Ecuador

We beginnen weer eens met CNV Publieke Zaak, die zo voortreffelijk actueel is en vandaag laat weten ‘Zonnehuizen: behoud zorg en werk’:

‘CNV Publieke Zaak en de andere bonden eisen continuering van zorg en werk, opzet van een sociaal plan en inspraak- en medezeggenschap over de inrichting van de nieuwe organisatie van Zonnehuizen. Ook aan “Den Haag” wordt financiële steun gevraagd om een goede doorstart van Zonnehuizen mogelijk te maken.

Op de vraag of de nieuwe eigenaar het voltallige personeel tegemoet komt is nog geen antwoord gegeven. De overname is nog erg vers maar de klok tikt door en de contracten van alle medewerkers lopen op 10 februari a.s. af. De bonden willen dat het personeel respectvol behandeld wordt en dat er gauw duidelijkheid komt.

Het faillissement van Stichting Zonnehuizen was een onontkoombaar gevolg van (financieel) wanbeleid door de vorige directie. De directeur ad interim heeft alle zeilen bijgezet om een faillissement af te wenden maar toen dat onmogelijk bleek, is het faillissement toch uitgesproken. Gelukkig hebben zich partijen gemeld die de stichting hebben overgenomen zodat de zorg en onderwijs aan de cliënten kon worden gecontinueerd. Een doorstart is aan de orde maar van het personeel is veel gevraagd; doorwerken terwijl ontslag was aangezegd.

Er blijft werk

Er kan geen zorg of onderwijs plaatsvinden zonder personeel en een groot deel van het personeel wordt dan ook opnieuw aangesteld; toch is er voor misschien honderden medewerkers een onzekere toekomst. De nieuwe eigenaren Rentray en Winter willen namelijk met minder medewerkers starten en dan mogelijk in een latere fase het personeel uitbreiden. De nieuwe eigenaren willen hiermee voorkomen dat mensen alsnog worden ontslagen.

Door aan de nieuwe eigenaren van Zonnehuizen bovenstaande eisen te stellen hebben vakbonden duidelijk gemaakt dat zij primair werkbehoud eisen voor alle medewerkers. De boodschap is luid en duidelijk overgekomen en er wordt door de nieuwe eigenaren hard gewerkt aan een zorg- en onderwijsorganisatie die de antroposofische filosofie en zorgvisie behoudt. Komende week hebben de bonden overleg met de nieuwe eigenaren en willen dan graag horen hoe die nieuwe organisatie er uit komt te zien en of alle mensen daarin aan het werk blijven.

Actie en advies

De actiebereid van de leden van CNV Publieke Zaak is geturfd. De uitkomst is verdeeld; voor de overname wilde iets meer dan de helft van de leden overgaan tot actie maar dat is in de huidige situatie verminderd omdat men even wil afwachten.

Bestuurder Karin Kasper van CNV Publieke Zaak is bereid om actie te voeren maar adviseert het personeel in dit stadium van de doorstart een coöperatieve houding. Natuurlijk houdt zij de vinger aan de pols en is het ook van groot belang haar te blijven informeren over wat er op de werkvloer plaatsvindt. Als er reden toe is kan zij tijdig ingrijpen en met de leden acties vorm en inhoud gaan geven.

“Op enig moment zal de leden worden gevraagd of zij vertrouwen hebben in de nieuwe organisatie en het management; of zij (mogelijke) personele gevolgen redelijk en acceptabel achten of misschien juist niet. Samen bepalen wij hoe onze handelswijze er uit moet zien en daarin hebben de leden vanzelfsprekend het laatste woord. Tenzij u als lid nú al actie wil gaan voeren, is bovenstaande de ‘marsroute’ van CNV Publieke Zaak”, aldus Karin Kasper.’

Maar verder gaan we over in het Engels. Eerst met een prachtige necrologie door Pauline Etkin van Clive Robbins in The Guardian (dit was al op Kerstmis, 25 december 2011):

‘Clive Robbins obituary
Educationist and pioneer of music therapy for children with disabilities

Together with the American composer and pianist Paul Nordoff, the British educationist Clive Robbins, who has died aged 84, founded the Nordoff Robbins approach to what they called “creative music therapy”. During their 16-year partnership, they demonstrated music’s capacity for reaching many developmentally and multiply disabled children. They did this by developing improvisation strategies to enable the children to become more communicative, socially aware, expressive and emotionally balanced.

