Penn GSE In the Media

While many former athletes, business majors and even some sports fans aspire to work in college sports, it doesn’t take long to realize that it cannot be defined as a typical 40 hour a week job, says Karen Weaver.

Robert Zemsky is quoted on the worries that speeding up curriculum to graduate from college in three years would “cheapen the degree.”

Janine Remillard speaks about a local program that prepares Black girls for careers in STEM fields. “Black girls need to be in an environment where they can thrive by being supported as learners, and by being able to look around and see others like themselves,” she says.

Michael Gottfried speaks about mental health absences in schools. Unexcused absences can lead to truancy, get kids into trouble, get parents into trouble, and can lead to juvenile justice outcomes, he says. Schools need to keep careful track of students who take repeated mental health days.

Ryan Baker shares some best practices and which practices to avoid after two years of virtual learning. Virtual learning should focus on ensuring that students experience as little disruption to their education as possible. The key to that is creating a discourse around the use of technology.

Marsha Richardson discusses how to explain the realities of war to children. “When it comes to issues like this, sometimes we can find it hard to connect the dots between a child’s behavior and the events unfolding in the world around them,” she says. “This is about being in tune with and understanding, developmentally, the ways in which these stressful situations might manifest for children.”

Howard Stevenson on the impact of trauma on Black communities nationwide: “We found that if there has been a police shooting in that neighborhood that a lot of people in the community will experience trauma…Witnessing oppression has an impact on everybody.”

Richard Ingersoll expressed concern about lowering the bar for teachers. “Remote sometimes might be much more preferable to getting some substitute in there who’s basically babysitting,” he said.

Jonathan Zimmerman said that bills banning the teaching of so-called “critical race theory” in schools could create more problems for conservatives than they solve. “I understand the danger of indoctrination in our schools, about race and everything else,” he said. “But the solution to that problem is to present multiple perspectives in our classrooms, not to bar certain perspectives from them.” 

Jonathan Zimmerman posed tough questions about who will instruct students about the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Most of our history teachers, he says, are not adequately educated for that task.

Tina Fletcher figured out her life’s purpose when she met her ninth-grade civics teacher. Mrs. Payne was Black, like Fletcher, and was one of the first teachers of color Fletcher had in her rural Arkansas town. “I knew from that point forward I had to be a social studies teacher,” Fletcher said. “I could see myself.”

Joni Finney spoke about the impact of rising college costs on low-income families, saying, “For these families the high cost of college is not a perception but a reality that they must deal with.”

Krystal Strong protested on campus with students and faculty and members of the surrounding community to stop the sale of subsidized rental units and the displacement of Black and poor Philadelphians in University City.

Laura Perna discussed how the challenges of  constructing debt-free degree programs may be daunting for colleges, but the ends justify the means: The programs create a more socioeconomically diverse student body, to the benefit of everyone.