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Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator and philosopher, known for his revolutionary approach to education. His most important work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), advocated for a student-centered, conversational approach to learning. Freire stressed education as a tool for social change. He developed the concept of "conscientization," which refers to the process of developing a critical awareness of one's social reality through education. His ideas influenced the global literacy movement and laid the foundation for critical pedagogy, a movement that continues to influence educators focused on justice, equality, and inclusivity.

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Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of Education: Key Concepts

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Mariah Montessori an Italian physician and educator best known for developing the Montessori method of education. She was born in 1870 and was one of the first women in Italy to earn a medical degree. In 1986, she graduated and became the assistant doctor at the university’s psychiatric unit. Here, she was able to study mentally disabled children. She noticed that they were treated poorly and that there was no effort being made to give them an education. She felt that this was not right. After doing research, Mariah found that children with disabilities needed special education, rather than medical treatment, and that children without special education or care often became delinquents. For this reason, she advocated strongly for disabled children saying that they needed the right and opportunity to be properly educated. During her speeches, Italy’s minister of public education heard her, and this led to a program being developed with the goal of educating children who were mentally disabled. Maria studied mentally disabled students in order to figure out how to teach them. She worked with them hand-on individually rather than in a group doing lectures. Her hands-on approach also used self-direction where children learned through exploration rather than by direct instruction. She believed that children are naturally curious and capable of independent learning. Her ideas spread to the United States, and schools were build inspired by her ideas. Classrooms today that use the Montessori approach value things like individualized learning, using sensory-based materials, and have a respect for each child’s individual developmental pace.

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Teacher of the Unteachable: The life and method of Maria Montessori

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Elizabeth LaValley EDU201_N30_FA25 - Introduction to Education/40704

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Elizabeth LaValley EDU201_N30_FA25 - Introduction to Education/40704

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W.E.B. Du Bois was a teacher, scholar, and civil rights leader who made major contributions to American education and social thought. He taught subjects such as Greek, Latin, German, and sociology, and was one of the first African Americans to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. Du Bois was also one of the founders of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), an organization that continues to fight for equality and justice today. Through his writings and teaching, he emphasized the importance of higher education and intellectual development for African Americans. His belief in the “Talented Tenth,” the idea that educated Black leaders could help uplift their communities, continues to influence how educators think about opportunity, leadership, and equity in schools today.

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Horace Mann, often referred to as the “Father of American Public Education,” was a 19th-century education reformer who played a pivotal role in shaping the U.S. public school system to what it is today. As the first secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1837, he championed the idea that education should be free, universal, non-sectarian, and most importantly, available to all children regardless of their background. He firmly believed that education was essential for a strong democracy and social equality. Mann promoted the training of having professional teachers through the creation of “normal schools” and pushed for better school buildings, standardized curriculum, and longer school years. His advocacy helped shift education from being a privilege for just the wealthy to a public right for all. Today, many of the foundational ideas in our school systems, such as certified teachers, public funding, and equal access, are all rooted in because of Horace Mann’s vision. His work laid the groundwork for the modern belief that education should empower every citizen and support a just society.

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Horace Mann - The Father Of American Education

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Howard Gardner is an American developmental psychologist, known for his theory of multiple intelligences. His most important work, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983), advocated that human beings have very different kinds of intellectual strengths. Gardner stressed education as a tool for nurturing each individual's unique strengths and ways of learning, rather than forcing all students to conform to a single standard of intelligence or ability. He developed the concept of "multiple intelligences," suggesting that intelligence is not an ability measured by IQ tests, but rather multiple distinct intelligences such as linguistic, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and logical-mathematical, each representing different ways people understand, learn, and use knowledge. His ideas influenced the development of more diverse and personalized teaching approaches, encouraging teachers to design lessons that engage different learning styles in the classroom. Learning about Gardner helped me understand how important it is to recognize and value each student's strengths instead of focusing only on test results. As of today, his works continue to shape education through differentiated instruction and problem-based learning that support all types of learners.

