Tommie Smith’s Long Stride to the Olympic Hall of Fame

It would become an iconic moment in sports history and the American Civil Rights Movement. Tommie Smith ascended the dais at the 19th Olympiad in Mexico City to receive the gold medal for the Men’s 200 meters. As the Star-Spangled Banner played, he raised one black gloved fist. Bronze medalist John Carlos did the same.… Continue reading Tommie Smith’s Long Stride to the Olympic Hall of Fame

The Fight for the Mashpee Wampanoag Reservation

Goddard alum Hartman Deetz with Jim Peters, Massachusetts commissioner of Indian Affairs

A conversation with Goddard alum Hartman Deetz In the end of March, Secretary David Bernhardt of the Department of the Interior ordered the Bureau of Indian Affairs to take the Mashpee Wampanoag’s 321-acre reservation out of trust. This removed it from the federal reservation system.  This federal action uses a legal loophole, arguing that the Mashpee… Continue reading The Fight for the Mashpee Wampanoag Reservation

The Soft Parade: A Writer’s Response to COVID-19

While we all are destined to reach a point of stop-breath finality, our routes towards this summit traverse different topographies, navigate different twists of watercourse, and feel different illuminations of heat. Still, we mark similar paths: we all are, simply, in time, going to die. I think of this truth, in one way, as belonging… Continue reading The Soft Parade: A Writer’s Response to COVID-19

The Long Walk of a Teacher

Everyday, when I get home from student teaching, I silently bring in my bag to the house. Without saying a word, I put on a hat and head back outside for a walk.  I watch the bus pull up across the road, students hopping out and into the arms of their family members. I walk… Continue reading The Long Walk of a Teacher

Learning to Decolonize

The current discussion about the future of democracy in the United States is, beneath its surface, also a conversation about the preservation of a settler-colonial project.  It is about assuring settler futurity. Colonization is fundamentally achieved through the material theft of land and labor and the elimination and exploitation of people and culture. Educational institutions… Continue reading Learning to Decolonize

Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism puts down roots at Goddard’s new “Village”

Read the Aug. 26th article in Seven Days Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism (VCIH) recently signed a contract with Goddard College to move its school and clinic from Montpelier to the historic Greatwood campus in Plainfield this June. VCIH will join EarthWalk Vermont, also located on the campus, for a mission-based partnership in Goddard College’s… Continue reading Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism puts down roots at Goddard’s new “Village”

An Epiphany of Hope: Sherri L. Smith’s Writing Process for “The Blossom and the Firefly”

Japanese Plane Display - A replica of the "octopus basket" style embankments used to protect parked airplanes from bombing raids

Sherri L. Smith had been working on writing her Young Adult novel The Blossom and the Firefly. Late one evening, Sherri made a declaration to her husband. Three days before the editors deadline, she announced that she had just completed her first draft. But the conversation that followed made her rethink everything. In an interview… Continue reading An Epiphany of Hope: Sherri L. Smith’s Writing Process for “The Blossom and the Firefly”

The Teacher as Student: Graduate Degrees For a New Educational Era

by Bernard Bull, President of Goddard College Something new is happening in classrooms around the country. Project-based learning schools, Montessori schools, Waldorf schools, schools where every student has a personalized learning plan, and schools that are committed to creating more space for learner voice, choice, ownership, and agency are all popping up.  There are more… Continue reading The Teacher as Student: Graduate Degrees For a New Educational Era

Wandering Student Finds Roots: June Artiles-Perry’s Together for Goddard Story

My name is June Artiles-Perry and I’m an undergrad at Goddard College studying Sustainability.  I was born and raised in Florida. I grew up in Malabar, on what was called “the Space Coast”. If the weather was right you could hear the rumble of the space shuttle launch at Cape Canaveral from my front yard. … Continue reading Wandering Student Finds Roots: June Artiles-Perry’s Together for Goddard Story

“I ran away with the circus” Trudi Cohen’s Together for Goddard Story

In 1972 I graduated from Goddard College, where I studied Early Childhood Education with the remarkable June Edson. I taught in nursery and daycare settings for a few years, and then I ran away with the circus, that is to say, I joined the Bread and Puppet Theater, which has been the foundation for my… Continue reading “I ran away with the circus” Trudi Cohen’s Together for Goddard Story

Challenge Accepted: Goddard College Launches Future-Focused $4 Million Campaign

By increasing student scholarships we can reduce financial barriers for students and increase educational access, while also celebrating and supporting an array of students from different backgrounds and with distinct academic interests.

