HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

Harvard Education Letter Wins Distinguished Achievement Award

The Harvard Education Letter has won a 1996 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educational Press Association of America.

The award recognizes the article "Giving Voice to Our Hidden Commitments and Fears: A Conversation with Robert Kegan," published in the January/February 1995 issue of the Letter. Kegan, a senior lecturer at the Graduate School of Education, is a developmental psychologist and author of the books The Evolving Self and In Over Our Heads.

The Harvard Education Letter's interview, conducted by editor Edward Miller and assistant editor Terry Woronov, focuses on Kegan's recent work on how traditional forms of professional development might be adapted to fit better with the needs of educators in today's schools.

In the article, Kegan describes a crucial distinction between "informative" and "transformative" professional development. The latter, he argues, is the only kind that leads to profound changes in teachers' practice. Transformative professional development can happen, Kegan says, when school leaders "change the rules for what one talks about in school."

This is second time the Harvard Education Letter has been honored with the Distinguished Achievement Award in the last three years. Copies of the issue including the Kegan interview can be ordered from the Harvard Education Letter by calling 495-3432.