GUEST EDITORIALS & LETTERS

GUEST EDITORIAL
Crazy About Education
By Dean S.G. Grant, School of Education, Binghamton University
Any educators bemoan the attention their field is getting these days....READ MORE

COLLEGE PRESIDENTS SHARE THEIR VIEWS
Looking Back at 9/11: A Transformative Moment at John Jay College
By President Jeremy Travis, John Jay College Of Criminal Justice
Sixty-eight members of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice community — mainly New York City firefighters and police officers — lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001....READ MORE

COLLEGE PRESIDENTS SHARE THEIR VIEWS
Fulfilling Lives Through Education
By President Karen L. Gould, Brooklyn College
There is a bustle of activity on our central quadrangle as nearly 17,000 students prepare for the rigorous and fulfilling semester ahead....READ MORE

COLLEGE PRESIDENTS SHARE THEIR VIEWS
Community Colleges: Kingsborough Scores
By President Regina Peruggi, Kingsborough Community College
Amid the excitement of a new school year, there are almost 100,000 students who will be attending our city’s community colleges. For many, community colleges are almost invisible....READ MORE

COLLEGE PRESIDENTS SHARE THEIR VIEWS
Educating Global Students at Queens College
By President James Muyskens, Queens College
At Queens College it is easy for us to keep our eye on the world as we have students from over 150 nations....READ MORE

COLLEGE PRESIDENTS SHARE THEIR VIEWS
Training for 21st Century at The City College of New York
By President Lisa Staiano-Coico, The City College Of New York
As I cross City College’s beautiful campus at the beginning of the semester, I am more convinced than ever that higher education has never been more important than it is today....READ MORE

Berkeley College’s New Initiatives For the New Year
By President Dario A. Cortes, Berkeley College
Berkeley College, established in 1931, is celebrating 80 years of changing the lives of our students, alumni, faculty and staff....READ MORE

UNION LEADERS SPEAK
Fighting Stealth Attacks on Children and Educators
By Ernest A. Logan, President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators
Welcome to the new school year, which follows one of the most dramatic summers in recent memory: We narrowly averted a massive teacher layoff and a default on our nation’s debt and, as the summer drew to a close, an earthquake frightened us on a beautiful day, and a hurricane whipped across Long Island and pummeled counties to the north and our neighboring states....READ MORE

UNION LEADERS SPEAK
Lessons in Inequality
By Michael Mulgrew, President, United Federation Of Teachers
Six decades after the landmark Supreme Court ruling on educational equality, Brown v. Board of Education, it is outrageous that thousands of New York City children get a graphic lesson in inequality every day when they walk through the doors of their schools....READ MORE

MetroBEAT

Remembering 9/11
By Alberto LuzÁrraga, Lisa Chen & Dr. Pola Rosen
It is hard to believe that ten years have passed since that fateful day in September....READ MORE

To The Honorees And Attendees At The Outstanding Educators Of The Year 2011 Awards Ceremony
By Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education
I am pleased to join in sending greetings as you gather for this celebration of education....READ LETTER

COLLEGES & GRAD SCHOOLS

Bank Street College of Education Graduation
By Yuridia Peña
At this year’s Bank Street College of Education commencement for teachers receiving individualized Masters degrees in Education, graduates shared stories about their nascent careers as educators in diverse urban communities....READ MORE

Rockefeller University’s Great Science Program for High School Students
By Zara Jamshed & Marissa Schain
A 14-acre idyllic oasis in the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller University, which is shaded by old trees and multi-colored flowers along the scenic East River, houses one of the best summer science programs for high school students in the nation....READ MORE

Robotics: Technology Training for Young Minds
By Leah Metcalf
During the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Showcase held recently in the public atrium at Sony’s U.S. headquarters in New York City, the Education Update team met with Corrine Doron, senior manager of programs at the Sony Wonder Technology Lab....READ MORE

Interview with CUNY New Community College President Scott E. Evenbeck
Transcribed by Zara Jamshed
Dr. Scott Evenbeck, the inaugural president of the soon-to-be newest community college in the CUNY system, took time to chat with Education Update publisher Dr. Pola Rosen at his office on the college campus across the street from the 42nd Street library.....READ MORE & WATCH VIDEO

Bronx Children’s Museum Dream Big Event at Hostos Community College
Featured Speakers include Surgeon General Benjamin and Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor
By Giovanny Pinto
President Felix Matos Rodriguez hosted a festive culmination of The Bronx Children’s Museum’s Dream Big Initiative at Hostos Community College....READ MORE & WATCH VIDEO