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Howard Gardner on Multiple Intelligences

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Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) was a prominent African American educator, author, and leader. He founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which later became Tuskegee University, and wrote the influential autobiography “Up from Slavery”. Widely respected in his time, he received honors such as an honorary degree from Harvard and a White House dinner with President Theodore Roosevelt. While admired for his contributions to education and African American advancement, He was also criticized for being an “accommodationist,” accepting segregation and focusing on economic progress rather than full social and political equality.

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Background and Boyhood

That Washington would come to symbolize such divergent ideas-that, indeed, he would become a nationally known symbol of anything at all-would have seemed almost unimaginable at the moment of his birth. He was born into slavery on a tobacco farm near the tiny town of Hale's Ford in Franklin County late in the 1850s. The precise year of his birth has been a matter of debate. As Washington observes wryly in the opening paragraph of Up from Slavery, "I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time." Possessing no formal birth certificate, he had to rely on the memories of others and make educated guesses himself, sometimes placing his birth as early as 1854 and other times as late as 1859. After his death, his older half-brother claimed to have seen the date April 5, 1856, recorded next to Washington's name in a family Bible and 1856 is the year that appears on his headstone at his gravesite in Tuskegee.

His paternity is similarly uncertain. Washington's mother was an enslaved woman named Jane, one of six enslaved people (including Washington) enslaved by tobacco farmer James Burroughs. His father is identified in Up from Slavery as simply "a white man who lived on one of the nearby plantations." If Washington knew the name of his father, he never revealed it publicly, and if the two ever crossed paths in Hale's Ford, the interaction was likely impersonal-the chance meeting of a white man and a Black boy, not of a father willing to acknowledge his son.

Washington's relationship with his mother was considerably closer, though her duties as cook for the Burroughs family left her little time for her children. His strongest family ties were to his older half-brother, John, and younger half-sister, Amanda. He was less close to his stepfather, "Wash" Ferguson, an enslaved man whom his mother married after Washington was born. Ferguson fled his enslaver in 1864, relocating to the new state of West Virginia and finding employment in a salt works in the town of Malden. Late in the summer of 1865, four months after the end of the American Civil War (1861-1865), Ferguson summoned his family to join him.

The trip was Washington's first outside Virginia. He would remain in West Virginia until 1872, working sometimes alongside his stepfather in the salt furnaces and mines and other times as a houseboy for a woman who taught him to read and write. In West Virginia, he began attending a school for formerly enslaved people, and it was as a student that he assumed the name "Booker Washington." His mother had given him the name "Booker Taliaferro," yet as a boy, he apparently knew no more about this than he did about his date of birth or the identity of his father. When his teacher asked him for his full name, he responded with "Booker Washington," perhaps naming himself after his stepfather ("Wash" was short for Washington) or perhaps associating himself with the first U.S. president, George Washington.

The story he tells in Up from Slavery hints at the latter explanation. Though it's doubtful that the nine-year-old boy had the presence of mind to begin fashioning so mythic a persona on his first day of organized school, the older Washington was willing to give the impression, however subtly, that even as a youth he had begun his pursuit of the power and influence that, in 1903, would see him dubbed "Father of His Race" by a New York City newspaper. Yet whatever lay behind the act of self-naming, Washington's acquisition of literacy and exposure to schooling during his years in West Virginia allowed him to envision a better life for himself and to foresee a career that might be devoted, as he describes it in Up from Slavery, to "the lifting up of my people."

Hampton and Tuskegee

To pursue these goals-to begin in earnest his journey "up from slavery"-Washington needed to return to his home state. It was while working in a West Virginia salt mine that Washington first heard of the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. Founded in 1868, Hampton provided formerly enslaved people and their children greater opportunities than did smaller schools like the one Washington had been attending intermittently in West Virginia. In particular, it offered a chance at an "industrial education," which combined such traditional subjects as reading and geography with training in various manual arts (carpentry, bricklaying, and sewing, for example) as well as teacher training. Washington traveled to Hampton, covering much of the trip on foot and with little or no money, in 1872. When he arrived he was required to sweep and dust a room as an "exam"-a test he passed easily, disciplined as he had become through his work as a houseboy. According to Samuel Chapman Armstrong, Hampton's founder, Washington distinguished himself during his three years there as the best student the school had ever had. He graduated in 1875, returned to Malden to teach for three years, spent the winter of 1878-1879 studying at the Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C., then returned to Hampton Institute in 1879 to work for two years as a night-school teacher and a supervisor of the Kiowa and Cheyenne students recently accepted at the school.

