Transcript of a News Conference on the Yale-New Haven Teachers
Institute November 8, 1982
Held by
Richard Ekman, Director of the NEH Division of Education Programs
A. Bartlett Giamatti, President of Yale University
Terry M. Holcombe, Vice President for Development and Alumni Affairs
at Yale
Crale D. Hopkins, Program Officer of NEH
Mark R. Shedd, Connecticut Commissioner of Education
Gerald N. Tirozzi, Superintendent of New Haven Public Schools
James R. Vivian, Director of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
David L. Warren, Chief Administrative Officer of the City of New Haven
James R. Vivian
May I place first things first? Before introducing the gentlemen facing
you, I would like to recognize among those of you assembled here the
numerous New Haven public school teachers who are here. You are the
reason we are assembled today. We honor you, your calling, your
profession. It is for you and through you for your students that the
Teachers Institute exists. I would like also to recognize the members of
the Yale faculty who are present today. They are not only the mind, but
also the heart of this place. The purpose of the Institute is not to
create new resources at Yale: rather, it is to make available in a planned
way our existing strength, that is, to institutionalize the work of
University faculty with colleagues in the schools. At that work, I believe
both University faculty and school teachers have been exceptional.
The Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, William
Bennett, was called to a meeting today with David Stockman, Director of
the Office of Management and Budget. He is therefore not able to be with
us. Chairman Bennett is making today in Washington an announcement on the
Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. We have welcomed particularly the
emphasis he has placed on the crucial importance of strengthening teaching
of the humanities in the nation s schools. He is represented here today by
Richard Ekman, Director of the NEH Division of Education Programs. Dr.
Ekman returned to NEH this year after serving for four years as Vice-
President and Dean of Hiram College. Dr. Ekman.
Richard Ekman
Thank you, Jim. I bring greetings from William Bennett and also his
regrets for not being here. I'm tempted to make some wisecrack about
someone taking someone else to the woodshed, but that would lead only to
speculation as to whose woodshed it was and who was being taken. So, I
won't. I will also not describe in any detail what the Institute is all
about or what the Endowment's grant covers. That material is in your press
packet. I will leave that to your reading later on.
I am very pleased to be here today to join in congratulating the New
Haven Schools and Yale University on their collaboration thus far. It is
especially gratifying that the grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities will enable the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute to be
transformed from a developing model of school- university cooperation into
something with a bright future, something that we at the Endowment hope
very much will become permanent. Without strong schools there can be no
strong universities. This project is of considerable significance to the
Endowment. The Chairman of the Endowment, William Bennett, and I have
worked closely together over the past six months in developing plans for
the Endowment to give much greater emphasis in its grant programs to the
encouragement of school-university collaboration. The Yale-New Haven
Teachers Institute is thus, in some respects, a harbinger of the
Endowment's future work. I hope that a larger number of the universities
in the country will come to recognize, as Yale has, that effective social
responsibility need not be manifested only in the work of schools of law,
or public administration, or business, and the other professions. Yale s
vision is unusual and may even be unique among the great universities.
Under the leadership of President Giamatti, Yale's refreshing view is that
its excellence in the humanities can be a basis for its civic relations,
and that its faculty of distinguished scholars of the humanities are
appropriately regarded as part of a tradition of public service. Yale's
vision should strengthen in us all an appreciation of the force, the
vitality, the essential practicality of the humanities. And I look
forward very much to the salutary influences of this grant in many other
places. Thank you.
James R. Vivian
Dr. Crale Hopkins has been the Program Officer responsible for the
Teachers Institute from the beginning. I personally am grateful for both
his advice over all that time and the spirit in which it has always been
offered. He exemplifies, I think, government service at its best, and I am
happy to report that that is not uncommon at the National Endowment. Dr.
Hopkins.
Crale D. Hopkins
Thank you, Jim. As you say, it has been my pleasure to be the Program
Officer for the relationship between the Endowment and the Yale-New Haven
project. As I see it, this project is a premier example of what can be
accomplished when university faculty and classroom teachers overcome fixed
ideas about the roles of each and work together. I had the pleasure of
personally observing in New Haven classrooms students who receive a
sounder education in the humanities, and thus will lead fuller adult
lives, due to their teachers' involvement with Yale University, to the
credit of both. I would only add that in a time of economic stress, social
deliberation, what we have here is an effort at excellence in the teaching
of English, history, and the other humanities for their own sake and for
the sake of the future. Thank you.
