who are we

The mission of Reimagine Growing Up! is to bring together new voices on the leading edge of transforming the experience of growing up in America - and beyond - into a way of life that nurtures children, supports parents, strengthens communities, and builds a sustainable and vibrant society.

David Marshak Joan Jaeckel

[Interviewed by Justine Toms for a new series, “Reimagine Growing Up!”, that is a collaboration between Reimagine Growing Up! and the New Dimensions World Broadcasting Network of new voices on the leading edge of transforming growing up in America. www.newdimensions.org ]

FOUNDER, DIRECTOR
Joan Jaeckel is passionate about connecting the dots between integral educators, educators for social justice, socially conscious business and philanthropy, and cultural creative media. Among her many accomplishments, she has served as development director for the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America; acted as the consulting producer of Eric Stacey's documentary "The Waldorf Promise" which tells the story of eight public school teachers and their "Waldorf" - inspired programs in public schools in the U.S.; she's co-hosted a roundtable on "strategizing for educational change" with Betty Staley and Dee Dickinson at State of the World Forum 2000; and, with Ron Miller, pulled together a 2004 forum in San Francisco called "Investing in Socially Responsible Education".

Joan guest-edited the Winter 2005/06 Green Money Journal special issue on “Education: The REAL Social Investment” www.greenmoneyjournal.com/index.mpl?newsletterid=35

CO-DIRECTOR
David Marshak teaches in the School of education at Seattle University. He received his doctorate in education from Harvard University and has taught young people and adults in many different settings. He is the author of The Common Vision: Parenting and Educating for Wholeness (Peter Lang Publishing 1997).

Click on the picture and go to the Paths of Learning web site www.pathsoflearning.net

Explore creative practices and teaching strategies for educators, parents, scholars and policy makers.
Learn about progressive education programs that advance holistic education and other innovative approaches.
Find ideas that can work for all children, and that support strong parent involvement in education.

UNDERNEATH IT ALL

"In 2000, the Program for International Student Achievement (PISA) was conducted, which tested children from32 nations in the areas of reading literacy, math, and science. The results showed that children who have to start school at a very young age did not consistently do better than those who can start later. A similar assessment, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), revealed comparable results. The country of Finland was a standout in both of these international assessments, ranking near or at the top in all tested sujects. These impressive results were achieved despite the fact that school attendance in Finland is not compulsory until age seven or later than most any other European country. Some of the lower scoring countries in PISA were Sweden and Greece, which both emphasize early education. " ~ "The Case Against Early Preschool in California" by Lisa Snell of the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank in Los Angeles, CA. [An objective of REASON is to "demonstrate the power of private institutions, both for-profit and non-profit". ]

"Is this what it has come to? In a bid to up attendance rates, schools accross the US are doling out goodies - toys, DVD players, trips to Disneyland, even new cars - to cajole kids into showing up for class. Here's an idea. Instead of bribing students to come to school, why don't educators figure out how to make learning relevant to them?" ~ Text accompanies photo of young children filing out of their classroom door and heading for a table laden with a giant stuffed pony, a drum set, board games, and sports equipment. A male adult has his hand on the head of a first-grader as if to direct him towards slowing down for the wares. The photo is attributed to Erik Lesser of the New York Times. Adbusters Magazine, May-June 2006.

"Your seargents have learned, though experience and in behavioral-psychology class at drill instructor school, that the more they standardize your behavior, the more quickly your identity will belong to the Army. 'The minute you find a private doing his own thing, ' says a drill sergeant named Randy Shorter, 'be it tying a knot his own way, having his boots a certain way, shaving the way he shaved back home - its basically an indication that he's an individual.'" - "The Killing Factory: To manufacture tens of thousands of battle-ready soldiers, Army drill instructors have t short-circuit the most fundamental human instinct: Thou shalt not kill. They use a system called Total Control, a carefully crafted hell that hard-wires kids for combat." Rolling Stone, April 20, 2006

"If boring environments, stress, and dominance hierarchy all shape the structure of the brain - and Liz Gould's research has shown that they do - then the playing field isn't even. The structure of our brain, from the details of our dendrites to the density of our hippocampus, is incredibly influences by our surroundings. Put a primate under stressful conditions, and its brain begins to starve. It stops creating new cells. The cells it already has retreat inwards. The mind is disfigured. " - "The Reinvention of the Self: Elizabeth Gould overturned one of the central tenets of neuroscience [she defied the entrenched dogma .... and proved that the primate brain is always creating new neurons.]. Now she's building on her discovery to show that povert and stress may not just be symptoms of society, but bound to our anatomy. ", SEED: Science is Culture, FEB/MAR 2006

"Narrowing the curriculum has clearly become a nationwide pattern ... since the passage of the federal law, 71 % of the nation's 15,000 school districts had reduced the hours of instructional time spend on history, music, ... social studies, science, and art ...to open up more time for reading and math ... Because of its emphasis on testing and accountability in particular subjects, it apparently forces some school districts down narrow intellectual paths ... if a subject is not tested, why teach it? ... I do have some little girls who are dying to get out of class [three consecutive periods of English every day] and get into a mainstream class ... but I tell them the only way out is to do better on that Star test [California's Standardized Testing and Reporting progam] " "Schools Cut Back Subjects To Push Reading and Math: Responding to No Child Left Behind Law, Thousands Narrow the Curriculum", New York Times (front page), Sunday, March 26, 2006 [reporting on an annual survey of the Center on Education Policy, an independent group that has made a thorough study of NCLB]

"Electronic scanning of answers is essential to giving the large number of students who take the SAT the speed and accuracy they require in this important test." - Douglas Kubach, CEO, Pearson Educational Measurement, quoted in "SAT [Scoring] Problems Even Larger Than Reported", New York Times, Thursday March 23, 2006

"... in the United States alone, about 2.5 million children ... take [the stimulants Ritalin, Adderall, and Concerta]; as many as 10% of boys ages 10 to 12 do." - "Panel Advises Disclosure of Drugs' Psychotic Effects", New York Times, Thursday March 23, 2006

Warren Blumenfeld , an Iowa State University assistant professor in the department of curriculum and instruction, said "In some ways, the schools reflect the larger society. I'm just fearing that it's going to inhibit creativity and critical thinking on the part of our students when control is the overriding condition in the schools." - "Iowa's youth deluged by elders' new rules: Today's students need restrictions, supporters say. Critics respond that pressure to conform now can cause trouble later", DesMoines Register, February 12, 2006

"Successful companies increasingly will look more like an artist colony or inventor's laboratory than the office of today." - Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, quoted in "Nurturing Innovation: Businesses Look to Techniques That Help Poets and Painters Be More Creative, Productive", The Wall Street Journal, MARKETPLACE, Monday, March 20, 2006.

"As much as we want to see Alma graduate and fulfill her dream of becoming a nurse, the answer is no." - "Don't Blame the Exit Exam", Editorial, Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, March 29, 2006 [re: "Exit Exam Comes Down Hard on Class of 2006", Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2006]

"However, at this moment, the need for new leadership that embraces values that have traditionally been ascribed to women - care, communication, and inclusiveness - is critical.” - Elizabeth Debold, "Where are the Women?” What is Enlightenment magazine, March-May 2006

"The increasingly massive and far-reaching use of conventional. standardized stests is one of the most effective, if unintentional, vehicles this country has created for suppressing creativity." - "Creativity is a Habit", Robert J. Sternberg, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, Tufts University, Education Week, February 22, 2006