Friday, July 26, 2013

Alan Dichter and Vivian Orlen | Deborah Meier on Education

Alan Dichter and Vivian Orlen | Deborah Meier on Education:

Alan Dichter and Vivian Orlen

Dear readers,
I brought up in the previous post  the names of Alan Dichter and Vivian Orlen, I’m assuming too much!  They were both leaders of CES schools (Coalition of Essential Schools) in NYC for many years until they decided to move to Portland to try something different.  Vivian was principal of a fascinating large community school in Portland for 4-5 years.  I loved visiting it.  But they decided to return “home”.   Alan was also the source of another quote,  which we used for many years in building collaboration between CES schools in NYC.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do.  But it’s not none of my business”.
It was also the underlying spirit between colleagues in our schools–although we occasionally did collectively set some limits on what you do and combined frank