Nancy Lesko teaches in the areas of curriculum, youth studies, gender/sexuality, and immigration at Teachers College, Columbia University. Recent books include: Keywords in youth studies and Act your age! A cultural construction of adolescence, 2nd edition. Current research projects involve a three-country study of beginning teachers and their responses to LGBTQ issues (SSHRC funded) and a high school initiative that…
Dr. Ellen Condliffe Lagemann is Levy Institute Research Professor at Bard College and a distinguished fellow of the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI). Lagemann is a leading historian of education and a nationally known expert on education research. She taught at Teachers College, and in the Department of History at Columbia University. At Teachers College, she was director…
Mary Ann Chacko is a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. She completed her B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from India and an M.A. in Child Studies from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She trained as a teacher in India and worked as a school teacher and a…
Announcing a new series! Interviews are one way to share ideas, make connections, and interact with the people you most admire, but Esteem is hungry for more. We have some amazing interviews lined up for publication over the summer, and now we’re adding a new genre to our publication: the Essay. “Starting the Conversation” is the…
Max Kenner is the founder and Executive Director of the Bard Prison Initiative. He conceived of and created BPI as a student volunteer organization when he was an undergraduate at Bard College in 1999. After gaining the support of the College and cooperation of the New York State Department of Correctional Services, he has overseen…
Dr. Ernest Morrell is Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, Director of the Institute of Urban and Minority Education (IUME), and President-Elect of National Council of the Teaching of English (NCTE). Prior to becoming a professor and researcher, he was an award-winning high school English teacher in his hometown of Oakland, California. In…
Dr. Federico Waitoller is an Assistant Professor of Special Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His work focuses on multiple yet intersecting strands of research: teacher learning for inclusive education, and the disproportionate numbers of students of color in special education settings. Over “a shot of espresso with a drop of milk” (Dr. Waitoller’s…
Dr. Maria Torres-Guzmán is a full professor in the Bilingual-Bicultural Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Professor Torres-Guzmán’s interests lie in the space where culture and language intersect in the classroom as well as in broader society. In conversation here with Estrella Olivares-Orellana, Professor Torres-Guzmán takes us on a journey from her initial steps in venturing into…
Kiran Bir Sethi founded the Riverside School, in Ahmedabad, India, in 2001. Her school is based on the idea that students learn best when they believe that they have agency (the school slogan is “I can”). The students at Riverside become involved in local issues, research and design their own learning, and believe in their own…
Dr. Daniel Friedrich is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum, in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, at Teachers College, Columbia University. Professor Friedrich has described himself as interested in “the ways in which the citizen is produced through different ideas of responsibility and the role given to history in guiding the present and the future.…
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