Remembering Vito Perrone

Dear Readers,


Funny how the web leads to unexpected discoveries.  Tonight I found a blog post on Education Week called Remembering Vito Perrone, by Deborah Meier.  She says, "I met Vito in 1973 when the North Dakota Study Group came into being...." 


I met Vito Perrone (1933-2011) about the same time, as a transfer undergrad in elementary education at the University of North Dakota.  Vito was the dean of the Center for Teaching and Learning, a visionary thinker and risk taker.  At that time, I was still pursuing my goal of being a teacher, and Vito made it seem like a calling, a movement, a means to social change. When he left  to become dean at the Harvard School of Education, I felt a vindication of my unorthodox (and long ridiculed by my father) choice of going to school in North Dakota.


It feels like a lifetime ago, and my career turned a corner to special education and then law, but I am drawn to Deborah's description of Vito's books:  "Still, great individuals make a difference. And Vito did. For starters, take a look at his last three books: A Letter to Teachers, Lessons for New Teachers, and Teacher With a Heart, in which Vito argues why all individuals make a difference."


More books to add to my list.