Had he simply continued his career at Hampton, Washington could have viewed himself as an unqualified success. The chance to pursue something greater came quickly, however. In May 1881 Armstrong recommended him to head a new school for African Americans to be founded in Tuskegee, Alabama. The school opened two months later, on July 4. Its first class numbered only thirty students. Washington himself was the lone faculty member and most of the teaching was done in a "little shanty" on loan from a Methodist church. By 1900 the student body numbered 1,100 and the faculty more than eighty. By the time of Washington's death in 1915, Tuskegee had enrolled 1,500 students for the year and its campus encompassed some 100 buildings and 3,500 acres.

Washington's personal life was difficult during these years, however, due to the poor health of his wives. He married his first wife, Fanny Norton Smith Washington, in 1882. She died two years later. His second wife, Olivia Davidson Washington, had been one of Tuskegee's most important fund-raisers prior to marrying Washington in 1885. She continued to perform that work until her death in 1889. Washington was survived by his third wife, Margaret Murray Washington, and by three children from his earlier marriages, all of whom did work for the institution.

"The Atlanta Exposition Address": Compromise and Controversy

Tuskegee's early expansion led to an invitation for Washington to speak at the 1895 Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. As he describes it in Up from Slavery, "this was the first time in the entire history of the Negro that a member of my race had been asked to speak from the same platform with white Southern men and women on any important National occasion." His speech represented Black economic opportunity as a potential success story for both the South and the nation. It reinforced images of African Americans as faithful servants during slavery and promised that "in our humble way, we shall stand by you ... ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours." The climax of the speech-the most famous words Washington ever authored, in fact-involved a metaphor of the hand: "In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress."

Given his own biracial identity, Washington was perhaps aware at some level of the irony of the metaphor, which segregated the races along "social" lines while interlacing them on most others. It drew an ovation from the Atlanta audience, however, and was reproduced in newspapers around the country, transforming Washington almost overnight into national celebrity.

The increased visibility made it easier for Washington to raise funds, hence to expand Tuskegee. For Washington and his students, what followed was a period of optimism. Yet the speech also came just one year before the U.S. Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which asserted the constitutionality of the doctrine of "separate but equal" and allowed legalized segregation for the next half-century. Washington's pledge that he and other African Americans would pursue economic opportunities "in our humble way" was read by some as an example of Washington's realism-the strongest message he could send, given the dispiriting politics of the time. Others read it as a form of capitulation. Du Bois, writing eight years later, called the speech "the most notable thing in Mr. Washington's career," yet argued that Washington epitomized "in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and submission."

Tensions between Washington, Du Bois, and their followers escalated over the next two decades. Those on Du Bois's side were more likely to make public their criticisms. Wanting to maintain a public persona that conveyed humility, Washington played his hand differently, working quietly to build what would come to be called "the Tuskegee Machine": an association of individuals, many of them graduates of Tuskegee, who worked to protect the political structures and fundraising networks that made the institution possible.

Debates about Washington's legacy continue. Yet whatever view of Washington one takes, the fact that he rose far above his beginnings is unquestionable. Washington, in fact, ends Up from Slavery by discussing a return to Virginia and measuring how far he had come. Invited to Richmond to speak to an audience of African Americans, he learns later that the entire state legislature had voted to attend the meeting, too. Speaking before an integrated audience that would have been inconceivable in 1860, Washington "thanked both races for this welcome back to the state that gave me birth." He even returned a few years later to Hale's Ford, a place he had once called "about as near to Nowhere as any locality gets to be." There he spoke once again to an audience of Black and white Virginians, though the crowd this time was much smaller and of a more modest social standing than the one in Richmond. Hale's Ford had lost most of its residents during the late nineteenth century, and those who remained, according to a newspaper reporter who covered the event, were "mostly ... old people, and others who were not able to get away." As always, however, Washington seemed to relish the chance to speak. His words were consistent with the things he had been saying for more than twenty years that had won him so many supporters as well as critics. Speaking to the descendants of the enslaved people and enslavers he had once known, including members of the Burroughs family, Washington urged his listeners to "preserve the old kindly relations" that had existed during slavery "because, if they are lost, they can never be replaced." Yet the speech was forward-looking and, in its way, integrationist, too, stressing that there was "opportunity ... in this country for every man, whether he was white or black, if he had the heart and courage to work."

