Cambridge

Lovely Last Day in Cambridge

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I had left an extra day after the movers just in case any problems came up – but they didn’t! So I spent a really nice day wandering around Harvard and Cambridge, kind of saying good-bye for now. The weather was perfect – about 70 degrees F (21 for my Celsius friends) and not much humidity (so no frizzy, cotton-ball hair!). Couldn’t have been better! A few highlights:

Harvard Graduate School of Education haunts…

Where I lived 30 years ago….

Where I worked 30 years ago (note the job progression!)…

Just some classic Harvard spots worth remembering….

Move-out day…

Since it’s the last weekend in June, I passed LOTS of fellow students moving out all along the way, and (while empathizing), was really happy that my many trips carting things up and down to my fourth-floor walk-up were done!

I even got to stay in a really nice bed & breakfast right in the heart of Harvard as I had won a free night’s stay as part of a graduation raffle….

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Wonderful ending to a wonderful year — hasta la vista to one of my favorite places in the world 🙂 !

Class of 1985… and 2015

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Anything worth doing is worth doing twice — even if it is 30 years apart!  And a Harvard Graduation is a celebration not to be missed.  A few highlight pictures with captions….

All graduates process through the streets of Cambridge from their school to Harvard Yard in the morning
Hamming it up in the streets of Cambridge
Acres of graduates in Harvard Yard
More acres of graduates in Harvard Yard
Ed.M in International Education Policy
Kyle & Matt made it in spirit — dog tags tucked under my robe
The IEP gang before….
….the IEP gang after
We made it!!
Woo hoo!

On the morning of graduation day, ALL the graduates from the entire university come together in Harvard Yard and are pronounced to have earned their degrees, school by school.  One of the really fun traditions is that each of the graduate schools cheers and waves something symbolic in the air when it is their turn — check out the Harvard Commencement video at about minute 49 for the Ed School and our children’s books 🙂  [In full honesty, I have to admit that I actually thought the Design School had the coolest symbol as they had built structures made out of Duplos and stuck them to their mortar boards!!]

In the afternoon, each graduate school heads back to their own campus for the awarding of the diplomas.  Dean Jim Ryan gave a speech that has really stuck with us all on the topic of sins of omission — “you should see what needs doing and do it without being told.”  You can read or listen to the speech here.  He’s a terrific speaker and funny, so listening is better and it IS absolutely worth 24 minutes and 29 seconds of your life to do so 😉

And then Dean Ryan shook hands with 701 graduates, including this one….

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Latin America Learns

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Invitation Option 2 You may recall that last August, I joined a group of about 50 fellow newbie Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) students at an intensive pre-program for the International Education Policy (IEP) group.  During those couple of weeks, I not only got my legs under me to start the Master’s degree program — but I met a small group of people with whom I got to do amazing things in the following 9 months. As we introduced ourselves (repeatedly!) during those first days, we kept hearing one another’s voices:

  • “I want to work in Latin America and focus on teacher motivation and development….”
  • “I want to work in Latin American and find ways to support vulnerable youth…” [that one was me 🙂 ]
  • “I want to work in Latin America in early childhood education and development…”
  • “I want to work in Latin America and find ways to use education to address violence and conflict…”

The specific countries we came from and the areas of focus differed a bit, but what was the same — what we could hear in one another’s voices — was that we care deeply about the region and believe that education is the fundamental engine that will enable Latin America and its people reach their full potential. So we came together to form the Latin America Education Forum (LAEF) with the goal of creating a larger community that — together — could spark the change, the innovation, the action to make that happen.

Fernando Reimers, our advisor for both IEP and LAEF, is fond of quoting John Amos Comenius – a scholar from the early 1600’s who is generally viewed as “the father of modern education.”  Comenius said “Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity; and let us put aside all selfishness in consideration of language, nationality or religion.”  For Comenius, for Fernando, and for us, that is the ultimate goal of education.  To establish, maintain and strengthen the capacities and social cohesion that allow all members of society to participate and engage in building and shaping the world we live in together.