The pair met in 1958, when Nordoff visited the Sunfield children’s home in Stourbridge, West Midlands, where Clive was working. At the time, Sunfield saw itself as a “curative educational community” following the principles of imagination and creativity promoted by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. They set about their experimental musical work with the children there, many of them profoundly disabled, in 1959-60. Appealing melodies, rhythms and harmonies were tailored to each child, who could respond through playing a side drum and cymbal; the sessions were recorded and transcribed. Clive’s contribution lay in setting a direction for his partner’s musicianship, documenting the work and finding a language for communicating their ideas to other professionals.

After touring and lecturing across Europe and America, they were given a five-year research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health in the US. They then became lecturing fellows of the American-Scandinavian Foundation (1967-74), developing training techniques for musicians, publishing and taking part in television documentaries. Nordoff Robbins centres and training programmes were established in Britain, Germany, the US and Australia, and individual therapists worked round the world.

Born in Handsworth, Birmingham, Clive came from a family of bakers. His parents were not married, and it was only at the age of 17 that he learned his “older sister” was in fact his mother. His disrupted early years left him looking for a sense of purpose: one compensation of being sent away to live with foster parents during the second world war was that he could take piano lessons, and learned to love classical music. When he was 18 and in the RAF, a gunshot injury resulted in partial paralysis of his left hand and arm, bringing his playing to an end.

Technically and mechanically talented, and instinctively creative, Clive next explored photography. This led to painting, with two years of study in London, but then disillusionment and desultory jobs including work as a lighting technician at two London theatres. In 1950 he went to the family bakery in Smethwick. Then, while working as a truck driver for a timber company, he met his first wife, Mildred, with whom he had two children, Tobias and Jennifer. Mildred worked as a nurse at Sunfield, and when Clive also got a post there, the family lived in a small trailer in the school grounds.

Towards the end of their collaboration, relations between Clive and Nordoff became strained. The American died three years later, in 1977. Clive’s first marriage ended in divorce. He married his second wife, Carol, in 1975, and worked at the New York State School for the Deaf till 1981. In 1981-82 the pair were visiting professors of music therapy at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and until 1989 lived in Sydney, Australia, where a Nordoff Robbins Association was established. They then became founding co-directors of the Nordoff Robbins Centre for Music Therapy at New York University.

Back in Britain, Sybil Beresford-Peirse established a Nordoff Robbins practice in south London in 1971, and a training course in 1974. This activity developed in 1976 into the Nordoff Robbins UK charity, with particular support from the rock music industry. Sybil was director until her retirement in 1991, throughout which time the work of the two pioneers played an integral role in the development of the UK profession.

I first met Clive in 1982 while training. His charisma, compassion, rigour, skill and belief in the power of music therapy were a compelling inspiration to me and many other practitioners. He became a mentor and friend, and I succeeded Sybil as director of the UK charity, which is now a leading provider of services, training and research. People of all ages with a wide variety of illnesses and disabilities play and sing music they know already, music they improvise on the spot, move to music, write songs, or rehearse and perform music-based stories.

Clive remained active until his final year, teaching, writing, lecturing and supporting Nordoff Robbins establishments around the world, notably in Japan and other parts of the far east. After Carol’s death in 1996, he married Kaoru, also a music therapist, a native of Japan but resident in the US for some time. He is survived by her and his two children.

– Clive Edward Robbins, music therapy pioneer, born 23 July 1927; died 7 December 2011’

Dan kwam ik op het Canadese yourhome.ca nog een mooi artikel van David Hayes tegen, afgelopen vrijdag gepubliceerd, met als titel ‘Lifelong Renter. Aging in place is simple at Hesperus Village’:

‘Getting to Hesperus Village, an affordable housing complex for seniors in Vaughan, feels like a drive into the country.

Just north of Highway 7, I turn off Bathurst St. and drive along a two-lane road winding down into a valley, over a small bridge and up again past the Toronto Waldorf School’s unusual polygonal structure. Past the school there’s a wooded ravine in which the East Don River flows and a small farm where children play with the resident goats. Across a big, open field I can see Hesperus Village’s pair of fused, lowrise buildings.