Major Works

The Story of My Life and Work 1900

Up From Slavery 1901

Working With the Hands 1904

The Story of the Negro: The Rise of the Race From Slavery 1909

My Larger Education: Being Chapters From My Experience 1911

The Man Farthest Down: A Record of Observation and Study in Europe 1912

The Story of Slavery 1913

Booker T. Washington is born in Hales Ford, Franklin County. The exact date of his birth is unknown (1856 is the year later listed on his gravestone).

Booker T. Washington leaves Virginia with his family to join his stepfather in West Virginia.

Booker T. Washington returns to Virginia to attend the Hampton Institute.

Booker T. Washington graduates from the Hampton Institute and returns to Malden, West Virginia, where he teaches for the next three years.

Booker T. Washington spends the winter studying at the Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C.

Booker T. Washington returns to Hampton to work for two years as a night teacher and supervisor of the Kiowa and Cheyenne students Hampton had recently accepted.

Booker T. Washington is recommended by his supervisor to head a new school for African Americans to be founded in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Booker T. Washington becomes Tuskegee's only teacher, with an incoming class of about thirty students.

Booker T. Washington marries his first wife, Fanny Norton Smith Washington, who would die two years later.

Booker T. Washington marries his second wife, Olivia Davidson Washington, who would die four years later.

Booker T. Washington speaks at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition, where he gives his famous and controversial "Atlanta Compromise" speech urging racial accommodation.

Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to receive an honorary degree from Harvard University.

Booker T. Washington's autobiography, Up From Slavery, is published.

Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to dine at the White House, having been invited by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Booker T. Washington dies at Tuskegee and is survived by his third wife.

Brundage, W. Fitzhugh. Booker T. Washington and Black Progress: Up From Slavery 100 years Later. Gainesville:University Press of Florida, 2003.

Carroll, Rebecca. Uncle Tom or New Negro? African Americans Reflect on Booker T. Washington and Up From Slavery 100 Years Later. New York: Harlem Moon, 2006.

Harlan, Louis R. Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856-1901. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.

Harlan, Louis R. Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee 1901-1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

West, Michael Rudolph. The Education of Booker T. Washington: American Democracy and the Idea of Race Relations. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

APA Citation:

Wells, Jeremy. Booker T. Washington (1856-1915). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/washington-booker-t-1856-1915.

MLA Citation:

Wells, Jeremy. "Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 24 Oct. 2024

Last updated: 2024, May 03

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Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) - Encyclopedia Virginia

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Background and Boyhood Booker T. Washington That Washington would come to symbolize such divergent ideas-that, indeed, he would become a nationally known symbol of anything at all-would have seemed almost unimaginable at the moment of his birth. He was born into slavery on a tobacco farm near the tiny town of Hale's Ford in late in the 1850s.

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Noah webster was an American educator, lexicographer, and a writer. He was best know as "Father of American Education." He was the one that created the first American dictionary. Noah webster also wrote "The American Spelling book." This book taught millions of children how to read and spell. With his books he was able to separate American and British English for students. Noah Websters dictionary was published in 1828 and it was the foundation for standardized American language and literacy.

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Noah Webster, and the first American dictionary.

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Heather Hamilton EDU201_N30_FA25 - Introduction to Education/40704

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Heather Hamilton EDU201_N30_FA25 - Introduction to Education/40704

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Lev Vygotsky was a Russian and Soviet psychologist. Vygotsky believed that human development and learning are socially mediated processes. This means that children learn social learning before cognitive development. Social learning is learned and influenced by a child's interactions within their family and community. Vygotsky's theory also includes the Zone of Proximal Development. The Zone of Proximal Development is built around what a learner can do by themselves and what they can do with the guidance of a more knowledgeable person. The Zone of Proximal Development goes along with Scaffolded learning by slowly reducing the support a child meets to be able to do a task or skill.

