greene grants
2003 Greene Grant awarded to:
Orundun Johnson
Each One, Teach Many…
In September 2003, The Maxine Greene Foundation, Inc. awarded a Greene Grant to Orundun Johnson of the Central Harlem Montessori Elementary School. Orundun Johnson is an educator, visionary and an activist, whose vision is realized in the Montessori Method. Within the basic skill areas, such as language, mathematics and science, each child is encouraged to progress at their own rate in a non-graded, multi-aged environment.
- Orundun Johnson opened the one-room schoolhouse in 1990 with 5 students and now averages between 13-25 students.
- Students are from 6 to 13 years old, drawn mainly from Central Harlem, other boroughs and outside the city. Tuition is low, but waived for students who cannot afford to pay.
- Graduates go on to top junior high and high schools in the city, as well as New England boarding schools. They are students who "think globally and who act locally," and have learned to care about people around the world and the future of this planet.
"The school provides a cosmic approach to elementary education, incorporating and connecting African-American history and culture to a global world view."
-Orundun Johnson
"There may be hope to be found in the challenges now being raised to the congealing of evangelism and radical right wing thinking as they have affected the schools. There may be hope to be found in the appearance of small schools, the interest in teaching as a fostering of dialogue and a search for meaning responsive to diversity and difference."