James R. Vivian
Some stories, I hope, improve with the telling. Before being named Yale's
President, Bart Giamatti had agreed to teach the Institute's first seminar
on student writing. In his present office he has shown no less a personal
interest in our work. He has spoken on numerous occasions nationally about
the role higher education must play in strengthening teaching in our
schools. President Giamatti.
A. Bartlett Giamatti
Thank you, James. I am delighted to see Dr. Ekman again, an old colleague
and friend, and Dr. Hopkins. I hope they will take back to Mr. Bennett our
gratitude, not simply for the support in the material sense, but also for
the encouragement and the sense from the agency of the Federal government
that the encouragement at the local level is one, not the only, but one of
the roles that the Federal government can properly play, from my point of
view at least, in the encouragement of the schools and the means of
education at a time when education must be viewed as central to the
health, the welfare, the intellectual, and spiritual well-being, and
productivity in the largest sense of the country. We have been trying here
at Yale and in New Haven with our colleagues in the New Haven Public
School system and other colleagues in the area to work from our position
of strength as an educational institution. In the humanities, sir, our
faculty is as distinguished you acknowledged, although I would also like
to acknowledge the presence of distinguished faculty in social sciences
and in the sciences, who are not only here, but who are as distinguished
and as committed and have been a superb part of our efforts working with
our colleagues in the City and in the area. Yale has a splendid faculty
member named James Comer, M.D., who has worked a long time on a superb and
innovative program called the Urban Academy working with two primary
schools. That is part of our efforts. Today, we are delighted to receive
from you recognition and to commit ourselves to working on the Yale-New
Haven Teachers Institute.
The recognition from the National Endowment for the Humanities will
help to sustain the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute in these critical
years of activity as that Institute continues to help strengthen teaching
in our schools and as it seeks a solid financial footing for its own
future. Implicit in the NEH funding is the hope that what New Haven Public
School teachers and Yale faculty do together at the Institute to construct
exciting, innovative, and solid curriculum units can be followed in other
communities throughout the country. When that happens and the Institute
will make every effort and will work hard, by that I mean the University
to make sure that it can happen, school children, teachers and faculty
throughout America will benefit greatly, and I might add at a time when
America needs to attend to that central process to make us all civilized
and better, which is in fact education. I am very grateful to you
gentlemen, and I am very grateful for not only your help but for your
presence here today. Thank you.
James R. Vivian
The Superintendent of New Haven Public Schools took part in 1977 in the
early discussions of the idea that became the Yale-New Haven Teachers
Institute. His leadership as an educator and as an administrator from that
time to this has been no less important to this joint program of ours,
than it has been to the school system as a whole. Dr. Tirozzi.
Gerald N. Tirozzi
Thank you, Jim. First, I, too, would like to thank the Humanities for this
substantial grant which will allow us to continue what has indeed been an
exemplary program for the school district and the university. I also am
very appreciative for the efforts of Yale University to reach out and
become a more integral part of the school district. For a long period of
time I have maintained that Yale, of course, has much to offer to the
educational program in New Haven, and in turn the system, the school
system, has much to offer Yale. I think that when one looks at this
project, the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, it represents a unified
effort to try very hard to enhance the curricula offerings of our school
district as well as appropriate pedagogy as related thereto. It is not a
bifurcated effort where we are going in different directions, but it is a
cohesive effort. I think this program, in particular, is a tribute to the
teachers of the New Haven Public School system, and I would
parenthetically add, of course, we are very appreciative to the
professorial ranks at Yale for your support and your expertise. But I
think what this has done for teachers, in particular, the teachers I have
spoken to, the teachers I have observed, I think it has lifted morale and
has helped the teachers to enhance their own level of professionalism. I
think all too often educators, especially public educators, are kept down
in terms of the level of professionalism. We have much to offer, and I
think this project has raised the ego level of our teachers and at the
same time has allowed the Yale community, the professorial ranks, to
accept the fact that New Haven has some of the finest teachers anywhere
and they have much to offer. So, I think we have been involved in a
process and in a program of Yale supporting the school district and the
school district supporting Yale. We have both gained from this endeavor,
and I think this particular grant and hopefully other grants will allow us
not only to continue with this effort, but in my personal conversations
with President Giamatti we are interested in expanding this project, the
Comer project, and others. So, I sincerely hope we can continue. I thank
all those who have been involved, and I look forward to a continued
productive relationship.
