All of us here at Ashoka and Youth Venture are saddened by the recent passing of Ted Sizer, a true educational innovator and an early supporter of Ashoka’s Youth Venture.
Professor Sizer was a former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, headmaster of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass, and chairman of the education department at Brown University. He was also a social entrepreneur, founding the Coalition of Essential Schools in 1984. The Coalition, which began with 12 schools, has grown to include more than 600 public and private schools, all of whom agree to adhere to a common set of principles.
He was, throughout his career, instinctively respectful of young people and had the insight that seeing them as true partners in learning and in everything else was central. He believed in education being a dialogue between students and teachers, not simply a unidirectional information flow.
His ideas and beliefs were codified as nine principles which all Essential Schools must agree:
• Learning to use one's mind well
• Less is More, depth over coverage
• Goals apply to all students
• Personalization
• Student-as-worker, teacher-as-coach
• Demonstration of mastery
• A tone of decency and trust
• Commitment to the entire school
• Resources dedicated to teaching and learning
• Democracy and equity
Ted was a very early supporter for Ashoka’s Youth Venture, seeing it as advancing the agency of young people and equipping them to be full partners in education and in all that they do in life. He has been a member of the Youth Venture Advisory Council for many years and his contributions will be sorely missed.
The thoughts of everyone at Ashoka and Youth Venture are with Ted’s widow Nancy and his whole family. We are all the poorer for the passing of this brilliant man.
Read the New York Times Obituary here.
Photo from the Essential Schools Coalition.
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