And so Latin America Learns was born, with the theme of Building Participation & Engagement for the 21st Century.  As the first-ever conference on Latin American Education to be held at Harvard, we were really starting from ground zero!  It wasn’t exactly like “hey, you’ve got a story and I’ve got a box of old clothes, let’s go out behind my grandpa’s barn and put on a show!!”  But it was darn close. In retrospect, we had NO idea how much work it was going to be and how crazy we were to try it while we were also fulfilling the requirements for our Master’s program — but sometimes ignorance is bliss… and we did it!

We picked areas we felt were central to our theme: peace, inclusiveness, teaching, a vision for the 21st century.  And for each topic we invited a group of people who are actors in those spaces for Latin America. Speakers included current Ministers of Education, the Dean of HGSE and an array of educators, policymakers, innovators and researchers — we were a bit awed by them all to be honest(!) and were honored that they made the trip to be present.

The Role of Education in the Peace Process
The Role of Education in Fostering an Inclusive Society
The Future of Teaching
Vision for Latin American Education in the 21st Century

Our keynote speaker, founder of the Rodrigo Mendes Institute, started us off in the morning with some of the most moving moments of the day.  Following an accident that made him a quadriplegic, Rodrigo created an organization committed to building an inclusive society through education and art — focused on advocacy, research, experience exchange, and training — making huge strides in Brazil, Latin America and beyond. Rodrigo The day was filled with discussion, debate, challenge — and non-stop talking in Spanish, in Portuguese, in English.  The Ministers came away with input and ideas to help shape their visions and policies upon their return, and everyone came away as part of a new network for action.

By the end of the day, we were ready for a fiesta — and a fiesta was had!  One of our classmates from the Arts in Education program pulled out all the stops and we celebrated our 8 months of hard work together and an incredible day.  Performances, desserts, drinks, dancing… Salud!

ONE HAPPY TEAM!  I loved what we were able to do together in just a few short months — and I can’t wait to see the difference this group will make in the world in the years ahead.  Honored to be one of them and looking forward to working with them all again and again and again! LAEFTeam Oh — and then there was the day after!  We had the pleasure of spending the day wandering Boston with Minister Cynthia del Aguila of Guatemala and Alejandra Garza from Universidad Carolina in Saltillo, Mexico.  We found ourselves at the Public Garden and I happened to have just bought a copy of Make Way for Ducklings (a Boston classic kids book that just happens to be set in the Public Garden).  So, being Ed School students, we had story hour…. of course!! Story Hour in the Public Garden

Snow

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noun
1. Meteorology. a precipitation in the form of ice crystals, mainly of intricately branched, hexagonal form and often agglomerated into snowflakes, formed directly from the freezing of the water vapor in the air.  Compare ice crystals, snow grains, snow pellets.
2. these flakes as forming a layer on the ground or other surface.
3. the fall of these flakes or a storm during which these flakes fall.
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From Jan 27 through Feb 23, 99.9 inches of snow has fallen in Boston (2.5 meters).  According to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, this has “shattered” the 5- 10- 20- 30- and 40-day snow records.  Harvard, which historically has never shut down has been closed 3 days already this semester — when public transportation shuts down and the state prohibits all but emergency vehicles from being on the roads, not much you can do but stay in and watch it fall outside!
Weather.com says it will start again around 1am tomorrow morning… because we need more!
Out my front door…
Up my street…
Up my street the other way…
After the first storm (or maybe the second)
During the fourth? or fifth? or sixth? storm
Frontloaders out and about all night and early mornings – shoveling snow into dumptrucks that take it to get melted or dump it in the Bay
A balmy evening walk home (1)
A balmy evening walk home (2)
A balmy evening walk home (3)

Some photos from friends below — and a perspective from the Harvard Graduate School of Education here 😉

Haley House

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One of the things I’ve done this semester to feed my soul is to work with an amazing group of fellow HGSE students and an amazing group of guys from Haley House on a pilot program to develop Work Readiness skills.

The program is the brainchild of Jeremy Thompson, manager both of the Haley House Bakery Cafe and of their Transitional Employment Program (TEP), and Tracie Jones, head of HGSE’s G.I.V.E.S. student volunteer programs.

The Haley House TEP program provides assistance to those recently released from incarceration as they re-enter the world independently — through work experience in an environment designed to ensure safety and stability. TEP employees produce a range of baked goods and catering items including wholesale cookies, pizza dough, pie, and tea loaves. In addition to employment, participants are required to pursue education and can take advantage of additional tutoring and transitional support.  Our Work Readiness workshops are designed to supplement the core program by helping the guys to develop personal narratives, resume-writing skills, and communication in the workplace, as well as teach them how to utilize social media and other tips for job searching.