College of Staten Island (CSI) Foundation Board Elects Dr. Christine Cea as President
By Terry Mares
The College of Staten Island (CSI) Foundation Board of Directors recently elected Dr. Christine D. Cea ’88 as its new President....READ MORE

Hunter College Scholarship Award Winners
Students at Hunter College won prestigious awards and scholarships this past June that will open opportunities for their futures....READ MORE

Solar Roof Pod Volunteers Learn Skills Not Taught in Class
Yinery Baez, a fourth-year architecture student in the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York, never gave much thought to screws....READ MORE

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Supports CUNY’s Decade of Science with $1 million Grant
The City University of New York has received a three-year, $1,075,968 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to encourage and support promising early-career scientists....READ MORE

CUNY Students Win NSF Grants
Five City University of New York graduates have received prestigious awards from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, supporting groundbreaking research subjects ranging from “nanobot” drug-delivery systems to spacecraft propulsion....READ MORE

SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS

An Interview With Shael Polakow-Suransky, Chief Academic Officer, NYC Department of Education
By Alberto Luzárraga
There are some people for whom no matter where the conversation goes, or what topic it covers, he or she would have something intelligent to say, some valuable piece of knowledge to share....READ MORE

Howard Gardner, Harvard Professor Speaks at The School at Columbia
By Leah Metcalf
Howard Gardner, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the creator of multiple intelligences theory, opened the education technology conference Teach 21 at The School at Columbia University by sharing thoughts from his new book, “Truth, Beauty and Goodness Reframed.”...READ MORE

Leaders in Technology in the classroom: The School at Columbia University
New Media at The School
By Alberto Luzárraga
In an era of rapid and constant technological change, change that alters and improves the ways we communicate and do business, it is often schools that are the last to see the benefits of new technology....READ MORE

Flipping the Pages of the iPad
By Lisa Chen
At the start of Teach21’s “New Dimensions of Reading” workshop at The School at Columbia University, educators warily eyed the neat stacks of iPads sitting on the innocuous kids’ tables as 4th grade teachers Kate Chechak and Alison Hendrix introduced their experiment....READ MORE

Danny Jaye, Mathematician, Prepares the Next Generation for STEM
By Alberto Luzárraga and Leah Metcalf
What advice can educators give students who are fearful of learning math and see it as an insurmountable challenge?...READ MORE

Interview with Co-Heads of Avenues: The World School
Transcribed by Zara Jamshed
The “world school” because the concept of this school is that we will have locations in 20 countries around the world in major cities, but we are in fact one school. We are going to run this as one school, one faculty, one student body, one institution, connected by marvelous connectivity that modern telecommunications provides us today....READ MORE & WATCH VIDEO

The Writer’s Village at Sarah Lawrence College
By Zara Jamshed
This summer I did a pre-college course at Sarah Lawrence College for three weeks in July....READ MORE

Technology for the 21st Century: ISTE Philadelphia 2011
Best Web Tools for the Classroom
By Alberto Luzárraga
The world of Internet technology is a fast moving place, and adapting that technology to educate one’s students can be a daunting task to undertake....READ MORE

CEO of ISTE Offers Insight, Advice on Changing Field of Technology Education
By Jennifer MacGregor
Donald G. Knezek has been a classroom teacher for over 12 years, a technology coordinator, and now as the CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), he is helping to connect educators across the globe to the latest technological innovations for the classroom....READ MORE

The Dean's Column
The Testing Crisis
By Dean Alfred Posamentier
Cheating on testing and teaching to the test are both wrong! The former is illegal and the latter is educationally fraudulent....READ MORE

Italian Language Foundation Announces Dante Award for Excellence in AP Italian Language Studies
The Italian Language Foundation is announcing a financial award for students who score well on The College Board’s Advanced Placement Test in Italian Language and Culture, or AP Italian....READ MORE

Passing the GED Offers Second Chance for Thousands of Young Adults
By Dominique Carson
Many people are familiar with the General Educational Development, or GED, examination because it’s usually the alternative when a student doesn’t finish high school....READ MORE

Grace Outreach Changes Lives
By Adrian Cabreja
“It’s never too late to get an education,” says Rebecca Sánchez, whose broad smile was infectious....READ MORE

Year-Round Honors Science Program at Columbia University
By Zara Jamshed
The Columbia Science Honors Program (SHP) offers a unique opportunity provided by Columbia University for high school students interested in science and mathematics a chance to go into a higher level of education in this year-round course....READ MORE

