Instructors:

Samantha Deane, samantha.deane@bc.edu

Chris Higgins, christopher.higgins@bc.edu

Martin Scanlan, martin.scanlan@bc.edu

Formative character education for human flourishing without a sense of hope makes as much sense as a meal without food. Actively forming persons to cultivate ethical lives of meaning and purpose presupposes a livable future. Yet, reasons to question this hopeful posture abound; global pandemics, extreme social divisiveness, climate change, not to mention school gun violence, mental health crises, and economic stagnation, present pressing and reasonable grounds to despair. In such times, where does one find wellsprings of hope?

We invite you to join this virtual learning community to:

· deepen your understanding of various sources of hope and the role hope can play in education;

· strategize how to cultivate and leverage hope in your professional life; and

· develop relationships with colleagues who share an interest in practices that cultivate and sustain hope.

Who:

Built for the extended networks of the Kern Partners for Character and Educational Leadership, this PLC is designed for PK-12 teachers and administrators (practicing and aspiring) and is open to colleagues in higher education. Anyone you work with to implement formative character education is welcome to join, but the course will be capped at 15, so do register soon!

If you have any questions, please reach out to Samantha.Deane@bc.edu.

Commitment:

Sep 15, 2022 – Nov 18, 2022

Register here to participate in this professional learning community.

Massachusetts teachers can earn professional development points for participating in this PLC.

Instructor: Beth Choquette

Registration: November 2022

Commitment:

January, 2023 – April, 2023

Formative character education for human flourishing without a sense of hope makes as much sense as a meal without food. Actively forming persons to cultivate ethical lives of meaning and purpose presupposes a livable future. Yet, reasons to question this hopeful posture abound; global pandemics, extreme social divisiveness, climate change, not to mention school gun violence, mental health crises, and economic stagnation, present pressing and reasonable grounds to despair. In such times, where does one find wellsprings of hope?

We invite you to join this virtual learning community to:

• • • deepen your understanding of various sources of hope and the role hope can play in education;

    • strategize how to cultivate and leverage hope in your professional life; and

    • develop relationships with colleagues who share an interest in practices that cultivate and sustain hope.

Who:

Built for the extended networks of the Kern Partners for Character and Educational Leadership, this PLC is designed for PK-12 teachers and administrators (practicing and aspiring) and is open to colleagues in higher education. Anyone you work with to implement formative character education is welcome to join, but the course will be capped at 15, so do register soon!

Massachusetts teachers can earn professional development points for participating in this PLC.

Instructor:

Chris Higgins christopher.higgins@bc.edu

Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Formative Education, Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Boston College. Author of The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice.

Registration opens: November, 2022

Commitment:

February, 2023 – April, 2023

7pm – 8.15pm on Wednesday evenings

And that is the opportunity, provided by the very fact of crisis—which tears away façades and obliterates prejudices—to explore and inquire into whatever has been laid bare of the essence of the matter… A crisis becomes a disaster only when we respond to it with preformed judgments.

Hannah Arendt

It took a global pandemic and a “catastrophic teacher shortage” (Washington Post) to force upon us the questions we should have been asking all along:

• What draws us to and sustains us in the practice of teaching?

• In what ways can teaching nourish the teacher’s own ongoing growth?

• What school policies support or undercut these moral-, intellectual-, and emotional-life sustaining features of the practice?

• Why have we tended to imagine teaching as a form of selfless service? What is the role of the self in the act of teaching?

• How can make space within our settings to become places where teachers and students each pursue their formative possibilities in mutually enriching ways?

• What resources, communities, or practices can support efforts to sustain oneself in the profession?

The importance of such questions goes beyond the contemporary crisis of recruitment and retention. In the latest round of politicization and deprofessionalization, the rise in teacher burnout, the ongoing narrowing and instrumentalization of the curriculum we confront no mere staffing problems but the very survival of the practice of teaching.

If these questions resonate with you, please consider joining our community of inquiry. We are looking for educators who are willing to explore together the questions of what it means to pursue a flourishing life in the practice of teaching.

Instructor:

Andrew Miller, andrew.miller.6@bc.edu

Registration opens:

August, 2023

Commitment:

September, 2023 – November, 2023

Instructor:

John Reyes, john.reyes.2@bc.edu

Registration opens:

August, 2023

Commitment:

September, 2023 – November, 2023