Founded by philosopher Nelson Goodman at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1967, Van Bensett and Annette Howard were honored to be invited to attend the Project Zero Training. The training focused on an understanding of learning in and through the arts. Over the years, we have continued our inquiry into the arts and arts education, while drawing together diverse disciplinary perspectives to examine fundamental questions of human expression and development. Our research endeavors are marked by a passion for the big questions, a passion for the conceptual, a passion for the interdisciplinary, a passion for the full range of human development, and a passion for the arts.
Today Project Zero is an intellectual wellspring, nourishing inquiry into the complexity of human potentials – intelligence, understanding, thinking, creativity, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural thinking, ethics – and exploring sustainable ways to support them across multiple and diverse contexts. Anchored in the arts and humanities, and with a commitment to melding theory and practice, we continue to work towards a more enlightened educational process and system that prepares learners well for the world that they will live, work and develop in.
The 2017-2018 academic year marks Project Zero’s historic 50th anniversary at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For five decades, PZ has led dozens of research projects that have influenced the field of education around the globe. To launch its 50th anniversary, PZ convened a special event on Friday, October 13th, 2017. The event was held at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and celebrated the past, present and future of Project Zero, honoring the involvement of our many funders, collaborators and partners.
The celebration took place on Friday evening during GSE’s HUBweek forum, which was open to the public and featured Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University; James E. Ryan, Dean, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Project Zero co-founders, Howard Gardner and David Perkins; Project Zero past directors, Steve Seidel and Shari Tishman; and Daniel Wilson, the current Project Zero director. The forum offered insights gleaned from a half-century of iconoclastic investigations into changing conceptions of the mind and the implications of these changes for today’s teachers, schools, and society.
Events & Institutes
Each year Project Zero hosts one of the most popular professional development institutes at the Harvard Graduate School of Education: The *Project Zero Classroom* (founded in 1996). With the Center for the Advancement and Study of International Education (CASIE), Project Zero also convenes two international “Project Zero Perspectives” conferences at schools around.