Founded in 1987, Hesperus has 77 units — 17 bachelors, one- and two-bedrooms suites in the original facility (Hesperus I) and 70 one- and two-bedrooms units in an expansion that is nearly completed (Hesperus II). Half of the units in both Hesperus I and II are rent geared to income (RGI), set at 30 per cent of the tenant’s income, and the rest are restricted to 80 per cent of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s average rent.

Due to slight difference in public funding, to qualify for Hesperus I residents must be 61 or older with a maximum annual family income of $40,000; for Hesperus II, 65 or older with a maximum annual family income of $80,000. (There is a waiting list of about 120 people and units open up infrequently.)

All of the units are designed to be easy for seniors to get around as they age and some are specially equipped for those with disabilities. The complex also includes a communal dining area (there are small kitchenettes in the units for those who wish to eat in their apartments), social areas and an in-house medical clinic where four family physicians and several therapists are available.

One of doctors, Ken McAlister, is also president of Hesperus’ board. We’re sitting in the soon-to-be-completed communal dining room in Hesperus II, which will double as a function hall where everything from meetings to speaker’s nights will be held.

“We strongly encourage people to move here when they’re healthy and active,” says McAlister. “Then they can actively participate in the community, make new friends and get oriented. So, when the inevitable wounds of old age hit, they’re already in place.

“Many people choose to stay in their homes as they get older but then, when they break a hip or have a stroke and have to move, they’re not dealing with illness and injury but with a traumatic change in their environment.”

McAlister is a clean-shaven, youthful-looking 62 year old. Although he’s sometimes given to prosaisms — “as human beings we’re perfectly imperfect” and “an animal can’t be more animal but a human can be more human” — his message is sound. Hesperus encourages good nutrition, friendships and activities (both mental and physical) in aesthetically lovely surroundings as a tonic to the challenges of old age.

“And there’s a spiritual dimension,” adds McAlister. “Not in the sense of ideology, dogma or creed. I mean spirit as defined as opening yourself to the mystery of what’s going on around us.”

The founders of Hesperus were inspired by the teachings of Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who, in the early 20th century developed a world view called anthroposophy, a fusion of science and mysticism. In an effort to ground his ideas in the real world, he founded the Waldorf Schools with their emphasis on an interdisciplinary, humanistic approach to education. Building Hesperus on the campus of the 42-year-old Toronto Waldorf School reflected Steiner’s ideal of all ages mixing in intergenerational communities. (First seen as a seniors’ facility for retired Waldorf teachers, it soon opened to anyone, especially as it expanded.)

Steiner also encouraged the use of near-transparent layers of coloured paint in buildings to create an effect he described as being able to “spiritually pass through the walls.” (This became what is today known as lazure painting, a feature incorporated into both Hesperus I and II.) He created a kind of performance art called eurythmy, which evolved into a form of movement therapy as well as anthroposophical medicine, which McAlister practices, that integrates mainstream medicine with homeopathic approaches.

“I embrace conventional medicine wholeheartedly but its parameters are restricted to the reductionist model,” says McAlister. “I think there are different ways of working scientifically than just a statistically-driven model.”

As we talk about the potential for people to age more gracefully in a community where they are supported and encouraged to remain active and engaged in the world, McAlister pauses and stares for a moment out the window at what will eventually become an organic garden.

“Don’t let anyone tell you growing old is easy,” he finally says. “It’s not for wimps. But there are things you can attain in old age, an ability to see the vastness of life, a shedding of old habits that held you back, an understanding of your humanness. You can’t come to that kind of understanding at any other stage in life.”

David Hayes is an author and award-winning feature writer who has been a renter most of his life. If you have stories or information to share about renting, he can be reached at lifelong_renter@sympatico.ca.’

Nu we toch in Noord-Amerika zijn beland, ga ik meteen door naar Princeton, waar Staff Writer van Centraljersey.com Charley Falkenburg op 19 december 2011 schreef over ‘Ecuadorian education official tours Waldorf School’:

‘Princeton’s Waldorf School received a visit from Angel Castillo, the director of education in Ecuador, on Dec. 16 as part of a Waldorf schools research tour.

