Leading educational scholar Julie Gorlewski was named the Larry and Klara Silverstein Dean of the School of Education at Hunter this fall. Dr. Gorlewski comes to Hunter from the University at Buffalo where she was a professor of Learning and Instruction, and the Senior Associate Dean for Teacher Education and Academic Affairs in the Graduate School of Education. Dr. Gorlewski earned a PhD and an MS in Elementary and Early Childhood Education from University at Buffalo and a BS in Secondary English Education from Buffalo State University. The author of many peer- reviewed manuscripts, books and book chapters, Dr. Gorlewski also served from 2013 to 2018 as the editor of English Journal, the flagship publication of the National Council of Teachers of English.
The Office of Communications and Marketing recently spoke with her to hear her views on teaching, learning and leading in public education.
Q: Could you discuss the path that led you to Hunter College?
My coming to Hunter is a culmination of a lifetime of experiences in education. I’ve always been interested in how people learn, and how people learn in social contexts, and how young people shape schools and are shaped by their school experiences. I started my career as a secondary English educator because I love language and I loved working with adolescents; but I decided to pursue a master’s degree in Elementary and Early Childhood Education because I wanted to gain some insight as to why the enthusiasm and motivation of elementary-age students seemed to diminish as they entered middle and high school.
Coursework and related experiences in that degree program helped me understand how students’ experiences of schooling affected their motivation. Soon, I began to ask myself broader questions such as “How do schools intersect with society?” and “How are schools shaped by society?” Seeking answers to those questions led me to enroll in a PhD program which focused on the social foundations of education. Shortly after, I entered higher education as a teacher and later as an administrator.
What are Hunter’s strengths; and how can you leverage those strengths?
What I find particularly exciting about being at Hunter is the close relationships between the schools and the faculty, between the students and the schools, and among the students, faculty and staff. Relationships are central to such partnerships, because education is not a solitary activity. Education requires strong relationships.
I always tell prospective teacher candidates and counseling candidates that you must be comfortable with the idea that your success hinges on other people. You could be a marathon runner or a painter and be successful on your own, but teaching is not like that. You must invest in relationships. Hunter, especially, is deeply embedded in the city and its communities and neighborhoods. I think that this is an exciting time to be at Hunter.
During my campus visit last July, it was evident that faculty and staff have a strong commitment to the students. That was clear in the way they talked about students. It was clear in the way students talked about the faculty and their advisers. It has been clear in every interaction I’ve had since then. Whatever problem we’re trying to solve, or whatever it is we’re trying to learn, the needs of the students come first. The students have been at the center of all conversations. It was equally clear to me that building relationships, both internally in the School of Education and with the school partners and families in the neighborhoods, was valued and nurtured. I was drawn to that.
If we share that common purpose, and a belief that education can be a means of creating opportunities for young people, there is no limit to what we can accomplish.
There are many examples of this commitment. We have a range of programs that support learning and leadership at all levels.
We candidates into the field where they provide support in classrooms and counseling. So, the School of Education has many support structures already in place. Students also come to us with various strengths as well as areas of need. We’re always trying to figure out how to better leverage strengths and address needs.
Q: What are the challenges and changes that you have seen in public education?
One challenge, as I said earlier, is determining the cause of the enthusiasm gap in motivation between the excited young learner and the often disconnected and disengaged older learner. When I was earning my master’s degree, I volunteered to do kindergarten screening with four- and five-year-olds. The process involved the administration of a parent survey. I was curious about the parents’ attitude toward their children’s upcoming formal education, so we added to the survey some questions about their hopes and dreams for their children. Though this was not a wealthy school district, the parents overwhelmingly envisioned their children as going to college and having a career and a profession — all the dreams that you would expect.
When I considered the attitudes of the parents of the middle and high school students I was currently teaching, I was struck by the difference: Expectations were reduced to simply, ‘please let them graduate from high school!’ What that said to me was that the school was not connected enough to the families and wasn’t having a meaningful impact on their lives. In fact, many of the parents had attended school in that district and had had negative associations with schooling. That’s what led me to my social foundations focus at the University at Buffalo.
Schools have such a powerful influence on the development of young people and how they envision their futures. Tragically, children less and less see school as meaningful. They less and less see it as connected to their lives, and when that happens, they feel alienated. When you feel alienated, you’re not likely to be interested in learning. The way to counter that is by building strong relationships, not just in the classroom, but also with the families and communities that those students serve. I lived in the community where I taught and saw my students and their families daily – in the grocery store, the theater, the mall and the parks. Our children played in the same youth leagues; and that made a big difference in terms of my ability to connect with those students.
Q: How can we reform public education to be more relevant?
I’ve worked extensively with teachers developing curriculum and crafting assessments. One of the things that always struck me about this process is that the people most affected by the curriculum – the children and their families – are almost never involved in its development. That seems like a lost opportunity in many ways. If students and families are involved in deciding what counts as knowledge, what needs to be learned, and how learning can be assessed, then they’re much more likely to be engaged in learning. For example, we know that children and young people love language and poetry, and often they’re the ones who generate the changes in our language. That’s an opportunity that could be strengthened through authentic partnerships with families and young people in the development of curriculum. The thing that makes teaching so inspirational and so interesting, and the thing that makes it effective, is when you take the knowledge and skills that you’re hoping students develop and the students themselves, and then put them together in a set of lessons or unit plans where these two things will intersect in a meaningful way. I can give you an example:
Let’s say that I want my students to read a novel. I meet my students, get to know them a little bit, and that helps me decide which novel to select. Or if I must teach a particular novel, I get to know my students, and then I have a better idea about how I might approach teaching that novel. The students, the content, and the teacher form a triangle – and the triangle looks different for each classroom of students.
What are your immediate plans?
Public institutions of education have a particular obligation to society: To prepare people to be engaged in society productively and to partner with communities in a way that positively affects those communities. That’s the overarching reason I’m in this field. That’s why education appeals to me.
Hunter College can be transformative both inside and outside the institution. Transformation is predicated on forming genuine partnerships and authentic collaboration. Such partnerships must be built on relationships, and those relationships must exist within units and include external partners as well. A lot of that already exists here. I would never presume to say what I can bring to Hunter other than to promise to build on what’s already here and work with people to try to make things a little bit better every day to meet our common purpose of improving peoples’ lives of through education.