James R. Vivian
I feel confident in saying that no Mayor of our City has had a closer or
more fruitful relationship with this University than Biagio DiLieto.
Representing Mayor DiLieto today is the Chief Administrative Officer of
the City of New Haven, David Warren.
David Warren
Thank you, Jim. On several occasions I have commented to the Mayor, when
he asked me to represent him, that I was certain that he would have
preferred to be here, that the audience would have preferred that he be
here, and I would have preferred not to be here. I can say today that s
not the case, I am very pleased to be here in his behalf, to speak in
behalf of the City and all of its residents regarding the receipt of this
National Endowment for the Humanities grant. It's especially ironic for me
since in this instance I have been able to play both ends against the
middle. When the grant was in its early stages at Yale, I happened to be a
member of the administration and supporting this proposal as it was being
proffered to the City, and now that I am an employee of the City I am
happy to say that the support is strong, real, and long-term there. And
I'm only especially pleased now to know that the University continues to
feel as strongly as it did in 1977. I think that the purposes of the grant
have been spoken to in some detail both in the written and oral materials
this afternoon. I can say in addition only that in particular I would like
to thank the President of the University, who as suggested earlier was
involved in the inception of this grant and supported it before it took
off, before it became a national concept, continues to support it today,
and it is the kind of leadership that the City has looked to Bart Giamatti
for, and which he has provided. I think we have here, in short, a superb
example of how town and gown can come together in mutual benefit to all
the parties. If you will, the University s motto of Lux et Veritas may
well be reflected here. It seems to me in the curricula being developed
what we have is the light and the truth of the University being reflected
for the children of this City through this program. We are most
appreciative. We support it, and we thank you.
James R. Vivian
Connecticut is fortunate to have as our Commissioner of Education, Mark
Shedd. Not only has he established as a priority statewide the preparation
and retention of the highest quality teachers in our schools, he has been
a leader among his counterparts nationally in calling attention to the
importance of strengthening teaching in the schools, now and for the
future. Commissioner Shedd.
Mark R. Shedd
Thanks very much, James. The Institute is certainly a marvelous and unique
program, unique of its kind in any part of the country. I think it is to
the great credit of Yale, its President, the Endowment, and certainly the
school system for seizing upon the opportunity which is unique in that
really every party to the effort is a gainer. The biggest gainers of
course are the students who are and will be the beneficiaries of the rich
and high quality programs that come out of the engagement of university
scholars and school teachers from the community. I think also it's clear
that the teachers in New Haven schools are the gainers for the experience,
and I dare say that the faculty at Yale are gainers in many great ways
because of the associations they make more closely to the students and the
people of the community, particularly the teachers within the schools. I
think in many important ways that the schools and colleges and
universities of this State and of the nation are the gainers and will be
the gainers as a result of this program. There are many programs that we
know about that exist within the State that bring together universities
and colleges and secondary schools in many unique and productive ways. The
existence of this program at Yale with the encouragement that s given and
the sustenance that s been given as a result of the grant from the Federal
government and the funds that will be matched as a result of that can only
add encouragement to other institutions within the State and across the
nation. This is, as the President has said and as the State Board has
recognized in Connecticut, a time when we must double and redouble our
efforts to improve the quality of the educational offerings in our
schools. It is not enough to establish as a priority equity and equality
of opportunity, unless we also establish of equal importance the pursuit
of excellence in all our school programs. And the promise to me and the
impressive thing to me about this program is the possibilities, the
potentialities, that it holds for encouraging similar activities, joint
efforts, between the schools and colleges within the State of Connecticut
and across the nation. It is an idea whose time has come, and I thank the
University and school system for helping to show the way.
James R. Vivian
In addition to those of us who have just spoken, another is here also to
participate in answering questions. I should identify him. Terry Holcombe,
at the far end of the table, as Yale's Vice President for Development and
Alumni Affairs, has overall responsibility for the fundraising campaign
that has been announced today. We will take questions, first, from the
media and, if time permits, from others present. Are there questions?
Question
When will money from the NEH come to New Haven, and how will it be
funneled?
