2006.09.15: September 15, 2006: Headlines: COS - Liberia: Secondary Education: Malden Observer: Liberia RPCV Jo Sullivan looks to unify curriculum in Malden
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2006.09.15: September 15, 2006: Headlines: COS - Liberia: Secondary Education: Malden Observer: Liberia RPCV Jo Sullivan looks to unify curriculum in Malden
Liberia RPCV Jo Sullivan looks to unify curriculum in Malden
"I started out in college as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching in Liberia for four years," she said. "But after I graduated and taught at BU for a while, I decided to take my family to Nigeria for a year and ended up getting so used to it, I renewed and stayed another year." At a large, urban university in that African country, Sullivan taught African history, African American history and United States history, and she not unsurprisingly found the learning environment very different from what she was accustomed to. "It was a very British way of doing things over there," she said. "It was very strict, very stern. They did not like class discussion at all; it was all lectures and reading - very different."
Liberia RPCV Jo Sullivan looks to unify curriculum in Malden
Sullivan looks to unify curriculum
By Dan Baer/ dbaer@cnc.com
Friday, September 15, 2006
When the Malden School Committee went in search of a new assistant superintendent in June, members were hoping to find a candidate with experience working in a diverse urban environment.
What committee members ended up with was an education professional who has experienced many unique environments beyond the United States.
Dr. Jo Sullivan has assumed the position (officially titled "Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Assessment and Instruction") that was vacated through the retirement of Elizabeth Keroac. Sullivan spent more than a decade as a principal and later a curriculum director for public school systems in Salem, Brookline and Cambridge, but she feels her experience teaching college courses in Africa shaped her career the most.
"I started out in college as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching in Liberia for four years," she said. "But after I graduated and taught at BU for a while, I decided to take my family to Nigeria for a year and ended up getting so used to it, I renewed and stayed another year."
At a large, urban university in that African country, Sullivan taught African history, African American history and United States history, and she not unsurprisingly found the learning environment very different from what she was accustomed to.
"It was a very British way of doing things over there," she said. "It was very strict, very stern. They did not like class discussion at all; it was all lectures and reading - very different."
Personalized approach to diversity
In Malden, Sullivan is challenged with the task of making sure the diverse environment in Malden schools is headed in the right direction.
"What one of our largest challenges is going to be is making sure that what we teach is lined up correctly with state framework," she said. "We are looking very closely on improving and monitoring student achievement, making sure that they are all learning what they need to be learning and making sure that each school is on the same page so that we can monitor students throughout their time here in Malden. Every student must pass the MCAS test to graduate, and that is based on state framework, so we need to work with that."
Her philosophy has the goal to promote an individual style of education, one where teachers and administrators can monitor the strengths and weaknesses of each student and make sure they are getting the personalized help needed to succeed in each subject area.
"We need to keep track of where students need the most help, because the MCAS is a hard exam, and they are going to need to have their skills cross over from subject to subject," she said.
"This isn't the type of test that we were all used to; now you can't just get the right answer on a math problem. You have to solve the problem and then explain why. It is the same with history or science. You can't just learn the answers; you have to be able to read the maps and use math skills there, too, so it is very challenging and very important that we are able to work with each student." Sullivan envisions a situation where teachers throughout the schools can work together with each student and have access to that student's history so they can take a more personalized approach to the education process.
"We are looking at new standards-based report cards and a whole new curriculum system," she said. "We want there to be final exams that are consistent from teacher to teacher and school to school and that records that are kept from school to school. We are taking annual data that will monitor each student's progress from grade to grade. This is all very important in a city with school choice, to keep things consistent not just within each building, but throughout the system.
"We have to ask ourselves, 'How do we know that they learned it?'" she said. "If we can have a situation where a child who may not do so well at math can apply that to a subject that they do have success in, such as history or even phys ed, then we can hopefully help that student to understand how to translate it back to math class and have success when it comes to understanding the curriculum as a whole."
Malden Public Schools face many challenges, not the least of which is a community that has many non-English speaking students, but Sullivan has battled through that before in her educational career and believes Malden is a perfect fit for her.
"That is why this job interested me so greatly," she said. "I love the city. I live in Lynn, which is extremely diverse. I have always taught in the city, whether it be my time in Africa or the years in Cambridge or Salem, and Malden is the same situation. Malden is a city that is very proud of its diversity, and I know that this city can make progress in every sub-group, and they already have. That is why I wanted to work here."
When this story was posted in October 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Malden Observer
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Liberia; Secondary Education
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