Listening for the Echo: Historical Models of Pathways to Educational Success for Innovation in Practice and Policy

• In Event: Theory and Practice: Expanding Historical Models of Education

Abstract

As educators, among our greatest concerns is to effectively reach an underserved constituency and strengthen pathways for educational achievement in higher education. Reexamining past successful models is called for as we experiment with methods for learning and teaching. Our charge should be to explore beyond the standard landscape of educational histories and endeavor to unearth credible models of schooling for those who were disenfranchised within past social constructs and, as a result, ignored in “mainstream” journals and reports. Accordingly, laboratory high schools that were at the “heart” of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were examples of “excellence in education.” Virtually invisible in our historical accounts, this research aims to add HBCU laboratory high schools to our American educational history.

Author

• Sharon Gay Pierson, Ramapo College of New Jersey