Upper School English Teacher and Department Co-Chair Theresa Collins is taking a sabbatical this year to visit six progressive schools nationwide working towards launching a progressive education center at Parker. Collins has also already led a conference held by the Progressive Education Network (PEN) in Boston, MA from October 5-8 and she will be taking various courses and programs throughout the year.

To advance both her teaching abilities and her understanding of progressive education, Collins will be taking four courses at Harvard’s Graduate School for Education. All graduates from this program, after working in courses that focus on leadership skills, receive a Certificate in Advanced Education. Collins is also taking a foundational course at Leading Learning, a similar program to Harvard’s.

PEN is where Collins has developed her skills and become a rising leader in the field. PEN, she said, encourages the practices of progressive teaching and learning styles to better education and empower students. “I got the chance to talk to so many educators, and I got a chance to talk to all the featured speakers,” Collins said of the October conference. “I also got the chance to sit in on a lot of the workshops and see the work that people are doing across the country.”

While on her sabbatical, Collins will learn about progressive centers and programs at six schools around the country, and how they benefit their schools and communities.

Progressive centers can be physical spaces where educators can hold workshops, book clubs, and film serieses. They can also take a different form in schools by offering programs to teachers on topics such as mentoring.

During the course of this school year, Collins will be visiting Wildwood School in Los Angeles, Presidio Hill in San Francisco, High Meadows in Atlanta, Salem College in Winston-Salem, South Carolina, and both the Harlem Village Academies and the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City.

Collins has served as the president of the Progressive Education Network since 2012. The October conference, which focused on the amplification of student voices, featured keynotes speakers such as writer and activist Jonathan Kozol and was attended by educators from around the world. Participants gave and attended presentations and workshops, which helped others learn more about progressive styles.

Collins expressed the importance of progressive education in schools through the country, as well as the importance of building a center at Parker. “My vision is that there is probably a space, maybe in the main building or across the street, out of which the program runs,” Collins said. “Another idea we had was that the center would offer summer workshops for teachers.”

Upper School science teacher and Department Co – Chair Kara Schupp, is also advocate for progressive education, worked in the National Institute of PEN, or NIPEN program, for PEN, a six-day biannual conference that holds workshops for teachers on different methods of expanded learning.

“I sought out conference experiences that could help educate me and also embed me in the experience,” Schupp said. “I could read it on paper and in books, but to really see it action and to experience it was something I was seeking.”

Schupp noted the importance of Collins’s work to improve Parker education. “Seeing that she might create a center for progressive education is so exciting,” Schupp said. “That is something that, seeing Parker has been a leader for progressive education, would be amazing.”

Principal Dan Frank expressed how progressive education is significant for Parker. “We want to be a responsive, nimble, agile organization, so that a good idea can be tested and flourish,” Frank said. “That kind of responsiveness to people, whether it be the youngest students of the school or the most senior faculty members, or anybody else in between, that we can be a healthy caring, human organization, that is devoted toward learning.”

Collins reflected on her hopes of Parker’s future in terms of their education and leadership. Collins said, “One of the platforms of the strategic plan is for Parker to become a go-to place for people who want to learn more about progressive education and in the field as a whole.”