Centers

Finding the strength to make change, push for truth and walk with heads held high was the message of last week’s “Teaching for Black Lives” event.

Hosted by the University of Washington’s Banks Center for Educational Justice, the gathering of current teachers, future teachers and community members listened to the experiences of Black students and their allies.

A runaway, metal rod clinks onto the brown linoleum floor as 10th graders build robots for an upcoming inter-class competition. “Start thinking: How high are you going to build the next one?” their teacher encourages.

In a nearby building, middle-schoolers crowd around their instructor as he holds a yellow dodgeball and helps them estimate the height of the floors in the building. Just down the hall, older mathematicians try to create their own theories under the watch of a school district math coach.

A new name, a new director and a new book celebrate the inauguration of the Banks Center for Educational Justice at the University of Washington this October.

For the past 50 years, the University of Washington has helped lay the foundations for educators worldwide to think deeply about how to empower all students to become productive citizens.

On April 27, this work and the leadership of James A. Banks, Kerry and Linda Killinger Endowed Chair in Diversity Studies, will be celebrated during the UW Center for Multicultural Education’s 30th annual symposium.

Researchers at the University of Washington's Haring Center for Research and Training in Inclusive Education spent 2017 like most years: asking critical questions about inclusive education, researching and testing new strategies, and broadly sharing their research findings to add new knowledge and advance the field of inclusive education and early intervention.

This fall, influential education researcher Bronwyn Bevan joins the University of Washington College of Education as a senior research scientist, bringing her expertise on how institutional settings influence learning opportunities to the Pacific Northwest. For 25 years, Bevan has worked to broaden and improve out-of-school learning opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse students. In particular, her work has focused on inquiry-based learning, tinkering and making in education, and policy advocacy for out-of-school learning.