We met every other Friday afternoon this fall, and I can’t say there was anything I looked forward to more this semester than those afternoons — sharing, teaching, learning, laughing and crying.  And always hugs at the beginning and end!

I’m now working on becoming a “regular” at the Cafe – loving the terrific, giant chocolate chip cookies that they supply to outlets all over Boston and (my new downfall) the incredible Jerk Chicken items on the weekend brunch menu. At the Haley House Christmas Party, Jeremy tricked me into participating in a pie-eating contest.  And while there will be NO pictures shared of my face and hair covered in whipped cream and sweet potato pie filling, it did taste phenomenal!

On my trip over for brunch this last Saturday, Luis Contreras from the Work Readiness program gave me a tour of his kitchen domain. He also tried to buck up my confidence about speaking Spanish as I head off to Mexico next week, saying “you just have to try… and don’t be nervous!”   Thanks, Luis – I promise I will try 🙂

If you want to read more, HGSE published a nice article about the pilot program here.

 

 

 

Winter Break

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Fall Semester 2014 — Done!

I made it! I would apologize for not writing recently, except that I feel like all I’ve been doing for the past several weeks is writing… and then reading… and then writing some more! But we finished up last Friday so I’ve had a few days to breathe (and NOT write!), so here I am. And may I say it’s a pleasure to be writing without worrying about citing – in APA 6th Edition, or Chicago 16th Edition, or any other generally accepted academic style!

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about exactly what I’m studying, so – some of my “greatest hits” highlights from the semester, arranged by course include:

  • History of Higher Education in the US: The Rise of For-Profit Higher Education in Mexico: Policy Issues & Lessons from U.S. Experience, and The Evolution of U.S. Higher Education Institutions
  • Adolescent Development: Barrios Unidos – Juvenile Hall Transition Program, and Helping Latino Youth Avoid Self-Destructive Gang Involvement
  • Education Policy Analysis & Research in Comparative Perspective: UNICEF & USAID Education Strategy in Comparative Perspective, and Addressing Issues of Absenteeism & Teaching Capacity in Rural Cambodia, and Journeys Within Our Community: A Case Study of 21st Century Skills Development
  • Education Sector Nonprofits: Global Scaling of Education Nonprofit Organizations, and Persistence & Agility: The Rodel Foundation of Delaware’s Efforts to Transform Delaware’s Education System

I’ve really enjoyed the experience and learned a ton that is helping me make progress on the path I’d hoped for toward finding a way to support and work with youth/adolescents as they learn and grow and make the decisions that will shape their lives – somewhere in the world!

Like any good college student after the whirlwind first semester, there are new ideas and opportunities swirling in my head – so while I continue to pursue my strong interest in Latin America, a return to Cambodia is still a possibility, and I’m just starting to explore some things that would keep me home in the U.S. Stay tuned!

Thank for all the wine and goodies!!

Thanks for all the wine and goodies!!

But for now, I’m having a really nice break enjoying social time with friends, relaxing, reading things just for fun(!) and getting to watch sports and silly, sappy Christmas movies 🙂

I’m looking forward to spending New Year’s in Denver with the boys. Kyle finished up his initial training at Ft. Benning, so he and Bow have moved to his new post with the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson. Matt and I will both fly in so we can spend New Year’s Eve together at a Colorado Avalanche hockey game and New Year’s Day watching every college bowl game that’s on! After that, Kyle has talked me into climbing Pike’s Peak before I go – apparently it’s “supposed to be like one of the things to do in the world before you die.”

If I make it up (and down!) without freezing, I’ll be able to warm up in Mexico City as I’ll be heading there next for an internship in January. I’ll be working with the Venture Institute on one or more of their programs to identify, coach and invest in social entrepreneurs. (I’d amend the subtitle to the blog to add more locations, but I think at this point, I’ll just leave it at “and beyond…”)

Laundry Day

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One of the few times I honestly ask myself “WHAT were you thinking???” about my new life is when it’s time to do laundry…

Step 1:  Transfer laundry from attractive, grown-up hamper into college dorm pop-up laundry bag with a strap that allows me to carry it down….