Richard Ekman
For all I know, some of it is already here. All universities that do
business with the Federal government receive the money in installments
over periodic intervals.
Crale D. Hopkins
April first is not an entirely coincidental date to begin with.
Gerald N. Tirozzi
If it is not too forward, I would like to recommend that possibly a
teacher who has participated in the Institute provide some insight and
wisdom regarding your personal involvement. Let's not be shy; you are not
shy when you negotiate with the Superintendent.
Linda Maynard Powell
As the "grandmother" of the program, I have been a member of the Institute
for the full five years that it has been going and a member of the History
Education Project before that, and I can just say that it has been a great
program. It has been in place of graduate school for me. It s exciting
sharing teaching techniques with the experts in the New Haven schools and
the kinds of scholarship that we really need to have done for our students
to make them better students. It is a great blend of those who work on
those techniques in the Institute. Any questions?
Question
Linda, do you believe that the Institute has kept teachers in New Haven?
Linda Maynard Powell
I have made that statement before. It is one of the things. I can't say it
is the only thing for me, but there certainly are a lot of great
opportunities for teachers in New Haven, and the Institute is one of the
strongest. When teachers are allowed to recognize their own weaknesses, to
develop curriculum that is not pre-packaged. I am not knocking any
education schools. I am a graduate of Southern Connecticut State College.
I think that it did a fine job of preparing me and teachers in New Haven,
but I think we need to get more into the areas of curriculum that are not
already set up in a packaged course. So that the Institute allows I think
that is part of the beauty it allows a lot of really creative people to
come together in seminars and share the common interest.
James R. Vivian,
In further response to your question, Ann; I might mention the study that
we recently completed, the results of which we are releasing today. It
showed that almost half of the teachers who had participated in the
program believe that the opportunity to be a Fellow in the Institute
influenced their decision to continue teaching in the New Haven Schools. I
feel that is very important.
A. Bartlett Giamatti
As someone who was denied the opportunity to teach in the Institute by
losing his summer job, I want to say that one of the reasons I am so
devoted to it is because I'd leave in a shot if it weren't for the
Institute. That is a little attempt at humor, Ms. DeMatteo, if you write
that down.
Question
This grant is supposedly one step so this program will remain here in New
Haven, and another step evidently is going out to the business community
and asking for their help. Just what part of that are you asking for, for
this program?
A. Bartlett Giamatti
Terry, do you want to speak to that?
Terry M. Holcombe
Let me speak to that. I think, first of all, this is a welcome challenge.
I'm the guy with the dark hat who has to go out and raise all the money;
so, my work begins here. It is a welcome challenge in that I think this
has really two opportunities to raise money. First, as a national model,
it opens up opportunities with national corporations and foundations and
even individuals who are not local to this area, so that we have that as a
very good opportunity. We hope this will become a model, not only in terms
of the programs, but in terms of how support can be generated from a very
large part of the community for programs such as this. Secondly, there is
the New Haven portion, the local group, which presumably will benefit much
more directly from this. So, we really have two parts to it. The ultimate
objective is to secure four million dollars in endowment which will
underwrite the program in perpetuity, and we will be working hard on that
over the next several years. As I said, both on the national scale, where
I think that the uniqueness of the program and the quality of it does give
us some very good opportunities, and also locally for on-going support
which has been what has kept the program going so far.
James R. Vivian
In further answer to your question about corporate support, I might ask
whether either Bob Reigeluth, who is Chairman of the New Haven Development
Commission, whom I see in the audience today, and who was the first
chairman of our local corporate campaign, or perhaps Henry Brightwell who
is presently chairing that effort, might either of them wish to add a
comment.
Robert S. Reigeluth
Maybe I ll attempt to be first, because I was the first guinea pig to take
the assignment on. At the time that Jim asked the Development Commission
to get involved in this, we were very much aware that there was nothing
really that could affect the recruitment of companies for New Haven more
than a strong public school system. It was one of the things that
employers look for when they came to New Haven, and it was for that reason
that we took the assignment on to try to interest corporations in New
Haven in the Public School- New Haven program. It worked out very well. We
have about fifty- five corporations in the first year that did step up to
bat, put their money up, and it was a very worthwhile experience.
Brightwell is now carrying it on. Maybe he would like to tell you where we
re going from here.