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Maria Dominguez/ EDU201_N30_FA25 - Introduction to Education/40704

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Maria Dominguez/ EDU201_N30_FA25 - Introduction to Education/40704

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Catharine Beecher was a pioneering and American educator who believed about the importance of women's schooling and teacher preparation. She helped to establish serious academic education for women, rather than just "finishing school." She advocated for women to become professional teachers as means for shaping society. In the video, it explain about how her founding of institutions such as the Hartford Female Seminary and her authorship of influential works, for example, "A Treatise on Domestic Economy." In which she argued that home management, child care, hygiene, and nutrition were worthy of formal study. She helped to elevate teaching from a casual occupation into a respected profession. Today, her influence is currently visible in teacher training programs. The idea about professional standards for educators, and in a curricula that include life skills and domestic science.

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Liam Dardar (Introduction to Education EDU201)

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Liam Dardar (Introduction to Education EDU201)

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Mary McLeod Bethune’s life exemplifies how education, leadership, and civic engagement can drive lasting social change. Born in 1875 to formerly enslaved parents, she became a prominent educator, civil rights leader, and government official. She founded a school for Black girls in Florida in 1904, which later merged to become Bethune-Cookman College in 1929—one of the key institutions of higher education for African Americans. Bethune became an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and led the “Black Cabinet” as the director of Negro Affairs for the National Youth Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s. Her work helped expand educational opportunities and activism for African Americans, particularly women, through both schooling and political advocacy. She also founded and led organizations such as the National Council of Negro Women and was actively involved in voter registration, civil rights, and promoting racial integration. From her example, I learned how combining education with activism and political engagement can create lasting change—her efforts not only opened doors for countless students, but also helped shape how educators and institutions think about access, leadership, and equity in American education today.

In summary, Mary McLeod Bethune contributed by founding a major Black educational institution and by serving at high levels of government for racial equity. She also forged a legacy of leadership for women and African Americans in education. Today, her influence is clear in the way schools, colleges, and policy efforts stress representation, access, and lifelong activism in education.

(Link if trouble uploading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urYDYufVtGU)

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WESH 2 Chronicle: The life and legacy of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune

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Carol Dweck developed a theory that explains the importance of a growth mindset for success. Carol argued that people either have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. Carol theorized that students with a growth mindset would have a better chance of success in any aspect of life. From the video, I learned that Carol would often test her theory with younger students and that she strongly believed that a group of 10-year-olds was able to determine if they had a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. Carol had a strong belief that people could change their mindset with the proper training and education in order to succeed.

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Developing a Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck

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Bell Hooks was an influential educator, author, and social activist whose work reshaped how we think about teaching and learning. In her book "Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom," Hooks described education as a path toward liberation, emphasizing that learning should engage both the mind and the heart. She believed classrooms should be inclusive spaces built on love, respect, and community, where every student feels valued and heard. Hooks challenged traditional systems that often silenced marginalized voices and inspired teachers to create more equitable learning environments. Her ideas about critical thinking, empathy, and social justice continue to influence education today, encouraging educators to teach with care and authenticity. Through her work, Bell Hooks reminds us that teaching is not just about sharing knowledge, it is about transforming lives.

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Sylvia Mendez, a civil rights activist and retired pediatric nurse, was born in 1936 in Santa, California, and grew up on a farm in Westminster. She came from a Hispanic family, and when her aunt tried to enroll her and her siblings in a public school in 1944, they were denied due to their dark skin. Instead, they had to attend a “Mexican” school, which lacked resources compared to the white school her father attended when younger. Sylvia went to college and graduated from California State University with multiple certificates and degrees in public health, and played a key role in the Mendez v. Westminster case, after her father decided to sue the school district, challenging school segregation in California. After 30 years in public health, she retired but continues to visit schools to share her story and advocate for equal educational opportunities for all.