Goddard College announced on Tuesday its largest fundraising effort to date, the Together for Goddard campaign to raise $4 million by the end of June 2020.  At a time when many are questioning the future and viability of New England colleges, Goddard believes that its greatest innovations and academic experiments are yet to come. “This… Continue reading Challenge Accepted: Goddard College Launches Future-Focused $4 Million Campaign

Kipnuk Kindergarten: Education Adventures in the Alaskan Tundra

by Maureen Benoit Kipnuk is a special place to live. This small village of about 700 people on the southwest coast of Alaska is located on tundra with access to major waterways like the Kuskokwim River, the Kuguklik River, and 4 miles from the Bering Sea.  Kipnuk is in an extremely remote area accessible only… Continue reading Kipnuk Kindergarten: Education Adventures in the Alaskan Tundra

Alternative Education Enters the Mainstream

by Bernard Bull People often tell me that at one point in their lives they wanted to be a teacher. Well, what happened?  Usually, I find that their reasons for not pursuing education came from a limited view of what was available and possible in education. Or else they thought they missed their chance. If… Continue reading Alternative Education Enters the Mainstream

Sustainability School in Guatemala is Inspired by Goddard

By Matt Paneitz I spent over a decade in San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala helping to transform 500 tons of trash (including 15,000 used tires) into a school campus. Many would call it “a crazy endeavor”. Through this work I started an NGO called Long Way Home with a mission “to use sustainable design and materials to construct… Continue reading Sustainability School in Guatemala is Inspired by Goddard

Radical Love: Q&A with Gina Forbes, Director of One Tree Center

Gina Forbes is the Director of One Tree Center in South Portland, ME. The Center includes a preschool that holds the phrase Radical Love at the center of its principles. Radical, in the true meaning of the word, meaning “at the root”. This rooted focus on love informs Gina’s work and manifested itself through her… Continue reading Radical Love: Q&A with Gina Forbes, Director of One Tree Center

Writer in the World Podcast EP. 9: “The Voice”

Faculty member Kenny Fries, a leading voice in the disability arts and disability studies world, talks about high standards, research, humor, and finding ways to be in the present time. A poet, memoirist and essayist, and also a librettist, he says that traveling and living internationally is “as necessary as blood.”   “Most of my work… Continue reading Writer in the World Podcast EP. 9: “The Voice”

Unschooling toward Educational Liberation

by Bernard Bull, president of Goddard College ((((ring)))) By the time that someone graduates from high school, there is a good chance that they have been through a multi-year Pavlovian experiment that consistently results in people learning to respond on command. ((((ring)))) Doing the simple math, if you attended a school that used bells between… Continue reading Unschooling toward Educational Liberation

Writer in the World Podcast EP. 8: “The Limitations of Language”

centered red rose on bush

Bhanu Kapil speaks about growing up amid immigrant voices in North West London, and how she “accidentally” became known for her performances as a way to cross time and space. “Trying to write a novel as a diasporic writer, I find it quite challenging to write the historiography, the memory, the cardinal flux of a… Continue reading Writer in the World Podcast EP. 8: “The Limitations of Language”

Empathy, Anger, & Hate: A talk with Vincent DiPersio, documentary film maker

Vincent DiPersio (RUP ‘76) is a three-time Academy Award nominee for Documentary Feature. He has three Emmys. Last month he debuted a new film called Killed By Hate on the Oxygen Channel called Uncovered: Killed by Hate. It’s an examination of how the back-to-back murders of James Byrd and Mathew Sheppard led to Barack Obama’s… Continue reading Empathy, Anger, & Hate: A talk with Vincent DiPersio, documentary film maker