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Step 2:  ….3 flights of stairs…

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Step 3: …0ut the door and back in to the basement on the other side of the building

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Step 4:  Quarters, quarters and more quarters

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Step 5: Go back up 3 flights and twiddle my thumbs (or read!) until wash is done

Step 6: Repeat Steps #2-5 to transfer into dryer

Step 7: Repeat all but the Quarters part to go retrieve and be done with it

 

And, oh, by the way — the trash room and bike room are in the same place as the laundry.

WHAT was I thinking???

Bold Ideas

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Today is one of those days that I am truly savoring in my new life.  HGSE held an all-day event, “Critical Conversations & Bold Ideas,” keynoted by Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, and Geoffrey Canada, Founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone.  As both are grads of the school, the talks were interspersed not only with interesting and inspiring and academic parts — but also familiar and funny and personal parts.

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Classes were canceled so that we could all attend, and it was capped with a block party featuring a couple more Harvard grads:  Yo-Yo Ma (a world-famous classical cellist) and Janelle Bechdol (a former American Idol contestant who graduated with her Masters from HGSE last spring).

I do love the crazy, eclectic blend of things and people that come together here!

If you have time, Geoffrey Canada’s talk is definitely worth watching — they did live streaming, so hopefully they’ll post it afterward on the site.   As I’m sure many of you know, he’s incredibly articulate, passionate and high-impact.  And personable too, as seen in a pic with some of my gang from IEP!

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Out & About in My Favorite Town

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Besides all the reading, reading, reading and more reading(!), I’ve had time to get out into Cambridge and Boston a fair but for fun too.

Lots of excursions with the other students in my group, including a celebration of Pakistani Independence Day that got almost all of us into one small restaurant at the same time!

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Soon after I got here, Jewon Wee, a friend and former colleague from Schwab and TD Ameritrade days shared his good fortune in obtaining Fenway tickets for some crazy close seats.  While the Sox ended up dropping the game 5-3 in the 10th vs. the Astros, we did get to see a Cespedes 2R HR… and every one of the Red Sox batting order up close and personal multiple times!

Another friend took me to a great “dive-y” blues club in Cambridge where I think we were the only two people hanging out in the bar that night who didn’t get up on stage and perform.  It was open mic Blues Jam night, but it wasn’t a night for amateurs!  These guys were the real deal and it was an amazing evening.  Will definitely be going back.

Matt also got to come out for a few days at the end of August.  I dragged him along with me and the HGSE gang to orientation sessions during the day and social events at night — and then we headed out to tour around in the sun for a day of whale-watching and Fenway, capped off with some great pasta in the North End.

Matt also ran with me in one of the 5K’s I was doing while he was here — the Twist & Shout on the Charles River!  A nice evening run, followed by a huge outdoor party on the river bank with beer, food, fun people and a mediocre Beatles cover band!  I’ve kept running regularly since I got back from Cambodia, and the almost weekly 5Ks there are to choose from here have been another great way to see more parts of Cambridge and surroundings.

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And then there was the trip to the Registry of Motor Vehicles…

Not nearly as much fun!  ‘nuf said 🙂

 

 

 

 

School Daze!

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Life has been a bit of a blur over the past month, and I realize I’ve been remiss in keeping up!  So I’m going to try to do it all in a bit of a burst here 🙂

I not only survived, but thoroughly enjoyed the 2-week intensive “IPSIE” prep session with my fellow students in the International Education Policy program.  Those are our smiling and relaxed faces on the final sunny Friday of the pre-session…

…and now we’ve made it through orientation, class shopping and 3 full weeks of class.  A few highlights:

Classes

Classes themselves haven’t changed much!  Lectures in auditoriums, sitting in rows, with section breakouts or working team sessions on occasion.  Definitely more high-tech and multimedia (no more projectors with plastic overheads — hahahaha!).  Lots of good interaction — and a fair bit of silliness when we’ve been sitting there for too long!

