ABOUT THE TEACHER EDWARD J. BRANTMEIER

I was born on a farm and then grew up in a small community in rural Wisconsin. My large family instilled the values of honesty, positive human relationships, and hard work at a very young age. I was an extremely dedicated athlete during my high school years; later I would turn this intensity toward academic pursuits. The non-human, natural environment was always a walk away in rural Wisconsin; I took full advantage of these natural learning opportunities. Throughout my teenage years I walked in the surrounding woods, fields, and swamplands in the search of solace and peace. After reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau in my public high school English class, I was convinced that living simply, deliberately, and in communion with the natural world was my path for an authentic life; I stopped watching television (besides movies) at age seventeen. Having an excellent high school English teacher made me want to become one myself.

My formal schooling included attending college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for two years, after which I studied in the South Pacific with a semester abroad program through the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. My rural, relatively isolated upbringing planted the seeds of desire for global discovery and understanding. I have studied/traveled/lived or taught in Central America, the South Pacific, the Asian subcontinent, and in Europe - though only a little in Europe. Thus far in my life I have been much more attracted to developing countries than to "developed" nations. I completed my student teaching on the Navajo Reservation in the American Southwest and earned a bachelor of arts in English, with anthropology and English-as-a-second-language minors. Upon graduation, I traveled and taught in public schools for three years before going back to school at Indiana University-Bloomington. Motivated by a desire to give back to the program and school that has given so much to me, for three years I trained pre-service teachers for cross-cultural immersion experiences through the Cultural Immersion Projects at I.U.'s School of Education. This past year I taught the required multicultural education course to students seeking admission to the School of Education. Since attending Indiana University, I have received a Masters of Science degree in international and comparative education. I am currently a Ph. D candidate, with research interests in peace education, global education, and multicultural education. My dissertation focuses on the development and implementation of intercultural peace-building curricula to address the needs of an increasingly transnational, Midwestern town. My long term research interests include the comparative study of peace & intercultural education endeavors in India and America.

My professional dreams are simple - to use my education to help others actualize their inner potentials given the real world constraints of their social contexts. I aim to be a researched and educator at a progressive institution in the United States or abroad. I also want to continue working with children and schools in developing contexts. Eventually, I see myself tending an organic veggie garden while writing books on nonviolence, processes of cultural change, and deep ecology. My family and pets are a major part of this dream. About the teacher Stephanie Alexis Cayot

As a child growing up in northern Indiana, I was encouraged most by experiences of traveling, sketching and writing. My parents encouraged me to continue learning, exploring to find how I could contribute to the world. At that age, I wanted to become an artist. However, in high school, I began a mentorship program with a 1st grade teacher with the opportunity to read to the children and even help teach lessons in the classroom. From here, my interest in education blossomed and I received several scholarships to pursue this interest in college. Thus, my undergraduate major became Elementary Education and my minor, Studio Art, to pursue my interests of my youth.

Beyond my art and studies, my time at Indiana University was spent training for marathons, cycling for my sorority's Little 500 team, and being active in campus government. I especially enjoyed my early field placements in elementary schools. However I dreamed of teaching outside of Indiana. So after graduation, I moved to Milan, Italy to work at The American School of Milan in a classroom of 5, 6, 7 year old children. Although I was trained in progressive education approaches, meeting the needs of all the learners in this linguistically, culturally, and developmentally diverse classroom was an opportunity for intense professional growth. A team of passionate and experienced colleagues were my guides; illustrating to me the importance of meeting each child at their level and knowing their unique strengths. As a self-managing team of primary teachers, we took on the project of designing a 3-year curriculum for the Primary Multiage Years, compiling U.S. state science and social studies standards into a project-inquiry approach with am emphasis on the writing process. In our whirlwind of creation, Dr. Sandra Stone from Northern Arizona University came to guide our process. With this impetus, that summer I began my masters coursework from Dr. Stone in Flagstaff, AZ where I studied constructivist practices and non-graded systems. This helped confirm that I needed to keep studying to answer some of my most pervasive educational curiosities.

I returned to Indiana University to continue this quest of understanding of how young children learn best by working on my PhD in Curriculum and Instruction. Currently, I teach two undergraduate courses to majors of elementary education; Democracy in the Elementary Classroom and another teacher-education course on the practicalities of teaching such as classroom management. My research interests include classroom issues such as identity formation of children, second language acquisition, and conflict-resolution in play episodes. In the future, I hope to continue teaching at a college or university, doing research, or curriculum development that will encourage thoughtful teaching practices.