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Marvel and DC comics, East Coast and West Coast hip hop, Marmite and vegemite yeast extracts… All historic rivalries between titans who are, in truth, united by so much more than what divides them.
Now you can add the National Summit on Improvement in Education and the Deeper Learning Conference to that list. Two iconic education conferences, both hosted by the High Tech High Graduate School of Education at the same time, both culminating in a closing keynote that will bring BOTH CONFERENCES TOGETHER.
Who, you ask, could command such an audience?
It could only be Ron Berger.
Ron taught at Shutesbury Elementary School in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, for 28 years, from 1975 to 2003. Shutesbury has a population of fewer than 2000 people, which means that Ron has taught a significant portion of them. At that school, he developed an approach to learning in which students tackled serious, intellectually knotty challenges together and created beautiful, professional-quality work over the course of multiple drafts. To give just one example, his elementary-school students conducted Shutesbury’s first-ever comprehensive water quality study.
This work inspired Ron to write An Ethic of Excellence, a 156-page book that has not only inspired countless educators, it has inspired countless people to become teachers. It’s also one of the few education books that routinely reduces readers to tears (in a good way).
Since then, as Chief Academic Officer of EL Education, Ron co-authored A Culture of Quality, Leaders of Their Own Learning, Transformational Literacy, Management in the Active Classroom, Learning that Lasts, and We Are Crew: A Teamwork Approach to School Culture. He was a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he did his graduate work. He founded and directs the website Models of Excellence: The Center for High-Quality Student Work, which holds the world’s largest collection of beautiful K-12 student work.
Ron is now EL Education’s Senior Advisor on Teaching and Learning. In his closing keynote, he’ll be talking about how Deeper Learning and Continuous Improvement inspire remarkable student work and thinking around the world.
