Jerome Harste
Dr. Jerome C. Harste is best known for his work exploring young children’s written language literacy learning, connecting arts and literacies, and critical literacies. As an educational researcher, he studied what young children knew about reading and writing prior to going to school, the status of reading comprehension instruction in the United States, and how reading, writing, and art support the learning process. Together with a group of teachers from Indianapolis, he started a public school called the Center for Inquiry. The curriculum of that school features process reading and writing, children’s literature, multiple ways of knowing, inquiry-based education, and critical literacy. The Center for Inquiry is now in its 30th year of operation and Indianapolis now hosts four such schools covering Kindergarten to 8th grade with plans to open a high school in the future. For an overview of his professional writings see Researching Literate Lives: The Selective Writings of Jerome C. Harste (Routledge, 2021). The 3rd Edition of Teaching Children’s Literature: It’s Critical, co-authored with Drs. Christine Leland and Mitzi Lewison, has just been released (Routledge, 2023). As a literacy educator his expanded view of what it meant to be literate went far beyond traditional notions of reading and writing to include visual literacy and more generally semiotics (the study of how cultural groups learn to mean). For his research and work in schools he was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame, given the James Squire “Paradigm Shifters” Award (National Council of Teachers of English), the Oscar Causey Reading Research Award (Literacy Research Association) and the David Russell Research Award for his work in the Language Arts (NCTE). He has served in leadership roles for the National Council of Teachers of English, International Reading Association, American Educational Research Association, Literacy Research Association, United Kingdom Reading Association, Whole Language Umbrella, Center for the Expansion of Language and Thinking, and the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy. He has earned the coveted Gorman Teaching Award from the School of Education and the Frederick Bachman Teaching Award from Indiana University. Dr. Harste retired from Indiana University as a Distinguished Professor where he held the Armstrong Chair in Teacher Education. He is currently a member of the Alliance of Distinguished Professors at IU. Since his retirement in 2006 he has pursued art, a life-long passion by taking workshops and courses from some of the best watercolor artists in the nation. From these artists he learned how to take risks, push boundaries, and understand the importance of composition, color, pattern and design. More and more he has become a firm advocate of Jacob Johns’ advice to artists: “Do something, then do something to that something, and soon you will have something.” Dr. Harste is currently a Signature Member of the Bloomington Watercolor Society, the Watercolor Society of Indiana, the Hoosier Salon, and the Missouri Watercolor Society. He regularly shows his work at the Emeritus House on IU’s Campus, the William H. Miller Fine Arts Studio in Myrtle Beach and has had solo shows at Meadowood Retirement Home and the Waldron Art Center in Bloomington, Indiana. Because many of his paintings deal with the issue of literacy, his work has been featured on the covers of seven professional books as well as several professional journals including Language Arts, Journal of Language and Literacy Education (JOLLE), Literacy Practice and Research, and California English. He was a featured watercolor artist in January 2019 and December 2020 in Bloom Magazine. He currently teaches graduate courses at Mount Saint Vincent University in Canada.
You can connect with Jerry on Facebook at “Harste as Artist” or online at jeromeharste.com
Resource PPT to accompany this episode: Harste Podcast PPT
To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2023, Feb. 28). A conversation with Jerome “Jerry” C. Harste. (Season 3, No. 19) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/DD6E-8C6E-272E-1073-EB2E-U