Henry P. Brightwell
I should mention that when Bob asked me to take this on, I noticed that
his golf handicap went down and mine went up. I would really like to
address a question on this score to Dr. Ekman, however, because it has
been pointed out that we do have a group of local business people and
other educators from the other colleges locally who are supporting this.
For the Teachers Institute we're getting pretty good support I think from
our business community at a time when it is not easy. I would like to have
you Doctor, if you would, discuss the role that you see for the private
sector in supporting a program such as ours, particularly since you are
suggesting that it might go nationwide, if you will. In short, how and why
would you say the private sector should join with universities and schools
to improve the quality of secondary school education.
Richard Ekman
There is a good deal of talk at the Endowment these days as to whether the
humanities are insular, that is confined to the academy, or that they
serve the public generally. As that discussion continues one of the
clearest examples of an arena in which the humanities work that serves
both is the arena that has to do with public schooling. Everyone is
influenced by the quality of schools. This is an era in which school
levies are regularly defeated, and every school district is asked to make
hard choices about what ought to be taught and what cannot be taught. That
is, this is an era in which one cannot have one s cake and eat it too. The
difficulty, then, is how a particular school system goes about making
those choices and does it in a way that engages the broadest base of
public support. With limits on what state and local governments are
willing to spend, the private sector becomes all the more important.
Through the Endowment's Gifts and Matching Program we hope in many, many
of our grants to make it possible for public and private dollars to come
together in support of worthy projects. That program, as some of you know,
is an unusual feature of the legislation which established the National
Endowment for the Humanities that allows the Endowment, a Federal agency,
to receive gifts from private sources, match them with Federal dollars,
and award the sum of the money, that is double the original gift, back to
the grant recipient institution. That s a mechanism that is used more and
more frequently and with considerable success. I forget the most recent
statistics, but it does appear that the Endowment has been able to
generate through this gifts and matching mechanism, private gifts in
support of the humanities equal to two or three or four times what the
Congress has appropriated directly for support of projects. Do I answer
your question?
James R. Vivian
We have begun to take questions, not only from the press, but also from
others. So, I would ask whether there are questions from anyone. Jill
Savitt.
D. Jill Savitt
For President Giamatti:
I was supposed to be in that seminar that you didn't teach. That is
what attracted me to the program in the beginning. Would you teach another
one?
A. Bartlett Giamatti
I would if I could. What attracted me to this in '77 was what had, if I
may say so, attracted me to something that I believe Mr.(Jonathan) Fanton,
who was then assistant to Mr. Brewster, and I and others helped to create
in '75. It was then called the Visiting Faculty Program. It was a program
under which colleagues from other four- year degree-granting institutions
came to Yale in the summer to work with Yale faculty, again on whatever
seemed to be useful. So that interest in seeing Yale play from its
strength as a great educational institution, not only on the international
scene and nationally and we are an international and national university
but also where we live. Whether Connecticut or New Haven. It goes back a
long, long time. It goes back to the point at which it was clear to me
that I wouldn't have to leave the Yale faculty if I didn't want to, which
is to say to the early '70 s. I think my interest in the Visiting Faculty
Program and indeed in this program and other similar things but I would
cite those two is of long standing, and it's part of my conviction that
this institution is a great institution. it is a great educational
institution. Its education is at the center of what the culture needs to
be civilized. We have our role in it; our role should be on all the
national and international scales but must also be here at home. And this
is the way of doing what we can do best with our superb people and with
other superb people who are around us. So, it is an old kind of interest.
it is an old kind of interest.
Al Gorman
I have a question for Dr. Hopkins. In relation to your job for NEH, you
visit many classrooms in the United States, and you said earlier you have
been to New Haven classrooms. Could you comment further on your
observations regarding what you have observed of the Institute in
practice?
