Celebrating Emily Style’s 30 Years of “Curriculum as Window & Mirror” & Willa Cofield’s 90 Years of Living Social Justice

October 4, 2018

The Wellesley Centers for Women hosted a special event during which several practitioners affiliated with the National SEED Project offered testimony and tributes in recognition of the 30th anniversary of Emily Style’s 1988 essay, “Curriculum as Window & Mirror,” and to celebrate educator, filmmaker, and social justice advocate Willa Cofield’s 90th birthday.

Scholar Emily Style’s notable paper explores the need for curriculum to function both as window and as mirror, in order to reflect and reveal most accurately both a multicultural world and the students themselves. As a longtime educator and founding co-director of The National SEED Project, Emily has woven this important perspective into her decades of teaching, training, and advocacy.

As a high school teacher in 1963, Willa Cofield and her students watched others challenge racial segregation across the South, inspiring them to mount protests in their own North Carolina community. At age 60, Willa brought her rich personal and professional life experience to the National SEED Project, where she worked for decades training educators to be more equitable and inclusive in all they did.

Welcome by Layli Maparyan and introductions of testimonies by Christina Patterson Brown, Christopher Avery, Mona Abo-Zena, Kamilah Drummond-Forrester, and Emmy Howe

Layli Maparyan (01:56 min)

Christina Patterson Brown (05:37 min)

Christopher Avery (05:31 min)

Mona Abo-Zena (05:31 min)

Kamilah Drummond-Forrester (06:28 min)

Emmy Howe (05:10 min)

Layli Maparyan shares remarks of appreciation for “Curriculum as Window and Mirror”

Layli Maparyan (05:49 min)

Emily Style (19:08 min)

Brenda Flyswithhawks (06:47 min)

Nancy Livingston (04:59 min)

Introduction by Emily Style and remarks by Willa Cofield

Willa Cofield (24:38 min)

Introduction by Layli Maparyan and testimonies by Gail Cruise Roberson and Peggy McIntosh

Gail Cruise Roberson (04:30 min)

Peggy McIntosh (09:17 min)