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
Zambia: Where the Wild Things Are—Really!
By Jan Aaron
I’m staying at Bushcamp Company’s Mfuwe Lodge, near the east gate of Zambia’s South Luangwa Park, a haven for 400 bird species and 60 animal species....READ MORE

a california professor writes about his old hs in queens
Closing Jamaica High: Inexcusable and Destructive
By Dr. Mark Phillips
Jamaica High School, a beautiful school on a grassy hilltop in Queens, is one of New York City’s Public Schools slated for closing....READ MORE

SPECIAL EDUCATION

Upcoming Seminar: ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’
By Harold S. Koplewicz, MD
The “lazy days of summer” are packed with activity at the Child Mind Institute....READ MORE

Giving Struggling Readers the Opportunity to Succeed: The Lindamood-Bell Method
By Alberto Luzárraga and Lisa Chen
Learning how to read is more than learning the sounds that letters represent, combining those sounds to create words, and then stringing those words together to create ideas....READ MORE

Study Cites Gray Matter Volume Changes Following Lindamood-Bell Instruction
A new article released by the journal NeuroImage features the results of a study that examined changes in gray matter volume (GMV) in children with dyslexia who received intensive reading instruction using Lindamood-Bell’s Seeing Stars program for reading and spelling....READ MORE

GallopNYC Therapeutic Horseback Riding: Benefits for People with Disabilities
Thanks to GallopNYC city kids (and adults) can benefit from therapeutic horseback riding without going to the countryside. GallopNYC brings joy and hope on horseback to children and adults living with disabilities in New York City....READ MORE

MUSEUMS AS EDUCATORS

Museum of Mathematics Hopes to Inspire, Promote Math Education
By Joan Baum, Ph.D.
A year ago mathematician Glen Whitney, in an informed and heartfelt op-ed for Newsday pointed to but also explained the continuing poor performance of New York State school children on standardized exams....READ MORE

MEDICAL UPDATE

Obesity and Nutrition: Interviews with Eric Goldstein and Laurie Rose Benson, NYC Dept. of Education
By Alberto Luzárraga and Leah Metcalf
Eric Goldstein, the CEO of SchoolFood, the NYC Department of Education division of food and transportation, has worked to improve the healthfulness, as well as the taste, of the 860,000 meals New York City provides to public school children....READ MORE

Prof. Nicholas Freudenberg, Hunter College, Shares Insight on School Nutrition
The ideal school food program serves children tasty, healthy food; works to reduce both hunger and food insecurity on the one hand and obesity on the other; and seeks to develop lifetime healthy eating....READ MORE

Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine Dean Martin Levine, DO, Installed As 115th President of American Osteopathic Association
Dr. Martin Levine, DO, associate dean for educational development at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine (TouroCOM), was installed as president of the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) at the organization’s annual meeting recently, in Chicago....READ MORE

FEATURES

The Spectacular Sand Dunes in Namibia
Hot air balloon ride - a once in a life time experience
By Dr. Irving Spitz
Namibia is situated on the southwest Atlantic coast of Africa, and borders Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana and South Africa to the east and South Africa to the south....READ MORE

MODERN LANGUAGES

DUAL LANGUAGE ED: CHINESE & ENGLISH
Creating Global Citizens Through Bilingual Education
By Marissa Schain and Alberto Luzárraga
Principal Iris Y. Chui has years of experience as a bilingual educator, speaking both English and Mandarin Chinese....READ MORE

DUAL LANGUAGE ED: ITALIAN & ENGLISH
Italian Language School
By Alberto Luzárraga
Whether for Italians living abroad or simply parents and students enthusiastic about Italian culture, La Scuola Italiana Guglielmo Marconi, the K-through-12 bilingual Italian school on East 96th Street in Manhattan, represents an option for those looking to receive a special kind of education built around the Italian language and the national Italian curriculum....READ MORE

PARENTS' PERSPECTIVE
My Twins are Trilingual
By Kathleen Lomax , M.D.
I am the mother of 5 year-old twins who are trilingual: native English speakers, fluent in Spanish from an exclusively Spanish-speaking nanny, and growing proficiency in Mandarin from an immersion preschool....READ MORE

CAREERS

Careers after College: Portrait of a Radio Host
By Lydia Liebman
In a dwindling media field, Matt Morrell keeps the jazz radio tradition alive....READ MORE

BOOKS

Review of ‘Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed’ by Howard Gardner
By Merri Rosenberg
Whenever Howard Gardner has a new book it’s cause for celebration.
This is no exception. Beautifully written, confronting often-elusive philosophical concepts and framing them with clarity and precision, Gardner’s latest work offers a rewarding read....READ MORE

