Announcements

A couple of announcements for friends, fans and followers.

First, that book event I mentioned last time taking place tomorrow evening at Harvard’s new Ed Portal is going to be livestreamed at https://new.livestream.com/accounts/8714559/events/3839785.  So if you can’t make it to Alston to listen, talk and maybe pick up a book, tune in to the stream at 6:30 PM EST (and buy a book at Amazon if you like what you hear).

The second announcement has a bit more shelf life since, as of today, I’ll be working for the Woodrow Wilson Foundation’s Teaching and Learning Lab.  This is a new initiative from an established non-profit that’s been solving problems in education (particularly related to creating new teachers) since the end of World War II.

Historically, the organization has helped new cohorts of people move into the teaching profession (veterans after World War II, minorities during and after the Civil Rights era, women looking to move beyond elementary school teaching) through scholarships, fellowships and other programs.  As I discovered once discussions  with the group began, my mom received a Wilson Fellowship when she entered the library sciences field as a second career through a program designed to solve an impending shortage of trained librarians.

The Teaching and Learning Lab is a new competency-based teacher training program that will be forging links with educational organizations across the country and public agencies here in Massachusetts.  I wish I could say more, but the opportunity came up so quickly that it will take a while for me to learn everything I need to know in order to talk about the new Teaching and Learning Lab intelligently.  But what I can say is that the chance to contribute to this new exciting adventure was appealing enough to commit to the project full time.

As readers of the Degree of Freedom blog and newsletter know, I’ve tended to write about things I’m immersed in (like MOOCs during my One Year BA) or topics of obsession (like why the cost of higher education is so high – the focus of much of last year’s writing).  But since I’ll be on a learning curve with regard to teacher training over the next few months (and given that avenues for appropriate communication within someone else’s organization have yet to be discussed), you’ll likely see a slowdown in blogging and newslettering (is that a word?) over the next several months as I get my feet wet up to my forehead in this new educational arena.

This is not to say that I’m done with blogging on subjects of interest (far from it).  But as I decide what those are, expect less frequent posting and publishing here until the next obsession kicks in.

I’d like to thank everyone who followed along with the whole One Year BA mishagas, including the thousands who have tuned into this blog or subscribed to the Degree of Freedom newsletter and podcast.  And if and when the next subject worth talking a lot about opens up, tune in here to find out about it.

And stay in touch!

Jonathan