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Library: Sylvia Mendez: This is What Courage Looks Like: Home

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Library: Sylvia Mendez: This is What Courage Looks Like: Home

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Salman Khan, born in New Orleans in 1976, is the Founder and Executive Director of Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization that provides free online lessons in several subjects, such as Math and Science. He attained several degrees, graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and worked as an analyst with a hedge fund in Boston, but he always had a fascination with education. In 2004, Khan began tutoring his cousin in Math with an interactive notepad, and within two years, he was tutoring more relatives and friends. By 2009, he quit his job as an analyst and ran Khan Academy full-time with the financial support of several contributors. Khan Academy has contributed to making education more accessible since it can be accessed whenever, wherever. His work has influenced teaching and learning today, as this platform can be used by everyone, including teachers.

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Founder and Executive Director, Khan Academy
By Duffy Jennings |
At the 2014 State of the Valley conference, Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, joined a distinguished list of Silicon Valley icons Joint Venture has recognized because they embody the spirit of the man for whom Joint Venture's highest honor is named, David Packard. Like David Packard, Khan has brought the civic entrepreneurship approach to improving our community. He has reinvented education for future generations both here in Silicon Valley and around the world.

When Sal began tutoring his young cousin, Nadia, and placing his lessons online in 2004, no one could have predicted that these one-on-one lessons would evolve to become the ubiquitous Khan Academy whose mission is to provide a Free World-Class Education for Anyone, Anywhere.

Just how ubiquitous is it?

Today Khan Academy receives visits of more than 10 million students every month from all over the globe.

In the last two years alone, students have viewed more than 350 million lessons. Khan Academy offers more than 5000 instructional videos covering math, biology, physics, chemistry, statistics, probability, programming, economics, history, art history, medicine, nursing, and topical issues.

Khan Academy students have completed more than a billion and a half exercise problems are doing so at more than 4 million exercises per day.

Like David Packard, Khan has brought the civic entrepreneurship approach to improving our community. He has reinvented education for future generations both here in Silicon Valley and around the world.

Today more than 200,000 educators around the world are using Khan Academy to help students build mastery of topics and free up classroom time for more discussion and dynamic project based learning.

Truly, Sal has changed education forever.

Sal learned early on that his method of delivering content allowed each of Khan Academy's students their dignity. If a student doesn't understand a given lesson, the student can replay the lesson time and time again, solve problem upon problem, and not suffer the social embarrassment of not understanding as quickly as their classmates. Khan Academy's self-paced approach to learning has allowed students who were placed in a remedial track to overcome their learning gaps and go on to be top students in a higher-level track.

Each exercise has hints and ultimately offers the solution. Once a student learns how to go about the solution, Khan Academy serves up a similar problem to test whether the student has mastery of the concept.

Students living in countries that deny certain segments of their population access to education can do so in the privacy of their home or underground school, given they have access to the internet. Schools that do not have such access can still benefit from teachers that do. The teachers learn using Khan Academy and then teach their students what they have learned.

Sal has broken the code to democratize education.

Khan Academy has been translated to more than 31 languages. Volunteers have performed many of these translations. Clearly, they too share Sal's vision and passion. Khan is a visionary as well as an extremely competent leader. He has reimagined what education can be. He has articulated this vision in his book, "The One World Schoolhouse."

To more fully understand Sal's commitment to his work and why TIME magazine named him one of the "100 most influential people in the world," we need to start at the beginning.

Sal was born in New Orleans in 1976, the son of Jamal Khan, a pediatrician from Bangladesh, and his wife, Mahooda, who was from India.

Sal's first memory of schoolwork was watching his uncle doing calculus problems. "What's calculus?" he asked. The uncle responded that it was necessary in order to become an engineer and told Sal he, too, should be an engineer and go to M.I.T.

But growing up, Sal was more interested in art than math and he wanted to be a cartoonist, or an architect. At Grace King High School in Metairie, Louisiana, he also played guitar and sang - or as he describes it, "growled" - in a heavy metal band.

Gradually, though, Sal grew enamored by theoretical physics, of all things. So he persevered in math and science, and was accepted to M.I.T.

There he regularly took seven or eight classes every semester with thoughts of medical school or law school, and was excited by his first exposure to computers and software.

With such an accelerated program, Sal graduated from M.I.T. in 1998 with three degrees: a bachelor of science in mathematics, a combined B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science, and a concurrent master's degree in electrical engineering.