Mr. Castillo came to this country to study Waldorf’s methods of education, which he hopes to implement in Ecuadorian public schools.

“Our dream is to assert Waldorf methodologies in all public education in grades K-12,” Mr. Castillo said through translator and Mountains of Hope Foundation president Paul Murtha. “I like the dedication of the teachers and the commitment of the communities.”

He added that it is important to develop the spirituality and intellectual feelings of school children.

Mr. Castillo visited schools in Kimberton, Pa., and Princeton. The Princeton location was recommended by Eugene Schwartz, the international consultant for Waldorf Education.

Princeton’s Waldorf staff was pleased that Mr. Castillo chose their school to observe out of more than 150 Waldorf schools in the United States.

“I feel honored,” said Waldorf’s communications associate Jamie Quirk. “He could have visited a number of Waldorfs in NYC and the surrounding area. We’re the one school in NJ and we’re excited to have him here.”

Mr. Castillo gained initial interest from learning about the Mountains of Hope Foundation located in the east Andes of Ecuador. Mr. Murtha described this program as “educational enrichment” in education, health and organic agriculture. Seeing Mr. Castillo’s enthusiasm in the foundation, Mr. Murtha gave him books and information about Waldorf, which utilizes similar approaches to education.

The visit is not only ground breaking for Princeton, but for the entire country.

“This is the first time this administration has given permission for a top level administer in education to come visit and get ideas,” said Sue Brown, the Mountains of Hope director of education.

The Waldorf School of Princeton was established in 1983 by founding teacher Caroline Phinney. It teaches up to eighth grade and has up to 180 students. It strives to educate children in all areas, but according to specific stages of development and when the children are most ready.

Waldorf schools utilize a multi-sensory approach that educates students through movement, drawings and art. Students also have the same teacher and small group of classmates throughout their Waldorf career, making the experience an intimate, tailored relationship.

“We hope our findings make a change, it will make the learning experience better for all kids,” Mr. Murtha said. “The kids are so beautiful and you can quote me on that.”’

Hoe het gesteld met de vrijescholen in de Verenigde Staten, kunnen we te weten komen op de website The Wonder of Childhood. Op 5 januari plaatste Editor and Publisher Lisa Boisvert Mackenzie een ‘Interview with Author Stephen Keith Sagarin and give away of his book The History of Waldorf Education in the United States’:

‘Waldorf education is said to be the fastest growing form of independent education in the United States. Many families now come to Waldorf education from exposure on the internet. But what do we really know about Waldorf education in the United States? Waldorf education began in the United States nearly 100 years ago and has a history of its own. I had the good fortune to interview author and teacher Stephen Sagarin PhD. and learn about his new book The History of Waldorf Education in the United States: Past, Present and Future. This interview took place on December 12, 2011. Put the kettle on, pour a cup of tea and enjoy! Lisa

What prompted you to write this book ~ how did it come into being?

I went to a Waldorf school for high school after 10 years in public schools; this felt, as I say in the book, like coming home. In my junior and senior year, the school faced challenges among colleagues who couldn’t get along—teachers I respected treated each other poorly. Where were their ideals? This puzzled me. And, years later, teaching at the same school, I recognized that those entering Waldorf teaching in the 1980s had a different conception of their work than those I had had as teachers, who were educated in the 1940s and 50s. Also, later Waldorf schools have an alternative, countercultural feel that schools founded earlier often do not have. All these contrasts made me think there was a dissertation—and now a book—in this.

How did Waldorf education come into your life?

My mother’s father sought medical advice in the 1940s from a doctor who turned out to practice anthroposophical medicine. He and Dr. Winkler became great friends, and my grandparents became anthroposophists sometime later. So I grew up knowing about Waldorf education and Rudolf Steiner, although these were in the background, never thrust on me. When I was entering kindergarten, I interviewed at a Waldorf school, but my mom then remarried and we moved elsewhere, where there was no Waldorf school (remember, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were barely two dozen Waldorf schools in the U.S.). My mom then gave us Waldorf “homeschooling” after school—teaching us to knit, draw, model with clay, and so on—although no one in the early 1970s was calling it homeschooling. We moved to Long Island as I was entering 9th grade so that my brothers and I could attend the Waldorf School of Garden City.

