School, The Seedbed of Society: Exposing Its Deep Fractures with Wendy Rosen (Episode #102)

Dr. Lynn Hellerstein of Vision Beyond Sight speaks with Wendy Rosen, educator and author, to talk about how the pandemic exposed deep fractures that have long been destabilizing one of the most essential bricks in the foundation of society – school. Imbalances and injustices have compromised teachers, children, families, and communities. We are at a watershed moment in our human story where schools have become inhumane, unsafe spaces that are putting pressure detrimental to children’s developmental readiness, all the while being threatened by outside intruders. Wendy discussed that we need to get out of the auto-pilot trajectory of our current educational system by looking at our children as a whole person and our teachers as people, have conversations going and see the bigger picture of the school’s role in defining what we need to be human.

🔊 Click here and tune in to the show now to explore:

• How the pandemic exposed deep fractures in our schools as a part of our society’s foundation
• Kids struggling in survival mode
• “The tiger on the horizon” – the intruder that makes schools no longer safe spaces
• Pressure in schools detrimental to children’s developmental readiness
• Remote learning during the pandemic – impact and moving forward
• Getting out of auto-pilot and seeing the big picture
• Wendy’s book: School, The Seedbed of Society
• Defining what it needs to be human
• How schools has become inhumane spaces
• Looking at the child as a whole person
• The disconnect from the natural world and hoping for an awakening of consciousness

About Wendy Rosen:

Wendy Rosen, M.Ed. is a certified elementary and early childhood teacher and holds a dual degree in art. Over the course of her diverse career as an educator, Wendy has taught preschool through high school students in schools and a variety of experiential educational frameworks. A proponent of inno-vation and creativity in the field of education, she has authored articles and developed numerous cur-riculum resources on a wide range of educational topics.

As a teacher, Wendy had never heard of vision-related learning problems. She stumbled onto this criti-cal knowledge as a parent, and watched in awe as it changed her children’s lives. Then, it changed her own – and the course of her career. Curious, incredulous, and relentless, she set out on a path of inde-pendent research, acquiring pivotal knowledge about a subject which impacts many yet is understood by few. This ultimately blazed a new professional path, and Wendy now works as an education con-sultant specializing in vision-related learning problems. She facilitates professional development work-shops for school staff and lectures widely about this critical subject. In 2020, Wendy joined the faculty at Pacific University as an adjunct instructor where she teaches a course about the connection between functional vision and learning.  She is the author of The Hidden Link Between Vision and Learning: Why Millions of Learning-Disabled Children Are Misdiagnosed and Self-Smart: The Little Book with Big Ideas to Help Kids Thrive. Her third book, School, The Seedbed of Society: A Reflection on the Path of Humanity Through the Mind, Heart, & Soul of a Teacher was released in April 2023.

Wendy is married and the proud mother of two amazing children. In her spare time, she likes to read, garden, hike, bike, spend time in nature, and cook. Her happy place is in a kayak.

Connect with Wendy Rosen:

Website | LinkedIn

Check out her book here: School, the Seedbed of Society: A Reflection on the Path of Humanity through the Mind, Heart, & Soul of a Teacher

Description: The pandemic exposed deep fractures that have long been destabilizing one of the most essential bricks in the foundation of society – school. The need to address the unprecedented crisis that our education system is now in has never been more pressing. No one is counting on us more to figure this out right now than our children. This book can help us find our way.

“Schools are looked at places as academic institutions which of course they are, but we have been leaving out the rest of the child in that for too long. We have to look at the child as a whole person. This is nothing new; we have been talking about this for years – social and emotional learning and all these other aspects of what it means to be a person – and understand that we are not just teaching kids information that they are then needing to output on a test to show that they’re learning, given a certain score and therefore schools get what they need in order to continue that cycle. Students are people. Teachers are people. They are so much more than a test score and the knowledge that they come away with at the end of the school day.” – Wendy Rosen

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