Oh, and as his class president, he received his diploma from another president - Bill Clinton.

After two years in California working for Oracle, Sal headed back to Cambridge and the Harvard School of Business, where he not only earned his MBA but also reconnected with a Pakistani woman he knew from M.I.T. Her name was Umaima Marvi, and she was completing her medical education at Harvard.

Sal and Umaima eventually married in 2004 and now have two children: Imran, who is 4, and 2-year-old Diya.

After Harvard, Sal became an analyst with a hedge fund in Boston, but he never lost his fascination with education and how people gained a fundamental understanding of problem solving and other knowledge.

In 2004, as a side project, Sal began tutoring his young cousin in math by telephone with an interactive notepad. Within two years, he added more than a dozen relatives and family friends to his online classes. By then he was writing software for his students to practice, and created lessons on YouTube.

By 2009, Sal quit his day job to run the new non-profit Khan Academy full time, with financial support not only from us, but also from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other contributors.

Even as he now runs a growing company with more than 50 employees, Sal is very hands-on, visiting classrooms and creating video lessons. Sal's impact on education, here in Silicon Valley and around the world, has been immeasurable. And it can only grow exponentially from here. Sal foresees a day not too far from now when Khan Academy will have 25 to 50 million users every month.

As the 2014 Silicon Valley Index shows, 46 percent of our region's population have bachelor's degrees or higher.

But not every region, in our own country and certainly around the globe, provides the opportunities for learning that we have.

As for Sal's little cousin, Nadia, she is currently a senior at Sarah Lawrence College and expects to graduate this year.

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Established in 1993, Joint Venture Silicon Valley provides analysis and action on issues affecting our region's economy and quality of life.

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Jean Piaget was a great psychologist who focused on child development and developed the theory of cognitive development. The theory of cognitive development outlines four stages that children’s mental development follows. The first stage is the Sensorimotor stage, which spans from birth to two years, and during this stage, children learn through their five senses. The second stage is the Preoperational Stage, spanning from 2 to 7 years, during which children begin to use their language skills and develop their imagination. The third stage, the Concrete Operational Stage, begins at age 7 and continues through age 11, when logic and understanding come into play. The fourth and final stage begins at age 12 and continues into adulthood. Individuals begin to think abstractly and start reasoning. Piaget’s theory and stages of development enabled the education system to understand how a child's mind works, providing educators with insight into how to best teach them and which methods to use to ensure their success.

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Rather than focusing on early childhood education, Malcolm Knowles concentrated his research on adult education. He proposed that adults require a different approach to learning compared to children. The term andragogy is the art or science of teaching adults. Its origins can be traced back to 1833, though Knowles is credited with popularizing the term in the 20th century. He led programs and developed methods for the adult education association. He felt that professional and formal settings were best for learning new intensive material, as opposed to community centers, which were best for the development of practical skills. Knowles observed that adults have a very different learning perspective; instead of procrastinating, they are capable of immediate application and have quicker problem-solving skills. Most children do not like school because they feel like they are forced to be there, while adults have an intrinsic motivation to learn.

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Knowles' Adult Learning Theory or Andragogy - Simplest Explanation Ever

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Jonathan Kozol is an American educator and a well known author who has dedicated his career to exposing inequality in education, especially for children in schools that lack resources. According to his website, he is an outspoken advocate for racial justice in schools and has written books such as Savage Inequalities and The Shame of the Nation. He argues that children of color and poor communities remain locked out of real educational opportunity because the school systems keep them segregated and unequal. From the website I learned that Kozol’s lifelong mission is not only to document problems but to advocate for change. For example, his most recent book An End to Inequality focuses on fixing the unfairness in education that he has written about for many years. The website also highlights his belief that when children lose in education, everyone else loses and that society’s future gets a little worse. Through his background as a teacher, researcher and writer, Kozol gives his voice to children and schools, which are often overlooked, emphasizing compassion, urgency and a advocate for equality.

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JONATHAN KOZOL received the National Book Award for Death at an Early Age, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Rachel and Her Children, and countless other honors for Savage Inequalities, Amazing Grace, The Shame of the Nation, and Fire in the Ashes. The final and culminating work of his career is now nearing completion.

