Recorded: March 7th at 5:30pm ET
Description: A recent paper to inform the 2021 International Summit on the Teaching Profession published by SC-TEACHER of the University of South Carolina, Teacher Leadership for Whole Child Education: A Global Perspective, explores the role of teacher leaders in the context of the pandemic. Barnett Berry, Linda Darling-Hammond, and Tony Mackay suggest that this experience exposed profound inequities in education and highlighted the need to attend to the full scope of a child’s developmental needs, both in and out of school — how teacher leadership can accelerate the system of whole child education needed now more than ever.
In this webinar, Barnett Berry and Anthony Mackay, with teacher leader respondents, Chanda Jefferson and Janet English, have a lively conversation about what we know about effective systems of teacher leadership and the special role STEM educators need to play in reimagining the education profession, with teachers as leaders, for future of schooling. The conversation brought together sound evidence, big ideas, and actionable next steps that we all need to take!
Barnett Berry is a Research Professor at the University of South Carolina, and serves as Senior Director for Policy & Innovation. His work in the 1990s with the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future led to his founding of the Center for Teaching Quality in 1999, a non-profit that focused on igniting teacher leadership to transform public education for more equitable outcomes for students. He is author of over 150 peer review articles, book chapters, and trade journal publications focused on teaching policy, teacher leadership, and systemic change in education. His two books, TEACHING 2030 and Teacherpreneurs: Innovative Teachers Who Lead But Don't Leave, frame a bold vision for the profession's future. In 2021, he was honored with the James A. Kelly Award for Advancing Accomplished Teaching by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
Anthony Mackay is CEO and Board Co-Chair of the Washington DC-based National Center on Education and the Economy. He was Inaugural Chair Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), Inaugural Deputy Chair of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), immediate past Chair, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and immediate past Deputy Chair of New Zealand’s Education Council. He is currently Co-Chair of the National Project, Learning Creates Australia; Deputy Chancellor, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia; and Honorary Senior Fellow of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. Anthony is Co-Founder of the Global Education Leaders Partnership (GELP), and Foundation Board Chair of the Innovation Unit Ltd, England. He is an Expert Advisor to OECD/CERI, Consultant Advisor to the Asia Society’s Global Cities Education Network, Senior Fellow IBE UNESCO; International Advisor to Learning Forward (USA); and Director, High Resolves Global Board. Anthony is the Moderator of the Annual International Summit on the Teaching Profession; Moderator of Ministerial Sessions and Key Debates at the Annual World Innovation Summit on Education (WISE) and Moderator of OECD’s Global Education Industry Summit.
Teacher Leader Respondents:
Chanda Jefferson is a Science Department Chair, STEM Lead, and Secondary Life Sciences teacher at Fairfield Central High School in Winnsboro, South Carolina. She taught in the public schools of South Carolina for more than ten years where she was also named the 2020 South Carolina Teacher of the Year. In 2021, Chanda received the National Education Association Award for Teaching Excellence, a prestigious award which highlighted her dedication to the teaching profession, community engagement, professional development, attention to diversity and advocacy for fellow educators. Currently she serves as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow in the House of Representatives for a member of Congress. As a policy advisor, she managed the team’s educational portfolio and several critical issues including early childhood, K‐12, and higher education, health and human services, science and technology, and civil rights and race relations.
Janet English Janet is the recipient of the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching (2013, University of Eastern Finland) and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching (2003). Janet taught lower and upper secondary science and broadcast journalism for more than fifteen years before moving to Finland to find out, “What are Finnish teachers doing that American teachers are not?” Janet returned to the US after six months of Finnish pedagogical research, spent four years adapting these methods for use in American high school biology, and collected data on how these adaptations affected student learning and motivation. Janet was a founding vice-chair of the California Teacher Advisory Council, a committee member for several National Academy of Sciences projects, and an author for articles published with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Janet produced two live, multi-continent broadcasts for PBS and authored The Finnish Way to Optimize Student Learning. She is president of the non-profit, the Teacher Research Initiative, and is a doctoral student at the University of Eastern Finland where she is documenting the work she conducted in Finland as well as the response of US students to her pedagogical adaptations.