Rooftop Gardens: A Guide and Inspiration
Reviewed By Marissa Schain
“Rooftop Gardens: The Terraces, Conservatories, and Balconies of New York” is a gorgeous coffee-table photographic book of some of the most stunning outdoor escapes New York City has to offer. Contributing landscapers, architects, designers and Manhattan residents compiled pictures of some of the most magnificent rooftop gardens of Manhattan....READ MORE

Review of ‘As Bad as They Say? Three Decades of Teaching in The Bronx’
By Merri Rosenberg
As the season of graduations, retirements, moving up — and moving on — ceremonies dominate the end-of-year school calendar, it’s worth pausing to consider exactly what it means to devote one’s life to students....READ REVIEW

‘Dazzling Dinners’ Wows Guests With Wonderful Recipes
By Lewis Burke Frumkes
The first job I ever had was selling cookbooks at the old Brentano’s on 47th street and 5th Avenue....READ MORE

Review of 'As I Lived It' by Irma Miriam Lopes Cardozo
By Merri Rosenberg
At a time of intense national debate and discussion about immigrants and immigration, it’s refreshing to read this memoir by a Jewish woman whose life experience has been so very different from the Eastern European background that is familiar to most of us....READ REVIEW

Review of 'The Family ADHD Solution: A Scientific Approach To Maximizing Your Child’s Attention And Minimizing Parental Stress'
By Merri Rosenberg
Having a child who’s diagnosed with ADHD is a challenge for families....READ REVIEW

Soap Star Promotes Healthy Eating With Homemade Baby Food Cookbook
By Joan Baum, Ph.D.
How unintentionally fitting and ironic that in 2000, the actress Liza Huber was named Miss Golden Globe, an honor given traditionally to a child of a celebrity by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association....READ MORE

MUSIC, ART & DANCE

The Imagination Summit at Lincoln Center Institute
By Lydia Liebman, LEah Metcalf Marissa Schain and Jennifer MAcGregor
According to executive director Scott Noppe Brandon of the Lincoln Center Institute, organizer of the second international Imagination Summit, “imagination and creativity plays out in everything we do....READ MORE

A Conversation with Zalmen Mlotek, Artistic Director, Folksbiene Theater
Transcribed By Marissa Schain
We’re the only existing, professional, continuously running Yiddish Theater in the world. We’re the oldest as well. That’s no small feat as you can imagine especially in light of the economics of theater and also of changes in audience....READ MORE & WATCH VIDEO

Harpist Jasmin Bey Cowin Enhances Lives Through Music
By Joan Baum, Ph.D.
“Building Bridges,” just one of Jasmin Bey Cowin’s numerous and diverse multicultural programs for inner-city children and for older adults, having run its award-winning course, could still well describe this innovative educator’s continuing work to enrich and enhance the lives of school children and seniors by way of music....READ MORE

The State of Jazz: A Visit to Brazil
By Lydia Liebman
The International Association of Schools of Jazz (IASJ) is a jazz education organization created by saxophonist Dave Liebman in 1990....READ MORE

Linda Sirow, Artist and Teacher
By Joan Baum, Ph.D.
Linda Sirow, a city-based artist who summers in East Hampton, has found an ideal gallery for her new show....READ MORE

SPORTS

Five Memorable Days of Teamwork and a NCAA Title
By Mike Cohen
When I arrived last March at the Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament at Madison Square Garden, I was all set to write a basic player profile for Education Update. As it turned out, I had no idea that I would be the one getting the “Education Update.”...READ MORE

CHILDREN'S CORNER

FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT’S DESK
Learning How to Converse With Adults Offers Lasting Benefits for Children of All Ages
By Dr. Carole G. Hankin with Deborah French
During a recent visit with my grandchildren, who range in age from 6 to 15, I had the occasion to watch them interact with adults in several different settings....READ MORE

Hurricanes
By Avi Ruthen, Carlisle Public Schools, Second Grade
...READ POEM

I am a soccer ball
By Amar Ruthen, Carlisle Public Schools, Second Grade
...READ POEM

Reflection
By Neil Ruthen, Carlisle Public Schools, Seventh Grade
...READ POEM

The Forgotten Flag
By Neil Ruthen, Carlisle Public Schools, Seventh Grade
...READ POEM

Nature(Glacier National Park)
By Neil Ruthen, Carlisle Public Schools, Seventh Grade
...READ POEM

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters to the Editor
...READ LETTERS