Crale D. Hopkins
My pleasure to do so. Two things. One, as you say, I have had the good
fortune to visit many classrooms across the country in connection with the
work that I'm fortunate to have at the Endowment, There are many types of
projects which train teachers which involve faculty development. There are
projects which develop curriculum. There are varying opinions on which of
those have the most salutary affect on the classroom. The best of both, in
my opinion, we find here at Yale. On one hand the teachers who are
actually involved in the seminars receive, accumulate a greater and
sounder preparation in history, English, whatever, in the humanities for
the classroom which filters through to the students in a variety of
undefinable ways. And number two, the curriculum to use that bit of jargon
units that they write then, and this is one of the finest things about
this project, are considered and selected by the schools here in New
Haven, and the best of those go on to be used in other classrooms. So, in
two different ways, one the teachers who actually go to the seminars, and
more and more of those will be able to do so over the next three years,
and in perpetuity. And number two, the units that they prepare based on
their work with the faculty members at Yale are used by the remainder of
the teachers in the schools. So, what I saw was, number one, teachers who
are more excited, more enthusiastic, and better prepared; students who
responded to that better preparation, to that excitement. Number two,
quality materials produced by teachers from the unit to which these
students also responded very well and from which they will receive a much
better education in the humanities.
Joseph Montagna
I have a question for Commissioner Shedd. You mentioned earlier in your
comments that there are other towns in Connecticut that collaborate with
universities. Is there anything about the Institute that makes it unique
within the State of Connecticut, and further are there any elements of the
Institute that you see as having important implications for other
communities?
Mark R. Shedd
One obvious aspect of the Yale-New Haven project is its national
visibility because this is a national university. And I think under any
circumstances one can't overlook the obvious advantage that that has. But
beyond that, I think that, of other programs that I know, and there are a
lot of good ones around, that a great deal of care and careful thought and
planning and close collaborative working relationship over time has gone
into this one, than most of those with which I am familiar. And, as I say,
there are some good ones around in Connecticut in both public and private
institutions and in neighboring public school systems and around the
country. But from my experience I think the characteristics I have
mentioned, and with the track record that has been established here over
the period of four or five years clearly demonstrates its proven
effectiveness and its readiness to go on to become a more
institutionalized part of the life of the university and the community
that surrounds it. I think those aspects of the program will be looked
upon by other institutions and by other parts of the country in attempting
to replicate or adapt the model to their particular circumstances. I think
that the comments that were made earlier about the impressions upon the
public school teachers of such a program are worth mentioning again. A
study that has been recently conducted by some other members of the Yale
faculty lead us clearly to the conclusion, based upon some research they
ve done on teachers, public school teachers, who have left or who have the
feeling or the attitude that they will leave teaching, public school
teaching, is among the key characteristics that influenced them to feel
this way is a feeling of lack of esteem and status, a feeling of isolation
in their relationships within schools, and thirdly, and these are all
three very close to each other as important reasons why people have the
attitude about leaving public school teaching, the third, is salary. And I
believe that the three more or less go together. I think here again while
there is no promise that coming out of this program there will necessarily
be any improvement in the direct relationship between the program and
improvement in conditions of salary, that clearly it does address the
other two. The camaraderie and the colleague-ship among teachers and
between teachers and faculty on the University and the esteem that
testimony reveals from teachers out of the classroom that they feel as a
result of participation in the program. So, I think for these and a whole
host of other reasons that the Institute has a great deal of power for
what it can transmit in many directions.
Jessie G. Bradley
I am very pleased with what has happened with our school system through
the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. I have a question based on the fact
that we see this program as a model program. I would like to ask Dr. Ekman
and then Dr. Hopkins if you would tell us how you feel this model now can
be disseminated throughout the country to other universities. What steps
would you take to do that?
Richard Ekman
Some things are happening already. Jim Vivian told me earlier that he
receives mail and telephone calls regularly from people in school systems
throughout the country and from some universities as well. People who
have either heard about this grant in the making or have heard about the
previous work of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Beyond that the
Endowment is prepared to do a good deal to help build upon your success
here in the way we go about our work in Washington. I recently completed a
reorganization of the work of the Division of Education Programs. In that
reorganization the support available now for elementary and secondary
oriented projects has two main prongs, and both prongs owe origins, in
some sense, to the lessons learned through this project and a few similar
things. One of those prongs is to concentrate very much on teachers. Not
on "teacher-proof" materials that somehow anyone can use in the classroom,
but on teachers who are going to be in their jobs for quite a long time to
come. Often that work will take the form of a summer seminar or institute
where teachers can learn better about their own subjects and how to teach
it. The second prong is a prong that aims at deliberate collaborative work
between schools and school systems on the one hand and colleges and
universities on the other. This has been a theme in recent years. The
Rockefeller Foundation s report on the state of the humanities is just one
of several nationally visible documents which calls attention to the
crucial importance of bringing together, an a genuinely collaborative
basis, schools and colleges. I suppose there are some very large school
bureaucracies in some cities that aren't capable of doing that sort of
thing. And I suppose there are a few very small rural school districts
that are incapable of doing that sort of thing. But that leaves all the
rest in the middle. Medium sized school districts in medium sized
communities with a finite number of colleges and universities and a
workable system in which collaboration is very much at the heart of
things. Take a sequential subject, such as French or German, where what
goes on in the fourth grade very much affects what goes on in the fifth
grade and sixth grade and so on right up through the undergraduate years
of college. There should be every motivation possible to bring
institutions together and we hope, through this second prong of our work
then, to make possible support for all kinds of collaborative work between
schools and colleges.
