Alumni News

More than 700 new educators, researchers and leaders were honored during the University of Washington College of Education’s graduation ceremonies on June 11, with speakers highlighting the Class of 2019’s power to advance educational justice.

“Kids are born scientists. From the very first breath we take as a baby, we’re trying to explore the world with our five senses.”

Zoë Dash (MEd ‘11), the science and technology teacher at The Perkins School, is guided by the philosophy that there’s always more to learn. One of a handful of University of Washington College of Education alumni at the independent school in Seattle’s Maple Leaf neighborhood, Dash teaches her students, from kindergarten through fifth grade, to celebrate their exploratory sense of learning.

Looking out her window, Déana Scipio (PhD ‘15) can see fourth through sixth graders playing in the grass. When she visits the garden, kids are learning about plants and planting things ー though they won’t get to see them sprout. It’s part of the stewardship work they do, planting for other kids to harvest later in the year.

But it’s the experiences of the graduate students, those teaching the children, which are even more exciting to her.

Tina Y. Gourd (PhD ‘15) and Jennifer Gale de Saxe (PhD ‘14) are graduates of the UW College of Education and co-editors of the recently published book “Rearticulating Education and Social Change: Teacher agency and resistance, early 20th century to the present.”

The book demonstrates activist work by educators throughout the history of education. Underemphasized modes of resistance are analyzed within the context of their communities, and impacts from historical and cultural factors on the individual educators’ efforts are viewed through a lens of teacher agency.

Mia Williams (EdD ‘18), a graduate of University of Washington’s Danforth Educational Leadership Program and Leadership for Learning (EdD) program, is the 2019 Mary Hatwood Futrell Award recipient awarded by the National Education Association (NEA). Williams currently serves as principal of Seattle’s Aki Kurose Middle School and was selected for her contributions to the human and civil rights goals and aspirations of Americans across the nation.

The outstanding scholarship of UW College of Education faculty and alumni will be recognized during next month's American Educational Research Association meeting in Toronto.

Those being recognized include:

As a teacher in Atlanta, Jacob Hackett (PhD '16) saw a disproportionate number of his minority students placed in special education and segregated from the classroom.

“I did see special education as — unfortunately for many students, particularly for students of color, particularly for boys of color — a way of getting them out of the classroom,” Hackett said. “And unfortunately headed to negative outcomes. I didn’t like that.”

“Playful” and “energetic” can describe both a puppy and a young child. Both enjoy toys, running and being close to the ones they love. An estimated 70 percent of school aged children have pets, making contemporary American children more likely to live with a pet than with both parents. It’s not surprising that many young children describe their pets as family members and confidants.

The Asheville Farmstead School is an outdoor, play-based early childhood education center founded and directed by Lauren Brown (MEd '12), an alumnus of the Education for Environment and Community graduate program at IslandWood. There’s a squat and homey stone farmhouse-turned-schoolhouse, but the children don’t spend much time in it, not when there’s a garden to tend, pine stumps and planks with which to build out in the yard, and 25 acres of fields and forested hills to explore.