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Colby's Education Program is guided by John Dewey's distinction between "education as a function of society," where the function of education is to prepare the minds of the young to maintain and uphold the basic principles of society, and "society as a function of education," where the function of education is to remake or reform society, because the principles and directives that govern society, and support the status quo, are by and large unreasonable or unjust. We firmly embrace the latter perspective, and thus our program is explicitly committed to promoting social justice, both in schools and in society at large.

Courses in the program explore the impact of cultural assumptions, societal norms, and institutional policies and practices on both individuals and groups. Students and faculty work together to examine the operation of power as it relates to the preservation of privilege and the construction of knowledge. In so doing, students are encouraged to analyze and critique the intended and unintended privileges and oppressions resulting from specific educational and institutional practices by (1) considering the values and politics that pervade educational institutions, as well as the more pragmatic issues of teaching and organizing schools; (2) asking critical questions about how taken-for-granted assumptions about conventional thinking and practice came to be, and who in society benefits from such assumptions; (3) attending to differences in gender, race, social class, sexual orientation, and ability, that result in political, social, economic, and educational advantage, disadvantage, and inequality, particularly for children and youth; and (4) examining the connections among white privilege, male privilege, social class privilege, heterosexism, and other forms of privilege as they relate to environmental and ecological concerns; and (5) investigating how schooling plays a crucial role in the development of attitudes and behaviors toward "nature" and the environment.

Students are also encouraged to move beyond critique and to theorize about the creation and implementation of educational and institutional practices that promote greater social justice and equity in society as a whole. To these ends students in the program participate in a variety of civic engagement, practicum, internship, and activism experiences.
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Adam Howard to join Education Faculty
Adam Howard will join the Colby faculty as Associate Professor of Education in September, 2008. Professor Howard earned his doctorate at the University of Cincinnati, masters at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and bachelor’s degree at Berea College. He is currently an Associate Professor of Education at Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana. For the past five years, he also has held a position on the national faculty of Lesley University Graduate School of Education. Before his current position at Hanover, he taught at Antioch College for seven years, where he held the positions of Director of Teacher Education, Associate Professor of Education, and Associate Dean of Faculty. Professor Howard took a leave from Antioch during 2003-04 to teach at Colby as a visiting faculty member. Prior to teaching at the college level, he taught high school English and history at Cincinnati Country Day School and directed a non-profit organization designed to provide academic support to disadvantaged middle school students while encouraging high school and college students to consider a teaching career path.

 Professor Howard has published numerous articles and papers on social class issues in education, privilege, service-learning, and curriculum theory. He is co-editor (with Hongyu Wang, Oklahoma State University) of the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, an interdisciplinary journal of curriculum studies. He chairs the Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice and is a member of the board of directors of the Corporation for Curriculum Research. He also chairs the Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. He is co-editor of Handbook of Research on Cooperative Education and Internships and author of Learning Privilege: Lessons of Power and Identity in Affluent Schooling. He is currently working on a book with Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández (University of Toronto), titled Ahead of the Rest: Class Privilege and Educational Advantage in the United States.