 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
C&I LECTURE | Faculty
"Beyond Beliefs" - Lani Horn discusses her research into the role of teacher communities in overcoming inequality ...
US NEWS | #7 2008
The College of Education rose to seventh place in this year's U.S. News & World Report rankings of graduate schools ...
News & Events
Feature Stories
Faculty Spotlight
Brinda Jegatheesan
Assistant Professor, Educational Psychology
As part of an ongoing series, the College of Education is profiling its faculty members, asking each of them the same set of questions. Loosely based on the Proust questionnaire, these questions are intended to provide brief views on a variety of topics. This interview features Brinda Jegatheesan. Her interest centers on the study of language socialization at home, community and heritage schools, language and emotion in caregiver-child communication, play in special children and social and linguistic competence, and literacy practices.
Q: What moved you to become a teacher/researcher?
A: I never really thought about becoming a teacher. Growing up in India as a young child, I used to be affected by seeing the state of many children living in poverty and who were forced to be part of child labor. I was drawn to changing their plight, and making life better for them. Educating them seemed to make the most sense.
Q: What teacher had the greatest impact on your life?
A: I would say that my parents were my greatest teachers. They taught me that education was combined, intellectual, physical and spiritual growth. My parents are Indians from different countries. My father is from India and my mother is from Singapore. My upbringing therefore was a fusion of two worlds. My father was posted in six different geographical places so I had a range of ‘local’ school experiences. Throughout, my father instilled in me the wonders of people’s ways of life, beliefs and languages and my mother taught me through example to draw meaning and spiritual nourishment from every experience in life. Both my parents raised me intimately with my own culture while connecting me with the languages, religions and cultures of the wider world.
Q: If you could embark now on any adequately funded research project, what would it be?
A: It would be a comparative study in early childhood and early childhood special education with under-served communities in the United States and Asia-Pacific. The implications of this would be to develop new educational approaches that are meaningful to the local people.
Q: What qualities do you most admire in your professional colleagues?
A: I admire people who have great reverence for all forms of life — who are compassionate, caring and strive to make the world a better place for all to live in harmony. I also have a lot of respect for my colleagues who are fun to work with, are open and willing to help, and are committed to improving the lives of children. I am already seeing a great deal of this in the College of Education, here in UW. My colleagues are supportive, sensitive, and respectful of each other’s work and ways of life.
Q: What book should be read by all who would become teachers?
A: I believe that the most important quality in a book is its ability to humanize us. It should be able to connect our mind and spirit with the world and its people, persuade us to learn from people’s lives, and give meaning to our own. For me, that book is Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil by Nancy Scheper-Hughes. It is a classic ethnographic narrative, using participant-observation to document the everyday experiences of people in situations of hardships, the harrowing reality that afflicts the poor and of maternal love and child death.
Q: What trends and ideas from the popular culture will have an impact on education over the next ten years?
A: Growing global competition will reshape our education. In my opinion, the focus of education will be on rigorous understanding of the fundamentals and a more pronounced approach towards developing creative thinking, problem solving, and the ability to adapt to the changing global economic landscape.
Q: What things about the current state of education give you hope?
A: For me, there are no geographical boundaries when I think about education and children. Therefore, I will speak about this in terms of local and international advances. Two issues come to my mind immediately. The commitment to the provision of quality education and service to underserved children in the U.S, and the rights of persons with disabilities treaty that was adopted by the UN General Assembly recently that will ensure 30-40 million children with disabilities worldwide and out of school will be provided an education.
Feature Stories
