A Chance to Solve Their Own Problems - A Conversation with Prof. Jal Mehta

<p>It&#39;s all too easy to come up with scripted and pre-packaged solutions to educational challenges that are complex, deeply human and relational. My guest this week has been a powerful voice globally for a long time, advocating for a more nuanced and thoughtful view for enhancing spaces for deeper learning. It is my huge pleasure to introduce Professor Jal Mehta of the Harvard Graduate School of Education who joined me this week to talk about his new book, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674290297" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">A Chance to Solve Their Own Problems: Inside the New Methods Seeking to Remake Public Schools</a> written with a group of other fantastic co-authors (Maxwell Yurkofsky, Kim Frumin, Amelia Peterson, Rebecca Horwitz-Willis, James Jack) and based on extensive empirical research across the US and Canada. </p><p>Jal Mehta is the Gregory R. Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. A sociologist by training, his work focuses on how to remake the industrial-era school system into a modern learning organization that creates passion and purpose for both students and adults.</p><p>He is the author, most recently, with Sarah Fine, of <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674248250" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">In Search of Deeper Learning: Inside the Effort to Remake the American High School</a>, which won the Grawemeyer Award for excellent public writing on education. Mehta is also a leading scholar on the need to professionalize education, explored most thoroughly in his 2013 book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-allure-of-order-9780199942060?cc=us&lang=en&#:~:text=In%20The%20Allure%20of%20Order,same%20idea%20for%20remaking%20schools." target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">The Allure of Order</a>. Mehta is the faculty director of the <a href="https://deeperlearning.gse.harvard.edu/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Deeper Learning Institute</a>, which works with schools, districts, states and provinces across the United States and around the world to transform schools and remake systems in support of deep and powerful learning. He is also the proud recipient of the Morningstar Teaching Award. </p><p><strong>Links</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.gse.harvard.edu/directory/faculty/jal-mehta" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.gse.harvard.edu/directory/faculty/jal