As promised based on a specific request (yes, I do take blog requests!), here is serious Erin, glasses and all, taking notes and paying studious attention.  8^)

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Note-Taking

Now note-taking, on the other hand, has definitely evolved!  I was pretty conflicted at first as to whether to go with the flow of peer pressure and flip open my laptop, or stick with the pencil — hard for me to think properly without a pencil in my hand!  Then one of the guys showed me the Microsoft Word notebook format and I was all set.  Apparently, as long as I’m able to fool my brain into thinking it’s writing on lined paper, I’m good to go!  Darn good thing too since I can touch-type a heck of a lot faster than I can scribble, and I don’t have to look at the keyboard to do it.  Also — we are frequently flipping back and forth between online readings, presentations, websites and note-taking during the lecture itself.  A sample below of how many active windows I had going in one of my classes.  (And no, none of them was instant-messaging or the newspaper…. in  this picture anyway!)

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Reading, Reading, Reading, Reading, Reading….

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Not really much to say about this except that those are just the books for the four classes I’m taking.  Most of the readings are actually provided electronically for us to read online or print out.  Being a bit old-school, I am still printing most of them…. I’ve gone through 3 reams of paper so far and several ink cartridges.  I even blew out my old printer the second week of IPSIE and invested in a new, higher-speed version that can print double-sided.  I am assiduously recycling and will be making a large donation to a tree-planting charity at the end of the school year!

For reference, these are the books for:

  • A801 Education Policy Analysis & Research in Comparative Perspective
  • A412 The History of American Higher Education
  • H236 Adolescent Development
  • A019 Education Sector Nonprofits

Paper-Writing

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I know that we all had serious doubts that I would ever be able to write prose again after 25+ years in business writing bullet points!  (I mean, seriously, I couldn’t even resist with the course list I just included above!!) Painful as it was, proof is in the pictures here that I have now done it 3 times 🙂  Those of you on the WPS team at TD Ameritrade will understand that I almost went into withdrawal as I refrained from all bullet points — forget my usual nested sub- sub- sub-bullets, I didn’t include any!!  I did, however, learn how to do citations and a bibliography all over again, in the officially-approved APA (American Psychological Association) format.  If it weren’t a website, my referral manual for the citations would be dog-eared already just from trying to make sure I had it right for these 3 short papers! :-p

What were you doing…

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I realize I’m a bit behind on keeping up the blog — it’s been a pretty busy couple of weeks, but I do have lots of pics and stories that I will add shortly…

That said, I just had to share this email I got the other day. All of the students at HGSE (Harvard Graduate School of Education) have been just completely inundated with emails from seemingly dozens of different departments, offices, services, organizations, bureaus, etc., etc. across Harvard in the last couple weeks — with it (hopefully!) coming to a crescendo in these last few days as we go through Orientation Week.

BUT(!) I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in my class who got this one:

WHAT WERE YOU DOING 33 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK?

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As I got to the bottom, I was thinking that I may not be donating this year… and then it occurred to me that I kind of just did a couple weeks ago when the first tuition bill came due!

Anyway, it is great to be back here.  I feel incredibly fortunate to be getting to do pretty much the same thing this week as I did 33 years ago 🙂

 

…and so it begins!

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First day of school tomorrow!  For the next two weeks, I’ll be attending the IPSIE program (Intensive Preparation for the Study of International Education).  And “intensive” it will be, running from 9:30am-4:30pm each day.  We had a fun “meet and greet” last night at a restaurant in Harvard Square.  Just as I’d hoped and expected, I’ll be spending the next year with a bunch of creative people who come from interesting backgrounds — and each one has a passion for something that brought them here.

As you can see, I’ve already printed off several of the early reading assignments to try to get a bit of a headstart… I sure hope I remember how to do this!!

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New Digs in Cambridge

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Per the promise of the blog subtitle, we are now on to the Cambridge phase of the journey!

Thanks to a tremendous amount of help from my mom — including numerous trips to Target, Best Buy and the hardware store, along with unpacking something like 100 boxes — I’ve gotten completely settled into the new apartment (box-free!) in just a week 🙂  “Before, During and After” pictures of the process are below.  I still have plenty of room for visitors, so I expect to see some of you here this year!

LIVING ROOM 

KITCHEN 

BEDROOM (And no, those aren’t really boxes — that’s my new avant-garde decor approach… at least until the dresser I ordered arrives next week!!)

GUEST ROOM/STUDY 

And the suitcases will be going into temporary retirement 🙂

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