ABOUT KIRSTEN

"We do this work because we think it can change the world."

-Elementary school principal working with Old Sow Consulting, New Jersey, June 2009

 

I so agree with this principal; I found her comment deeply inspiring...

Kirsten Olson is principal of Old Sow Educational Consulting. Her work focuses on reconfiguring school culture to better support all learners, and addressing learning disengagement and learning reluctance.

For several years a visiting assistant professor at Wheaton College in Norton, MA, she is a the author of Wounded By School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up To Old School Culture (Teachers College Press 2009) and Schools As Colonizers (Verlag 2008), a critical examination of the radical school writers of the 1960s. She received her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2005 and was an English major at Vassar College.

Olson has been a consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Kennedy School at Harvard University, and many large public school systems and charter schools. She also writes for Education Week, Educational Leadership and Teacher Magazine.

Biographical statement about teaching and consulting:

At Old Sow Consulting (www.oldsowconsulting.org) my colleagues and I focus on leadership development and instructional improvement, particularly in schools that are struggling with the demands in their accountability environment and persistent gaps in achievement between groups of children.  We often work with schools that serve teenagers and young adults who have not succeeded in traditional academic environments, and focus especially on the needs of disengaged and reluctant learners.

"As a college instructor I am strongly committed to leveling some of the institutionally imposed hierarchy that exists in traditional professor/student relationships. I tend to favor untraditional forms of assessment (portfolios and research projects) as opposed to midterms and multiple-choice answer finals. I also try to encourage student participation and input in all aspects of course design and course administration.  I am in a quest to deepen and intensify the teacher/student connection, and to raise the level of rigor and cognitive demand of my classes without low-level tests and other teacher-centered, teacher-monitored activities.

My consulting and teaching practice has been enormously strengthened by work with the Center for Courage and Renewal (www.couragerenewal.org), where I have received training as a facilitator.  Based on the work of Parker J. Palmer, Courage & Renewal programs offer personal and professional revitalization through retreats and other specially-crafted professional development opportunities.  These professional development retreats are led using poetry, stories, music, solitude, and provide opportunities for deep listening and reflection.

As a writer, I am interested in people's learning stories, the narratives we tell ourselves about our own learning lives.  At a conference I heard a middle school student say, "I'm one taco short of a combination plate."  That was the start of a lot of my current writing interests.