Heidi Watts

Just ten years ago this month I sat in the audience  at  SUNY  Cortland and listened to my son, Richard, deliver the  Valedictorian's  address  to  6000 people.  I was  overwhelmed  with maternal pride,  heightened by my absolute  conviction  that  I  could  never  do  anything like that.   After all, I failed  Freshman  Speech  three  times  when  I  was  in  college  and  I  always get  collywobbles  every  time  I have  to  stand up in public. Asking a question in Town Meeting is a  rare  act  of  courage,  and  addressing  fifty entering P.D.. students · isn't easy. But learning from our children  -  and  our clients - - and our  experiences;  doing  things  we never  thought we could do - is what this talk is ab...

As a teacher of teachers in a graduate school of education I spend a fair bit of my professional life deploring the present state of schooling in America. We read the national reports calling for reforms, shake our heads and add our own indictments in courses like “Education in Social and Political Context” or The Politics of Schools.” Simultaneously, in courses like “Human Growth and Development” or “Reading Methods” I encourage students to delve deeply into their own memories of childhood to understand the children they will be teaching. When I do my own assignment and review my elementary school experiences, schools today suddenly take on a much better profile. With one exception, my third grade school and teacher, the elementary schools I attended are poor models for any era.  In the contrast between the schools of my childhood and the schools I know today I find hope for the continuing improvement of schooling; a profound respect for the progressive educatio...