Crale D. Hopkins
Three things, first of all you, yourself are the answer to part of that,
you and other people in the New Haven school system as you talk to your
colleagues across the country, as you appear nationally at conferences and
conventions, as you let them know what has happened here and how you
respond and how you participated in what has happened here, number one.
Number two, members of the faculty and administration at Yale who are
doing the same thing: appearing at conferences, conventions, talking, and
largely responding to, as my colleague has said, inquiries received.
Number three, I would point out that the panel reviewing and recommending
approval for this grant, this new grant to the Yale-New Haven project,
recommended and that recommendation was approved by the National Council
on the Humanities and Dr. Bennett, the Chairman, an additional amount of
money, $60,000, specifically for dissemination. And between Dr. Ekman and
others of the Endowment staff and members of the Yale New Haven project
exactly, we hope exactly, the best way to accomplish, in other ways in
addition to these conferences and conversations, the dissemination of all
the best things and they all are good things of this project will be done.
David L. Warren
I wonder if I might just add to that a fourth factor to tailgate on you.
Crale D. Hopkins
My pleasure.
David L. Warren
I think that one can't hope to see this replicated unless there is a
special and fortuitous mix of leadership. There are many communities and
many great universities, or some, around the country, but this idea has
not come to roost, and I think it is a consequence of the kind of
leadership that President Giamatti, Mayor DiLieto, the Superintendent
Gerry Tirozzi, and the man who has pushed all three of them consistently,
Jim Vivian, to make it happen. And that is a quite unique and unusual set
of persons coming together around a commitment to an idea. Absent that
commitment and that leadership, it will not happen elsewhere.
Question
Dr. Tirozzi, do you have any evidence that, since the Institute has
evolved, the basic skills and achievement test scores . . . Let me
rephrase that. In New Haven the basic skills and achievement test scores
for students has, for instance, for the last two years. Do you think that
that has anything to do with the Institute?
Gerald N. Tirozzi
I don't think that I could present any specific or objective data or
research that would prove that point. I would say based on my own
conversations with teachers in the high schools, some of the comments you
ve heard today, and some of the comments you heard earlier from the
representatives from the Endowment for the Humanities. It is obvious that
the quality of teaching and the quality of the learning experience has
improved. So it would be my subjective statement that, yes, I think that
it has impacted on what is happening in the school district.
James R. Vivian
If I might add to that? While I think it is not valid for us to claim that
any changes improvements or decreases in student performance on normative,
standardized testing could be directly attributable to the Institute, we
did in the study that, as I mentioned before we are releasing today, ask
teachers for their views of the difference that their work in the
Institute had made in terms of student performance. And I would point in
particular to three of the findings of the study. The first was that
nearly half of teachers who had participated directly in the program
report that their Institute units resulted in higher student attention,
interest, motivation, and mastery than have other curricula they have
prepared. Teachers reported also that the usefulness of Institute units
does not appear to depend on a teacher having been directly in the
program. And finally, over fifty percent of all the teachers who have
completed the program report that their units have been successful with
their least advanced students. I think that point is perhaps the most
important that I would make, that the units the teachers write appear to
serve all students in the schools, not just those already successful in
school.
Gerald N. Tirozzi
Can I piggy back on that? I would like to just add to that, the more I
think about it, it s been written that, once a classroom door closes, that
s when educational policy actually begins: What the teacher does in that
classroom. I am a great believer if the teacher feels that he or she can,
in fact, impart the knowledge and feels good about himself or herself,
there s a greater potential. You know, when you look at something like the
Maslow's hierarchy of needs. All too often the public school teachers act
at that survival level, especially in urban districts, worrying about
safety, security, et cetera. I think that we are in a program here where
teachers are able to grow, move toward that self-actualization plane,
which I think enhances their feeling about themselves, which in turn is
transmitted to students, which ideally in turn is transformed into
students feeling better about themselves and becoming better learners.
