Dr. Jose Maldonado-Rivera

I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico where I went to school in the island's top public k-12 institution - the University High School - a school very similar to what I hope we will build with CSS-MSE. I did my undergraduate studies at SUNY Stony Brook where I majored in Biology and minored in Federated Learning Communities - Latin America, a nationally recognized interdisciplinary residential scholars program. My course work focused on marine ecology, evolution, the history and philosophy of science, and Latin-American studies. I also began to complete a second major in philosophy (but I took off for a 6 month backpacking trip to Europe in my senior year - and thus never completed it!). I was fortunate as an undergraduate to be able to be research assistant in the marine ecology lab (with Jefrey Levinton) and the insect ecology lab (with Doug Futuyma) and I was also a resident assistant in the student dorms for three years (I had to pay my way through college and graduate school!). In 1984 I was lucky and was awarded the University of California presidential fellowship to pursue graduate studies at UC Santa Barbara where I worked under Robert Warner. My Ph. D. research project was on the ecology and behavior of two species of grassbed parrotfish in the San Blas Islands, Panama. In 1985 I was fortunate to be awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, to continue my work with parrotfish population dynamics. In 1987 I became assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras where I remained for two years (I left to teach high school my first real love). Subsequently I held teaching positions at Saint John's School (San Juan), where I developed the number one ranked high school science program on the island and led our science and biology teams to a record 4 years as state bowl champions.

In 1989 and 1990 the students body voted me 'Most Outstanding Teacher' and the faculty elected me to be their representative at the Headmasters cabinet. I have taught secondary and college levels course in biology, environmental science, marine biology, zoology, educational psychology, philosophy of education. In 1992, I was awarded the Presidential State Award for Excellence in Teaching Science and Mathematics. In 1993 I became research associate at Columbia University's Institute of Urban and Minority education, where I did public policy research in teacher training, science and math education, and educational reform efforts. I completed a Ph.D. in Science Education at Columbia University in 1998, specializing in cognition and learning in science. My thesis research characterized student and teacher misconceptions of biological evolution and experimentally tested the effectiveness of conceptual change teaching approaches in transforming student understanding. I also did a lot of research on student misconceptions in ecology and this led to founding PROEA - an outdoor education school my second real love in education.

For 12 years I directed an intensive summer nature camp - Tropical Adventure, in the islands of Puerto Rico, Culebra and Mona. The camp explored 11 of the island's ecosystems including Rainforest, Dryforest, Coral reefs, Mangrove swamps and Karst forests. In 1996 I founded the Environmental Education Project of Puerto Rico (PROEA) an organization which impacted over 6000 students and 250 teachers in outdoor nature and biodiversity education. Under my leadership the organization obtained over $550,000 in grants, including a major startup grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In 1997 PROEA won the prestigious Manuel Medina Award for excellence and innovation in education.

I've given over 100 talks in a wide variety of subjects including Methods in Nature Education, Biofilia and biofobia in Puertorican culture, Pseudoscientific thinking: the role of religious beliefs, Educational implications of the Biodiversity crisis, The teaching and learning of evolution, Student misconceptions of evolution, Student misconception of ecology, the Integration of computers in biology education and Outdoor education methods. I've directed a dozen in-service teacher-training programs in areas such as Integration of Computers in Biology Education, EcoPsychology, Outdoor Nature Education, Evolution Education and Marine Ecology. I wasone of the founding members of the Puertorican Association of Environmental Educators and the Puertorican Skeptics Organization - Rational Alternative. I was a consultant to the Department of Education of Puerto Rico and from 1994-6 I served as the community representative of the school board of the Vega Alta School District, my hometowm in Puerto Rico.

I have been working on two book length manuscripts on educational reform in Puerto Rico and on the teaching and learning of evolution; a manual for outdoor biodiversity education; and assorted articles in conceptual change teaching and learning in biology. I am also writing a book on my experience in starting an International private school in Puerto Rico and comparing it with the challenges of starting an elite public school in NYC.

From 1998 to 2003 I was assistant professor of education at Hartwick College and served as head of the Department of Education, where I taught courses in educational psychology, philosophy and sociology of education, science education and assorted interdisciplinary seminars in education and biology.

More recently I was Assitant Principal and Curriculum Coordinator at TASIS Dorado, a new pk-12 grade international school in Puerto Rico. Among many other things I steered the school's Middle States certification, conceived and developed the middle school, and led the school's development efforts for two years, before Columbia University called me to start-up CSS-MSE, my dream job.

In addition to being CSS-MSE's founding principal, I teach graduate courses in the Science Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University.

During my free time I enjoy kayaking, hiking, camping, scuba diving, racquetball; listening to Latin-American nueva trova and Celtic music; reading history, political and military biographies, philosophy, and Latin-American fiction. During the summers and winters I spend most of my time in my farm in the Karst hills of Puerto Rico gardening and exploring the rainforest, mangrove swamps and coral reefs of Puerto Rico - and teaching my two children Gabriel (4 years old but astute beyond his age!) and Maiya (8 months but whose eyes tell me she knows!) the wonders of nature.

Favorite QUOTES

"If you are not a rebel, if you meekly accept the world's present deteriorating state of affairs, its not because you don't have a heart or a brain. It's because you are an idiot."    Joan Manual Serrat

"Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution"   T. Dobzhansky

"Creation is not an act but a process; it did not happen five or six thousand years ago but is going on before our eyes. Man is not compelled to be a mere spectator; he may become an assistant, a collaborator, a partner in the process of creation"    T.Dobzhansky

"Personal knowledge is not made but discovered. It commits us, passionately and far beyond comprehension, to a vision of reality. Like love, to which it is akin, this commitment is a shirt of flame, blazing with passion and, also like love, consumed by devotion to a universal demand."    K. Polanyi (1958)

"Ecological education is directed towards changing our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions. It requires breaking free of old pedagogical assumptions, of the straight-jacket of discipline centered curriculum, and even of the confinement of the classroom and school buildings.Ecological education means changing the substance and process of education contained in the curriculum, how educational institutions work, the architecture within which education occurs, and most important, the purpose of learning."   D. Orr.

"Ours is about the most ignorant age that can be imagined"   E. Chargaff

"The function of education must be: to equip young people with a basic understanding of systems and to develop habits of mind that seek out patterns that connect humans and nature, to teach young people the analytical tools necessary for thinking accurately about cause and effect, to give students the practical competence necessary to local problems".   D. Orr

"Genius exist, it is done by working very hard at it."    Pablo Picasso