PEAR - Program in Education, Afterschool & Resiliency

Education for Sustainability in a Global Context: Leading and Learning in the World into Which We are Living
Harvard Graduate School of Education
March 1, 2010
5:30 pm

Peter Senge and Jimmy Leppert believe that the coming decades will see radical change in the structure, design, and even intention of education. The industrial age education system has been critical to business development and consumer values in the industrial age. But the industrial age is now ending, not because of lesser opportunity for continued global industrial expansion, but because it fundamentally contradicts conditions for health and well being, socially and ecologically.

If one considers education as a primary springboard for innovation and change over the long term, it will be essential that educators around the world consider what it means to develop the future "system citizens" who can help create a world that will be truly sustainable. This process will be inevitably global, as different cultures wrestle with their own sustainability transitions and the respective role of education. It also holds the potential to tap deep wisdom traditions that will be needed as models of a different type of harmony between the social and natural world, models which have been absent during the industrial age.

In this session Senge and Leppert will talk about the broad developments occurring today in the United States around Systems Thinking and Education for Sustainability, and parallel developments in China where there is a new openness to traditional Chinese systems of education-- and the possibility for HGSE students and faculty to become more involved.

About the speakers:

Peter Senge, Ph.D.: SoL (Society for Organizational Learning) Research member and MIT Senior Lecturer; author, The Fifth Discipline; co-author, Schools that Learn, Presence and The Necessary Revolution.

Jimmy Leppert, M.A.T Ed.M. HGSE R&P '09: SoL Global Network Coordinator and Strategic Team Leader; MIT Research Affiliate

Children's Behavioral Health Initiative, A Plan for the Future
Judge Baker Children's Center, Child Mental Health Forum
March 4, 2010
1:30 - 3:00 pm

Featuring Barbara A. Leadholm, M.S., M.B.A.
Ruane Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Columbia University;
Commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Mental Health

Society for Research on Adolescence Biennial Meeting
Philadelphia, PA
March 11-13, 2010

Researchers from The Center for After-School Excellence will present at two sessions during the conference: "A Cross-Contextual Examination of Youth Engagement in Schools, After-School Programs, and Community Activities" and "Features of After-School Programs Related to Positive Youth Development."

Society for Research on Adolescence is a dynamic, multidisciplinary, international organization dedicated to understanding adolescence through research and dissemination.

National Service-Learnin Conference
National Youth Leadership Council
San Jose, CA
March 24 - 27, 2010

The National Service-Learning Conference is the largest gathering of youth and practitioners involved in the service-learning movement drawing nearly 2,500 attendees from across the United States and many other countries. The conference’s multiple day, concurrent session format offers a self-directed, facilitated learning environment with education sessions, discussion groups and interactive workshops designed specifically for all levels of attendees engaged in service-learning and focused on current and emerging issues, best practices and the challenges facing us today.

Creating the Foundation for Comprehensive School Climate Reform
CSEE's 13th Anual Summer Institute
June 6-8, 2010

Special Keynote Address by Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Education, Office of Safe & Drug-Free Schools

CSEE is pleased to announce our 13th annual Summer Institute from July 6-8th in New York City! The Institute will provide important research-based school climate and instructional guidelines and resources for school teams and individuals to reflect on current practice and develop new plans to promote healthy and democratically informed schools in general and reduce bully-victim-passive bystander behavior in particular.

A continuous process for measuring and improving school climate that recognizes and supports the whole child and the whole school community.
Recent research and best practices in social, emotional, and civic education and school climate improvement efforts that support effective bully prevention, pro-upstander behavior and academic achievement.
Practical and helpful classroom, school-wide, and school-home-community interventions that support safety, engagement, supportive and respectful relations, and democratically informed communities.