Jim Vopat

Jim Vopat has been teaching teachers in unusual settings for thirty years. As founding director of the Milwaukee Writing Project, he works directly with teachers and schools. Through the Parent Project, he directs parent-teacher leadership projects in Milwaukee and Chicago. The project was cited in President Clinton's America Reads Challenge as one of six parents-as-first-teachers national models.

He was selected as a senior Fulbright Scholar to Sri Lanka from 1993 through 1996 in curriculum development. Between 2004 and 2006 he worked with parent-teacher leadership teams in Iwate, Japan. "I believe in experiential learning, community building, and lots of inward and outward travel. I've been around the world six times."

He is on the faculties of Carroll College and the Walloon Institute. Jim travels widely in order to learn firsthand about other cultures and English language learning and teaching around the world.

He is an advocate for native art and has organized major exhibitions of children's writing, drawing, and sculpture. "I believe people learn by doing and reflecting on results," Jim says.