ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Debra E.S. Bogle has guided children for over 25 years as a classroom teacher in elementary, middle and high school. She is a Reading Recovery Teacher, and has served as a curriculum coach, master teacher, curricula writer, ELL teacher, ELL director and content coaching mentor in three countries and five states. Having earned her doctorate in Urban Education and Leadership at the University of Southern California, she currently teaches in the Masters of Teaching program and the Reading Authorization Program at USC, where she wrote the foundational course curriculum. Dr. Bogle serves on several advisory boards and is active in P.E.O. She is committed to building access in education for all women. She is a mother of two and grandmother, and resides in Southern California. She is often in her adopted home writing, cooking, baking, listening to music, perusing art, exploring and enjoying the countryside with her family and friends in France.

IN HER OWN WORDS

Building Bridges was initiated as an action research project in an effort to create an arts and inclusion curriculum for transitional kindergarten. My friend and colleague at Manhattan Beach Unified School District, Melody Peterson, had asked me if I would consider this project because she had a love for helping children in underrepresented groups.

My journey took me several years, thousands of miles, to three countries, and shaped Building Bridges. I want to thank each of my contributors for their honest, respectful, and thought provoking conversations surrounding aspects of understanding who we are, who we teach, what we believe and how we may move forward as we allow meaning to be the thread of this tapestry of learning experiences we call education.

Dr. Debra Esquivel Schindel Bogle

Debra Bogle with the participation of many others, has produced a rich document that will inspire, provoke and guide in equal measure. It is rich in scope and content, rich in images, and experiences, rich in humanity and wisdom. It is rich too in concepts, ideas, and practices.

Dr. Peter Moss PHD

Professor Emeritus

Institute of Education, University College London

EXCERPTS FROM BUILDING BRIDGES

Dr. Paula Carbone

Building Bridges: Curricula Notes, 2019

"Teaching from a place of love for equity and inclusion is not the norm in our public schools. With Building Bridges, Debra provides hope for a transformation, where children are taught with love, not rote, one-size-fits-all sanctified literacies, but literacies grounded in the arts and taught through the arts."

Dr. Peter Moss

Building Bridges: Curricula Notes, 2019

"We are asking teachers to consider class culture in every engagement and to create a place of lived democracy and open and caring discourse. In the new understanding of teaching and learning, pedagogy and relationships and listening is needed, not one of transmission and question answer."

Dr. Debra Bogle

Building Bridges: Curricula Notes, 2019

"We believe, like Maxine Greene [1995], that the goal of education maybe to help students realize their deep connections and responsibility for their own individual experiences and for other human beings who share this world. We envision education as the vessel for students to nurture growth intellectually, spiritually, physically, and socially. We understand that education is an active and continuous encounter for our individual and collective talents to construct democracy and provide a place for compassion and justice to inform and support all citizens."

Dr. Debra E.S. Bogle