The Center For Educational Pathways
John Dewey, the forefather of modern American education, said in 1897:
"The only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself."
Despite Dewey's century-old call for socially relevant education, most current school curricula, materials, and instructional approaches are out of step with students' social environments. For those under-served children on the losing side of the nation's education gap, school often becomes another burden in a life of difficult decisions, making the differences between an adjective and adverb seem meaningless.
Authors, educators, and researchers have and will continue to spend a great amount of time studying disenfranchised students, frustrated teachers, and desperate parents in the nation's largest urban school systems. Institutions of higher education devote extensive research funds to investigating our educational dilemmas. Yet with uncountable conferences, books, and symposiums devoted to the social costs of inadequate education, the crisis endures: children are neither engaged in nor inspired by learning.
In the search for solutions, one could ask: "What would entice children to come to school and strive for success even if they weren't required to show up?" The question is not entirely hypothetical; in fact, after-school practitioners wrestle with this conundrum every day. After-school education is founded upon a paradox-that is, learning is mandatory but attendance is not. Interestingly, after-school youth developers have unearthed an emergent solution to the above question in the areas of interest that seem to draw our youth today.
To become a partner, donate to any of The Center for Educational Pathway Programs, contact Dr. Michael Bitz, Ed.D. via eamil at: meb53@columbia.edu or via mobile at: (917) 674-0014
ANYCEC's Advisory Board
David Seeley, is Professor in the Department of Education and Coordinator of the Education Administration Program at CUNY's College of Staten Island. He is also a member of the faculty of the university's Educational Psychology Ph.D. program. He is the author of Education Through Partnership (Ballinger, 1981), proposing a new policy framework for public education now being partially adopted (e.g. in Kentucky), and many articles on educational policy.
Dr. Samuel E Anderson, is a co-founder of the Black Panthers and author of the book, The Black Holocaust for Beginners. He led the charge with education advocates dating from the very beginning in 1968 in Oceanhill Brownsville. He is co-founder of Take Back Our Schools, The Independent Commission on Public Education, Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence and a contributing radio personality on WBAI 99.5FM.
J. Phoenix, is a singer and songwriter who does not snugly fit into a particular category. The genre-defying scope of his music recorded by others, featured in films and on his album, Masterpiece, is impossible to pigeonhole. Also born and raised in Brooklyn, he too is an advocate for education, especially for at-risk youth. At the top of 2008 he participated as a mentor for Tied Together, a program for young boys, and as a guest speaker for the Black Alumni of Pratt Institute's annual career day.
Dr. Bill McKinney, Ph.D., is Deputy Director of the Howard Samuels Center, at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from Temple University and an M.A.A. (Masters of Applied Anthropology) from the University of Maryland, College Park. At the HSC, Dr. McKinney spearheads an action and research agenda that focuses on increasing participation and fostering equity, particularly among marginalized groups.
David Rogers, is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Management and Sociology at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University. He is the author of Mayoral Control of the New York City Schools as well as many articles on Mayoral Control and Public School Governance.
Dr. Michael Bitz, Ed.D., has worked to establish creativity at the core of academic learning, and he has done so for some of the most vulnerable children in the United States and elsewhere. As an educational researcher and faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University, Dr. Bitz was an investigator on the landmark study "Learning in and through the Arts," a longitudinal study published by the Arts-Education Partnership in 1999.