Jonathan has a powerful new book in the works for activists and teachers. He's been holding his fire since the pandemic, but not for much longer. The book is scheduled to be published in the spring of 2024.

Jonathan's Conversation with Noam Chomsky

Jonathan recently gave a scathing lecture on racist education and the intolerable suppression of the independent thinking of poor kids

of color, which Jonathan calls the manufacture of juvenile consent.

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JONATHAN KOZOL received the National Book Award for Death at an Early Age, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Rachel and Her Children, and countless other honors for Savage Inequalities, Amazing Grace, The Shame of the Nation, and Fire in the Ashes. The final and culminating work of his career is now nearing completion.

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Booker T. Washington was not just an educator himself, but he was also an author, orator, and activist. In 1881, he received a $2000 grant to establish a colored school in Alabama. This was granted by General Armstrong. After Washington gave his Great Atlanta Speech in 1895, he gained support from many whites across America. Shortly after, he established relationships with many wealthy businessmen and also was a trustee of the Rosenwald fund which helped improve education for black children. After watching the video, I learned so much about this man, and I am beyond grateful for what he did for schools back then. We need more people like him to gain relationships, and support the educational body that eliminates discrimination of any race.

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Contributions of Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) Educator, Author, Orator, & Activist

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G. Stanley Hall was an American psychologist and educator who lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He was the first person in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in psychology and helped make psychology an important part of education. Hall studied how children grow and learn, and he believed schools should match teaching to children’s stages of development. He also started the first psychology lab in America and helped train many future teachers and psychologists. His ideas helped shape how we understand child development and learning today. From learning about him, I can see how his work helped schools focus more on students’ growth and needs.

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Ella Flagg Young was an influential figure in American education who made significant strides in advocating for progressive reforms. She was not only a pioneering educator but also the first woman to serve as the superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools in 1909. She championed the importance of teacher training and professional development, emphasizing that educators should be well-prepared to meet the diverse needs of their students. She was also a strong proponent of integrating hands-on learning experiences and promoting critical thinking in the classroom, aligning her beliefs with the progressive education movement of her time. All the contributions she made extend beyond her administrative roles; she was an active participant in educational reform discussions and worked to elevate the status of teaching as a profession. Today, her legacy is evident in ongoing efforts to support teacher education and advocate for innovative teaching practices that encourage student engagement and holistic learning. Her work continues to inspire educators who seek to create dynamic and responsive learning environments, and to professionally develop.

Just in case: link to article https://sk.sagepub.com/ency/edvol/edleadership/chpt/young-ella-flagg#_

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Benjamin Bloom was an American educational psychologist who master a theory of mastery learning. He was born February 21st 1913 in Longsford. He lived on Russia for most of his life and this caused him to see America as a land of opportunity. He loved to read and research. He used to read books in the library, and he would read them really fast to the point where the librarian started quizzing him to se if he was actually reading them. Bloom attended the Pennsylvania state university that offered school for those who couldn't afford if. He then went to the University of Chicago to get his PhD. In 1956, he published a framework used for categorizing educational goals with the help of others. It was first known as the taxonomy of education objective, but is now known as the Bloom's Taxonomy. This taxonomy has helped teachers structure their learning methods and students learning. He passed away in 1999, and his work is now used by many instructors and educators.

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This is the website I chose.

https://faculty.ucr.edu/~yolandam/teaching_philosophy/index.html

Yolanda T. Moses is an influential anthropologist and educator who has made major contributions to American education, with a reputation for her efforts in fostering diversity and inclusiveness in society's institutional settings. She has dedicated her career to addressing race, ethnicity and social justice within educational environments. Moses has held leadership positions ranging from serving as president of two universities, where she focused on equalizing educational access for underrepresented populations. Her influence in teaching has inspired curriculum that represents diversity, and inclusive learning environments. She has also added to research on the social dynamics of education and cultural comprehension. Her legacy lives on today, motivating educators to incorporate multiculturalism and equity into their teaching practices and classrooms in an effort to contribute to more inclusive and culturally aware classrooms throughout the United States.