[Xmca-l] Re: Vera John-Steiner has passed away

[Robert Lake]

I first met Vera when I was working on my dissertation. The annual AERA
meeting was in San Francisco that year. I wrote to her and asked her if you
would be willing and available to join me for breakfast. For me, this was a
long shot, so you can imagine my surprise when she agreed to meet with me.
We met in the restaurant inside the Warwick Hotel.  she enjoyed herbal tea
and toast while I had coffee and oatmeal. I was amazed at her focused gift
of empathic listening in the crowded and bustling atmosphere during the
peak of the breakfast period in a hotel filled with educational
researchers. She
helped me cross the wide expanse of my dissertation topic which was titled “*A
Curriculum of Imagination beyond Walls of Standardization”* I was in need
of a way to connect the inner processes of incubated thinking and
meditation with curriculum and pedagogy. Her notion of “cognitive
pluralism” (1995) and the entire text of *Notebooks of the Mind *was the
bridge I needed to help me move forward (and backwards) without being
waylaid in Howard Gardner’s (1985) biologically based *Frames of Mind.  *When
I first heard the news of Vera's passing, I experienced a palpable sense of
loss and regret that I was not able to thank her for everything in person
or even in a phone call one last time. I carried these emotions with me
into a grocery store after work. I was standing in the checkout line and
one of our doctoral students who was struggling with his dissertation saw
me. We talked about what he was going through right there in the front of
store with people going past us continually. As we finished and I was
loading groceries in my car, it hit me so hard that I was passing Vera's
gifts to me to the next generation and my inner turmoil has subsided.

Thank-you Vera!

*Robert Lake*


On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 5:51 AM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:

> I got to know Vera through the Vygotsky circuit, and can state with
> confidence that I've never met a better human being. She did exemplary work
> too, but she was always one of those people I wanted to be like when I grew
> up.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2017 6:56 PM
> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vera John-Steiner has passed away
>
> I am sad to hear of Vera's passing as well. I never met her personally,
> but I was privileged to collaborate with Vera in the exploration of
> collaboration, an aspect of human life which Vera championed and for which
> she will be forever remembered.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 8/12/2017 10:11 AM, Kris Gutierrez wrote:
> > My heart is heavy.  With love, appreciation, admiration, and respect,
> for a giant in our field, who was as generous, inclusive, and kind, as she
> was brilliant.  So grateful to have had the opportunity to know and learn
> from her across various spaces.   Selfishly, I was sad I didn’t get a
> response to my recent message to her.  Of course, the point was to let her
> know again how we all felt about her and her contribution.  Love and
> strength to her family and loved ones. May our community continue to learn
> from her humanity.   Kris
> >
> > (excuse typos)
> >
> > Kris D. Gutiérrez
> > Carol Liu Professor
> > Graduate School of Education
> > Prolepsis Design Collaborative
> > Member, National Academy of Education
> > University of California, Berkeley
> > 5629 Tolman Hall
> > Berkeley, CA 94720-1670
> > gutierrkd@berkeley.edu
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Dec 7, 2017, at 1:51 PM, Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear XMCA Family,
> >>
> >> Our beloved Vera John-Steiner died last night very shortly after she
> >> experienced a stroke.
> >> She had posted to this site on 11/25/17.  We will send more information
> and
> >> an obituary as
> >> it becomes available.  Attached is the last "letter" from
> >> *Constructing a Community of Thought:Letters on the Scholarship,
> Teaching,
> >> and Mentoring of Vera John-Steiner *(2013).
> >> In this piece, we sought to synthesize all the wonderful contributions
> >> from so many of her friends, collaborators and students from the book
> >> mentioned above.
> >>
> >> Warmest condolences to her family and to all her knew and loved her.
> >> *Robert Lake*
> >> <Constructing a Community of Thought Last Letter.pdf>
> >
> >
>
>
>


-- 
Robert Lake  Ed.D.
Associate Professor
Social Foundations of Education
Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
Georgia Southern University
P. O. Box 8144, Statesboro, GA  30460
Co-editor of *Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies,* vol.39,
2017
Special issue: Maxine Greene and the Pedagogy of Social Imagination: An
Intellectual Genealogy.

 http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gred20/39/1
Webpage: https://georgiasouthern.academia.edu/RobertLake*Democracy must be
born anew in every generation, and education is its midwife.* John
Dewey-*Democracy
and Education*,1916, p. 139