School of Education celebrates 100 years at IU

In the past 100 years, IU has established six schools, including the School of Education, which is marking its 100th anniversary through Thursday with symposium events.

“We started with four professors and 189 students,” said Dean of the School of Education Gerardo Gonzalez. “We have evolved into a school that graduates about a third of the teachers for Indiana schools, a school with international reach. We have graduates of our program throughout the world. We have faculty that have come here as visiting scholars.”

For the past 10 years, U.S. News and World Report has ranked the graduate program at the IU School of Education among the top 20 schools nationally. More than 2,000 students are enrolled in the School of Education this fall, Gonzalez said.

“At IUPUI, which is also part of the core campus schools of Indiana University, we have about 1,600 students. On both campuses, 3,719 students, and that doesn’t include the students who are attending the educational programs at the six regional campuses of IU.”

The symposium will include two speakers, Deborah Meier and Jonathan Kozol. Meier’s ideas have influenced other area schools such as Bloomington’s Harmony School. Jeremy Bazur, a third- and fourth-grade teacher at Harmony, said Meier’s reaction to “No Child Left Behind” and her feeling that standardized testing underserves the community’s children are views that Harmony shares and feelings that the School of Education has recently recognized.

“The School of Education bringing Debbie in says something about what they stand for and where they’re coming from,” Bazur said. “The School of Education’s job isn’t to just teach you one way of looking at things. It’s to look at all these different perspectives, and you’ve got to decide where you fall into all these things.”

Kozol, an educational writer and activist, has written several provocative books, some of which are read in the School of Education’s classes. Having two great figures of progressive ideas in education at IU is encouraging, said Kate Minelli, a new teacher at Harmony and graduate of the School of Education last May.

“I know we’re one of the top Schools of Education in the nation,” Minelli said. “The fact that the two of them are coming together at IU will hopefully influence our School of Education to have more of a focus on progressive education and reforming education around the nation.”

The teachers from IU who find out about Harmony have read Meier’s works in the School of Education classes, said executive director of Harmony Steve Bonchek.
“It’s helped us attract teachers from Bloomington from IU’s School of Education because they recognize that similarity in practice and philosophy,” Bonchek said.

Throughout its 100-year history, the School of Education has grown into one of excellence, Gonzalez said.

“That’s really what we’re celebrating during the centennial celebration,” Gonzalez said, “the great traditions of academic excellence that the School of Education has developed over the last 100 years.”