of the Penn Graduate School of Education. She received the Penn GSE Excellence in Teaching Award in 2001. She was invited to be a scholar in the first cohort of the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning for K–12 teachers and teacher educators. Dr. Schultz worked with Penn GSE graduate students to initiate and produce Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education, an on-line journal that brings together educational research, policy, and practice and provides opportunities for public dialogue on current issues in urban education.

Penny Colgan-Davis

Penny Colgan-Davis is the principal of the Russell Byers Charter School. Previously, Penny was principal of the Miquon School in Conshohocken, Pa., for nine years. Her teaching career, which began at a public school in North Philadelphia in 1967, also includes eight years at Philadelphia's Friends Select School three as Director of the Lower School and 11 years as a teacher at the University City New School in West Philadelphia.

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