In this two quarter program, participants explored and analyzed historical and contemporary theories of learning and models of teaching, discussed the affects of recent brain research on teaching approaches, and investigated the social, historical, and political forces that shape/d public schools in the United States of America, including the impact of long-term, systemic racism. The guiding question over the two quarters was, "What knowledge must teachers have and what conditions must exist so that ALL children receive a public education that ensures equity and supports individual students’ abilities to learn in school?" Program members participated in workshops and seminars, read extensively, wrote numerous papers, conducted research individually and in collaborative groups, created web pages about theorists and educators, taught lessons to their peers based on six models of teaching, and worked with children at a local elementary school to find answers to the guiding question. In addition, program members worked to develop group process and communication skills in order to create an effective learning community.

Work in the program addressed the following Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate: articulate and assume responsibility for your own work; participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society; communicate creatively and effectively; demonstrate integrative, independent, critical thinking.

Program texts included:

Mooney and Cole’s Learning Outside the Lines; Plato’s The Meno; Underwood’s Three Native American Learning Stories; The Emile of Jean Jacques Rousseau; Dewey’s Experience and Education; Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity; Johnson’s Power Privilege and Difference; Igoa’s Inner Lives of Immigrant Children; Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty; Ornstein’s Schoolgirls; Pollack and Shuster’s Real Boys' Voices; Tatum’s  Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? Khol’s I won't learn from you and other Thoughts on Creative Maladjustment; Miller’s Theories of Developmental Psychology; Jensen’s Teaching with the Brain in Mind; Singer’s A Piaget Primer: How a Child Thinks; Lowry’s The Giver; Clinchy’s The Rights of all our Children: A Plea for Action; Brooks & Brooks’ In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms; Kozol’s Savage Inequalities; Delpit’s Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflicts in the Classroom; Shandler’s Ophelia Speaks: Adolescent Girls Write About Their Search for Self; Moses and Cobb’s Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project; Comer’s Waiting for a Miracle: Why Schools Can’t Solve Our Problems­and How We Can; Flores-Gonzalez’s School Kids/Street Kids: Identity Development in Latino Students; Dyson’s The Brothers and Sisters Learn to Write: Popular Literacies in Childhood and School Cultures; Goodman’s Teaching Youth Media: A Critical Guide to Literacy, Video Production, and Social Change; Greenburg’s A Clearer View: Insights into the Sudbury School Model; Steiner’s The Renewal of Education. Anthroposophic Press; Walmsley’s Children Exploring their Worlds: Theme Teaching in Elementary School; Barbieri’s Change My Life Forever: Giving Voice to English-Language Learners.