New Orleans – June 28, 2018
6:00 pm
Summer Principals Academy | New Orleans at Teachers College, Columbia University presents a series of faculty evening book talks open to the public and hosted at Loyola Law School’s campus in New Orleans for educators and education leaders. This event sponsored by Teachers College, Columbia University.
The Pedagogy of Confidence: Inspiring High Intellectual Performance in Urban Schools
Dr. Yvette Jackson
Why are urban students who are dependent on their educators to nurture their intellectual development denied the enriching, enabling practices of gifted education to elicit their potential? The myth that the route to increase achievement by focusing on weaknesses (promoted by policies such as NCLB) has blinded us to the strengths and intellectual potential of urban students, devitalizing the motivation, initiative, and confidence of dedicated educators to search for and optimize this potential. This book dispels the myth in order to rekindle educators belief in the vast capacity of their urban students and their ability to inspire high intellectual performances. The author judiciously: Presents historical, cognitive, and neuroscience research providing educators ammunition to change weakness-focused policies and practices to a strengths focus that guides intellectual development, self-directed learning, and self-actualization of students at all levels of the achievement spectrum. Explores the theory and methodology of cognitive psychologist Reuven Feuerstein upon which the Pedagogy of Confidence is based. Describes how inspirational educators implement High Operational Practices to cultivate the Pedagogy of Confidence. Examples include methods for situating learning in the lives of urban students, eliciting and addressing their frames of reference, honoring interests, insights/voices, and their cultural and linguistic backgrounds; and Illustrates how educators empower student investment in the mediative learning community: an oasis that fosters positive relationships vital to the Pedagogy of Confidence.
Dr. Yvette Jackson
On September 15, 2012 the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences Educators Voice Awards honored Yvette Jackson for “Education Policy/Researcher of the Year.”
Yvette’s passion is assisting educators in cultivating their confidence and competence to unlock the strengths and “innate giftedness” in all students. Her research in neuroscience, gifted education and the cognitive mediation theory of eminent cognitive psychologist, Dr. Reuven Feuerstein are the basis for her book, Pedagogy of Confidence: Inspiring High Intellectual Performance in Urban Schools which received the 2012 ForeWord Reviews’ Silver Book Award. Her latest books include Fearless Leading: Transforming Urban Schools through Fearless Leadership and Unlocking Student Potential: How do I identify and activate student strengths? co-authored with Veronica McDermott.
Yvette was a teacher and has served New York City Public Schools as Director of Gifted Programs and Executive Director of Instruction and Professional Development. She served as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education, Visiting Scholar for the Panasonic Foundation and Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University’s Urban Superintendent’s Program, the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) at Stanford University and Thinking Schools International, UK.
Yvette is currently an adjunct professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. She works with school districts to transform education through strengths-based High Operational Practices of the Pedagogy of Confidence that integrate culture, language and cognition to engage and elicit the innate potential of ALL students.