How I became a teacher is another story. I never intended to be a teacher—I entered college thinking I would be an environmental scientist and left it thinking I would be a journalist. After college, I went on an archeological dig in Cyprus for a season, and, when I returned to the U.S., needed knee surgery. As I was recovering from this, the Waldorf School of Garden City offered me a job mowing the lawn—I could ride the mower with my bum knee—and giving admissions tours. A teacher left for graduate school, and I was offered her job. One thing led to another, and I postponed career plans to teach for two years. Two years became six, and after this I knew that teaching was challenging enough for me—previously, I was such a snob that I couldn’t have imagined teaching as a career.

How did Waldorf education begin in the USA?

The Rudolf Steiner Educational Union in New York City, a group of artists, poets, businesspersons and anthroposophists, started the Rudolf Steiner School in NYC in 1928, first in Irene Brown’s living room, and the next year—October, 1929—in a school building. For almost a decade it was the only Waldorf school in the country. The spread of Waldorf education beyond this school was spurred significantly by Hermann von Baravalle, a mathematician and colleague of Rudolf Steiner, who came to the U.S. several times in the 1930s, returning for good in 1937. He was associated in one way or another with nearly every school founded through the 1960s.

What is distinct about Waldorf education in the USA when compared to Waldorf in other countries?

I don’t really know the answer to this question. It has occurred to me to try to get a research grant to look at exactly this question, which would mean travel in Europe. In general, I can say that Waldorf schools in Europe and South America apparently receive more state funding than Waldorf schools in the U.S., and, perhaps as a consequence, other countries often have far larger schools, approaching 1000 students in some cases. The largest schools in this country have between 300 and 400 students, and there are very few such schools.

Did you come across any surprises in your research to write this book?

Yes! Some examples: The connection between the Anthroposophical Society and the Steiner School was much stronger than I’d realized prior to World War II. The ways in which different Waldorf school teachers came to learn about Waldorf education are often surprising. Most important, I believe, Steiner himself never defined Waldorf education! When I first started looking into this, I thought I’d look up Steiner’s definition of Waldorf education and go from there. Then I discovered that there simply wasn’t one. I go into this in detail in the book.

Why is it called Waldorf here in the U.S.A. and Steiner everywhere else?

I don’t believe that’s the case. In England they often call it “Steiner-Waldorf.” And in Germany, I believe, it’s mostly Waldorf.

Does the institutionalization of these ideas in Waldorf Schools brought by Rudolf Steiner allow for the growth of Waldorf education or does it impede its growth in some ways?

Through most of the 20th century, institutionalization was probably the only real way that Waldorf education was going to spread. We can point to a couple of hundred schools in the U.S. that have arisen in the past 80 years or so. There really wasn’t any other way until later in the 20th century, with critiques like Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society, and the unschooling and homeschooling movements.

I’m not sure whether or not we’ve reached a tipping point at which institutionalization allows for growth. Standardization and objectification are part of this picture. For instance, the phrase “Waldorf education” isn’t used in print in the U.S. until the 1960s—A.C. Harwood’s 1958 book, The Recovery of Man in Childhood (Harwood was an English friend of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein, but his book was published by the Myrin Institute in the U.S.) doesn’t mention Waldorf education at all, even though that’s what it’s about!

I worry that the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA) is not sensitive enough to the dangers of standardization and objectification, and that may hinder the growth of Waldorf schools and the spread of Waldorf education. (I think the term standardization is clear enough. By objectification, I mean the creation of a mental “object” when such a creation is uncalled for. The dangers of this are clear if we remember the creation of “IQ” as a concept to measure “intelligence,” as if intelligence is an object that we can weigh and measure.)

Steiner talked about teaching and learning, not “Waldorf” teaching and “Waldorf” learning. We should remember this more frequently.

Are there shibboleths with Waldorf education? What can be done about them?

For whatever reasons—insecurity, lack of deep understanding or commitment—teachers and schools too often represent themselves defensively and superficially. They can cling to weird things—dress, diet, candle-lighting, and so on—that make them look strange and cult-like. But you can’t find most of these things in Steiner’s profound educational lectures and writings.

