For years, Constructing Modern Knowledge has punched above its weight when it comes to the guest speakers it has featured. It is becoming difficult to top ourselves year over year, but we haven’t given up yet.

That’s why I am so excited to announce the first speaker confirmed for Constructing Modern Knowledge 2019, Nikole Hannah-Jones.

If you are unfamiliar with Ms. Hannah-Jones, she is arguably today’s most acclaimed journalists addressing issues of education, race, and social justice. She is a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine and has is the recipient of a few awards you may have heard of, including:

  • 2017 MacArthur Genius Award
  • 2017 National Magazine Award
  • 2015 George Polk Award
  • 2015 Peabody Award
  • 2015 Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting
  • 2015 Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists
  • The Root 100 (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)

Note: CMK has featured two MacArthur Geniuses – five times in twelve years.

Learn more about Nikole Hannah-Jones here.

Constructing Modern Knowledge (July 16-19, 2019) is my magnum opus. Attend CMK and you will not only learn who I am, but what education can be. For twelve years, our team of brilliant educators has created an institute at which educators from across the globe demonstrate their competence, creativity, and cultural consciousness. Just take a look at the photos, videos, and recollections here for evidence.

Along with creating a non-coercive space for knowledge construction filled with cutting-edge technology, mountains of materials, an extravagant professional library, and a remarkable faculty, CMK creates opportunities for educators to engage with powerful ideas. I believe that teachers need to know what greatness tastes, looks, feels, or smells like. That is why we invest in speakers who will spend time with our participants.

Over my career, I have been blessed with opportunities to know and work with so many of my heroes and sheroes (Seymour Papert, Jonathan Kozol, Deborah Meier, Herb Kohl, Marvin Minsky, Carla Rinaldi…)

One of the great joys of my life has been sharing expert educators, inventors, artists, authors, dreamers, and pioneers with practicing educators.

I tear up when CMK participants recount going for soup dumplings with Carla Rinaldi, playing Pokemon Go with Edith Ackermann, or going for a walk with James Loewen. I’ll never forget the teacher who wept when Alfie Kohn walked in to introduce Deborah Meier or others who were moved by spending an hour with jazz legends.