James R. Vivian
I think we have time for one more question before I ask the panel whether
any of them have final remarks they would like to make.
Question
I would like to know what percentage of teachers is involved in the
program and what percentage of students are directly impacted, and if it
is possible to increase that with the grant?
James R. Vivian
The hope, the desire, and the plan is certainly to increase it, and that
is part of what the new grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities makes possible. At this point in time about forty percent of
all teachers of the subjects the Institute covers in humanities and
sciences have completed successfully at least one year of the Institute's
program, which is, I think, a very high percentage. The study that we
completed indicates that about seventy percent, if I recall the figure
accurately, of teachers who have not before been in the Institute will
consider participating in future years, and that a very high percentage
also of teachers who have participated in the program, ninety percent,
intend to participate again. Which is to say I think that there is every
prospect there will be new teachers participating in the program, as well
as recurring participation by those who have been in the program before.
The second part of your question as to the number of students we have
reached: The survey that we completed last year on the use of materials
prepared by teachers in the program indicated a very widespread use of
units. Statistically, it indicated that every student in the New Haven
middle and high schools is studying an average of two-and<-a-half
curriculum units prepared in this program in any given year and, of
course, they enter the next grade level and then encounter new teachers
who are using the materials from the program.
Gerald N. Tirozzi
Since my boss is here today, the Commissioner of Education, I would be
remiss if I did not a) thank the Commissioner and his staff for their
continued support and remind the audience that in the early days of the
project the State Department was very supportive with funding, which
allowed this program to begin, as was the New Haven Foundation and the
Hazen Foundation. So, there are others who have also been very supportive.
But, God forbid, I don't acknowledge my boss during a press conference.
Mark R. Shedd
I was afraid you would never mention it.
James R. Vivian
Also today you will find in your press materials a release acknowledging a
new grant from the New Haven Foundation for our 1983 program. The New
Haven Foundation last year awarded a matching grant as an incentive to
encourage local corporate giving, which has been described earlier. I
would ask whether any members of the panel wish to add anything
themselves?
A. Bartlett Giamatti
May I just say, Mr. Vivian, that Yale has been an enormous beneficiary
from this program in the following ways. We have been very well treated
today by everybody saying very nice things about the University and so
forth. The fact remains that I think the Yale faculty has benefited
enormously from working with their colleagues in the public school system.
There are certain things that Yale faculty doesn t know anything about.
One of them is what is it like to teach in high school. That's one of the
reasons I was attracted to it, and I'm still thinking about your question.
I think it has been a tremendous thing when we see our common students,
who are after all perhaps a summer apart when you find them at Cross or
Hillhouse or Lee and then at Yale. Same student, same kid. One of the
problems in education in this country is its discontinuous nature, you
know, primary school, middle school, senior, junior, college graduate
school, as if these hurdles were somehow not part of what ought to be
construed either from the point of view of curriculum or a person s
learning effort or a person's teaching effort as a much more continuous,
seamless process. And one of the ways of making those gaps less awful for
both student and teacher is to have the faculties working together. So
that I m enormously grateful for the kind things that have been said about
me, and I m proud of the Yale faculty, as it knows, but I think it is fair
to say that the Yale faculty has ways of learning and things to learn and
has done so through this program and will continue to as much as anybody
else.
James R. Vivian
Others on the panel who wish to make any concluding remarks? Then, in
conclusion I would simply add that I have always believed that the results
of the Teachers Institute would be cumulative, that our ability to
strengthen teaching and to improve learning in our schools would depend on
the program s duration. That is why the new three-year grant from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, annual giving by local
corporations, and renewed support from the New Haven Foundation are so
crucially important. That is also, I think, the significance of our plans
to raise operating and endowment support to give the Institute a secure
future after the next three years.
May I express personal gratitude to all those on the panel and to all
the rest of you who have come, and by coming have shown your interest in
our work in this program, and invite you now to remain for our reception
and help us celebrate today s good news. Thank you.