Also, given the lack of a traditional American culture, we’ve imported elements of German, Swiss, Austrian, and English culture and “made” them Waldorf. I’m talking about crypto-Protestantism, May poles, St. Nick, you name it. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with these customs. I’ve been in “The Shepherds’ Play” for many years. But we shouldn’t mistake this somewhat artificial culture for what’s essential, and we should be prepared to change it when the way we do it alienates part of our school community.

What to do? First, be less ideological and less dogmatic. Think for yourself, and develop a contemplative, reflective practice of active thinking. Second, join your local community. Coach Little League, join your Community Center, create a joint Waldorf-public school project. Get a non-zealous, thoughtful parent in your school elected to the local school board. Early Waldorf schools were more engaged and did not see themselves as “alternative” schools. They were willing to talk to other schools and to see their work as experimental.

Is Waldorf education a movement in the USA?

I’m not sure what you mean by this. Some might say that it is, but I’m not one of them. I’m not an activist. For it to be a movement, to me, would imply an ideological commitment that I can’t, in good conscience, make. My commitment is to teaching and learning. I worry less and less about whether or not to call it “Waldorf.”

Can you tell us a little about the Charter/Public school movement with Waldorf education in the USA?

Sure. There really is no public school growth in Waldorf schools. The only such school of which I’m aware is the Milwaukee Urban Waldorf School. I don’t see why other large districts couldn’t copy Milwaukee’s choice model, including a Waldorf school, but they haven’t.

There has been real growth on the West Coast, especially, in charter Waldorf schools; I believe there are now 40-50 such schools, all founded in the past 18 years or so. They have their own association (the Association for Public Waldorf Education, APWE), separate from AWSNA. In the long run, however, I see charters as a band-aid on public education. Maybe it’s a good solution for those who want it, but it’s not a long term solution to whatever it is that ails education in our country. Among other things, charter schools won the voucher vs. charter debate in the 1990s because teachers’ unions can control charters more easily. This is oversimplified, but still true, I believe.

I should add that I’m skeptical of too much talk of crisis in public education—I believe you could easily show that public education was founded in the 1840s in Massachusetts to address perceived crises (the growth of factory towns, immigration of Irish Catholics) and has been perceived as in crisis ever since. I wonder who is served by this rhetoric, and I worry that it’s not our children. More likely, it’s teachers’ unions, textbook publishers, computer manufacturers, and politicians.

The sad truth is, we probably have the schools we choose to have. They reflect a consensus about what’s important, what a human being is, and how to educate one.

It is said the Rudolf Steiner intended for this type of education to be freely available to all children, is this the case in the USA today?

Clearly not. If we believe that children have a right to an education separate from state intervention—and I’m not sure this is clear to many people at all—then we need to work for all children to have this possibility, even if we’re unhappy with some of the choices their families make. If I can choose a Waldorf education for my child, then others should be able to choose a religious education, a technology-based education, or whatever they believe will best serve their children, within the bounds of the law. I believe we should work for real competition in education—a competition of ideas and methods, not a competition of dollars. Then we may learn what works and what doesn’t.

Separate from school choice or vouchers, which can work in large, urban districts, but which are hard to imagine in small, rural ones, we can imagine that teacher themselves could find more approaches to their work. I’m aware of a few teachers who are educated in Waldorf methods but who have chosen to teach in public schools. I don’t know much about their successes and challenges, but I support their work.

Thank you Steve.

Stephen Keith Sagarin, Ph.D., is Faculty Chair, a cofounder, and a teacher at the Great Barrington Waldorf High School in western Massachusetts, where he teaches history and life science. He is also a former teacher and administrator at the Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School and the Waldorf School of Garden City, New York, the high school from which he graduated.

Dr. Sagarin writes, lectures, mentors teachers, and consults with Waldorf schools on teaching and administration. He is an associate professor and former director of the M.S. education program in Waldorf teacher education at Sunbridge Institute, New York. He is the former editor of the Research Bulletin of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education and has taught history of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City; human development at the City University of New York; and U.S. and world history at Berkshire Community College, Massachusetts.

Dr. Sagarin has a Ph.D. in history from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, and a bachelor’s degree in art history, with a certificate of proficiency in fine art, from Princeton University. He is married and the father of two children, Andrew and Kathleen. His wife, Janis Martinson, is Chief Advancement Officer at Miss Hall’s School in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He blogs at What is Education?’