About the Author
Gene Weisfeld, Executive Director of Educational Initiatives, has devoted 25 years to the public schools. He is a recovering attorney who came to New Mexico in 1965 as a VISTA volunteer, working on building community and improving local schools in Mora County, one of the poorest counties in the nation.
He moved to New Mexico to live in 1970. After being certified to teach in the State of California, he taught briefly at an alternative school in Taos, N.M. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the Hastings School of Law. Upon relocating to Santa Fe in 1993, he became executive director of Mentoring New Mexico, a nonprofit placing adult and high school mentors one-on-one with students in schools in Santa Fe, Espanola, Pojoaque and Pecos.
He tutors or substitutes daily in elementary schools in the Santa Fe Public School District.
About If I Ran The Schools
If I Ran The Schools is a book published by Educational Initiatives, Inc., a nonprofit devoted to innovative school-based solutions. It is also the theme of this website, which offers a place for teachers and aspiring teachers to find east-to-use information and share ideas on how to make learning more effective by making it fun.
Who If I Ran The Schools is for
If I Ran the Schools is for every teacher who gets discouraged by classroom management. It is for teachers who struggle with disruptive students. It is for teachers battling the "Teflon Effect" when ideas bounce off kids immediately without anything sticking.
If I Ran the Schools is for teachers who want to have a class where their students enjoy learning in a safe place. It is for teachers interested in innovative ideas. It is for teachers-in-training who are optimistic and eager for new ideas. It is for school administrators and teacher college deans and presidents who have the power to make a difference in the way we educate our children.
If I Ran the Schools is for every student who is bored or hates school. It is for every student who has too much useless and discouraging homework, and those who feel confined and restrained.