Thomas Hatch

Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University

Director, National Center for Restructuring, Education, Schools & Teaching (NCREST)

I’m a Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and Director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST).  My latest book, The Education We Need for a Future We Can’t Predict focuses on efforts to create more powerful learning experiences both inside and outside schools in developed and developing contexts. The book draws on the work I’ve been doing over the past thirty years with schools and districts in the US as well with “higher” and “lower-performing” education systems in places like Singapore, Finland, Estonia, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa and Malaysia.

To get access to more of my publications and learn more about my work, including my class on school change and my earlier efforts to develop multimedia images of teaching practice, take a look at my website -- https://thomashatch.org/.  There you can find blog posts which describe some of my experiences living and learning about other education systems and some of what I’ve learned from studying the evolution of successful educational organizations. There and on twitter (@tch960) I also provide occasional updates on the key ideas in the book along with links to related news, articles, and resources as I come across them.

I work with schools, districts, educational organizations, foundations, government agencies, and parent and community groups on issues of school improvement, educational leadership, and educational change, including topics such as:

• What it takes to create “high-performing” education systems
• Why schools don’t change (and how they can)
• “High leverage” approaches to school improvement
• Community organizing and school reform
• Accountability and collective responsibility in school improvement
• How learning outside school can change learning inside schools
• Preparing for learning in the future
• Improving schools and transforming education

If you’d like to contact me and explore any of these topics or the other ideas discussed in The Education We Need, please email me at hatch@tc.edu.

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Jordan Corson is an assistant professor of education and affiliated faculty member of immigration studies at Stockton University. He recently completed his doctorate at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he defended his dissertation, Undocumented Educations: Everyday Educational Practices of Recently Immigrated Youth Beyond Inclusion/Exclusion. Jordan has published research in the fields of education and philosophy, educational change, and teacher education. His research takes up ethnographic and historical methods to interrogate issues of transnational migration and curriculum studies through anti-colonial and abolitionist praxis.

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Sarah Gerth van den Berg is a doctoral candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research explores the design and theory of curriculum involving nontraditional spaces, materials, and processes. She has published in the fields of curriculum studies, participatory arts-based practices, and out of school learning.