Faculty/Staff Detail

Anne Burns-Thomas, Foundations and Social Advocacy Department, led a post-keynote discussion with Paul Gorski at the Noyce NE Regional Conference held March 20-22 in Philadelphia, Pa. Participants reflected on Gorski’s keynote, which addressed key insights from his latest book, Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap. Gorski questions how strategies for teaching and relating with families in poverty might change if we truly understood the barriers they experience — barriers that have nothing to do with their cultures or their attitudes about school or their desires to learn. Participants talked about those challenges, how they affect the school experiences of low-income students, and how educators can mitigate them by providing equitable, engaging learning environments.