Centro Educativo Futuro Verde is very fortunate to have two outstanding educators be the Keynote speakers for this year’s 4th Annual International Conference on Bilingual, Holistic, and Sustainable Education: Ken Winograd and Melinda Winograd.
Dr. Ken Winograd has experience teaching every elementary grade, Kindergarten-5th grade, in the United States, including a non-graded primary class. He also has international teaching and consulting experience in Japan, Norway, Vietnam, and Costa Rica. While in Costa Rica, he studied the literacy practices in Costa Rican elementary schools. Dr. Winograd has taught courses and published academic articles and books that address the emotional dimensions of teaching, critical literacy, and enhancing children’s resilience in a world of environmental crises. This last focus of Dr. Winograd’s work will have special interest for Futuro Verde parents because he has researched ways in which teachers and parents can help respond to their children’s possible fears and emotions as they try to process the news they hear about current global environmental crises with climate change. Dr. Winograd has recently retired from OSU but has kept active with part-time teaching in the OSU Honors College and in political action groups focusing on environmental issues.
Melinda Winograd has been a teacher in education for 42 years and is now teaching kindergarten. In the past 5 years, she has been involved in taking coursework and learning about teaching mindfulness to students and educators. Ms. Winograd has taught mindfulness practices to her kindergarten students and for professional development opportunities with teachers K-12. She is currently in a Mindfulness course about non-violent communication based on Marshall Rosenberg’s work. She says that it has already had an impact on her interactions with students and that it is amazing how the kindergarten students are using the practices as well. Ms. Winograd’s work will be of interest to not just Futuro Verde teachers, but also Futuro Verde parents because mindfulness practices have been shown to have a positive impact on students’ emotional, social, and academic progress in school.
We are very excited, and we are looking forward to, all that we can learn from Dr. Ken Winograd and Ms. Melinda Winograd’s experiences with and expertise in these important educational issues.