Patricia Carini, whose ideas and work were central to the philosophy and practice of teacher education that guides Sarah Lawrence’s Art of Teaching program, passed away on Saturday, March 13. The Prospect Descriptive Review of the Child and the Review of Children’s Work were developed by Pat and her colleagues at the Prospect School for children and form the central vision for getting to know a child. The focus of that vision is the importance of knowing and teaching a child. The vision, which Pat held, remains clear and unwavering, withstanding fads and theories that come and go in education.
Pat Carini’s thought and work was founded on her own extensive observation and study of children and their work, as well as rooted in progressive education and social thought. The descriptive processes she pioneered at Prospect School for the study of the school lives and works of individual children and the documentation of teaching have been incorporated into the teaching of educators across the country and beyond. Her work with teachers and in schools placed emphasis on the shared responsibility we have for children and the critical importance of joining with parents in recognizing and supporting all children.
The Art of Teaching program was privileged to have Pat work directly with students on campus. From January 2003 through January 2009, Pat presented two weeklong seminars in consecutive years: Four Epochs of the Lifespan and A Way of Looking at Children, Their Works, Their Learning and the Curriculum. These seminars created a framework for educating founded on recollections of childhood and observations of children. In 2010, for the 25th Anniversary of the Art of Teaching Graduate Program, Pat delivered a talk on campus entitled A Tribute to the Art of Teaching. To quote Pat:
"To learn the art and craft of teaching in revolutionary mode is all at the same time, exhilarating and dangerous; meaningful and exhausting; fulfilling and unfinishable. … As is true of the practice of all arts, to practice the art of teaching is necessarily to make mistakes, to be confronted with difficult, at times seemingly impossible choices, with marginalization, with setbacks, with oppression at the hands of those who wield power. I don’t need to tell a single person in this room how teachers who buck the oppressive mandates, the Tyrannical Truth of those currently wielding power, are turned on, ostracized, investigated, threatened, driven from their jobs. Yet that said, here you are and here, still vital, still strong, in a program dedicated to educating teachers to be seers of children, to teach in revolutionary mode – even now. Here is a program that has earned the right to speak of teaching as an art. And yes, even now, even as Tyrannical Truth rules with an iron fist, aspiring teachers do still choose this revolutionary path.
Is this easy? No. Where then is courage found? Where is courage found to hold firm to the conviction that education and schools can be revolutionized, that teaching can be an art, that minds and hearts and heads can be turned around? Where is courage found to stand firm against the degradation of teaching, of education? Where is courage found to hold firm to relatedness to children in the knowledge that absent that relatedness, teaching degrades to empty busy work? Where is courage found to accept … that forced compromises, like mistakes, are not the end of the story – that it is possible to continue, to stand firm, to remain even so a seer of children, alert to every opportunity for choice, for play, for story telling, for pursuit of passions?"
Patricia Carini’s words, spirit and life’s work continue to bring meaning to all that we value in our work on behalf of children. She will be sorely missed but we carry on, bringing forward the hope, the courage, the care she fostered.