Kathleen Cushman: Writer and speaker, raising youth voicesAs a journalist and documentarian, I collaborate with diverse youth around the U.S. and abroad, bringing their voices directly to bear on the complex challenges that affect their lives and learning. As a speaker and presenter, I work with educational institutions to connect the direct input of youth with promising practices in secondary schools and colleges.I bring forty years of experience and new learning to this work. Most of my work since 2001 is for What Kids Can Do (WKCD.org), the nonprofit I co-founded with Barbara Cervone, but I also regularly speak, consult, and write for organizations around the country.Starting as a printer's devil in my high school years, over four decades I've worn every hat in publishing: writer, editor, and publisher for newspapers, magazines, and books in many fields. Reporting on national high school change from 1988 to 2001 gave me a solid grasp of educational issues and an active network of people in the forefront of that field. Teaching first-year writing at Harvard trained me to coach young people to think deeply and to free up and discipline their voices. Helping to start a progressive public secondary school in Massachusetts in 1995 gave me hands-on experience in setting the bar high for all students.In the past decade, for WKCD, I have traveled the U.S. and abroad collecting the voices of youth, then bringing their words into print and mixed-media forms. Grounded in the rough and subtle realities of adolescence, these voices cut close to the bone -- illuminating "best practices" in education, and revealing the fault lines that divide students along lines of class, color, and money. I aim to bring young people's vivid experiences and insights to an even wider audience, by speaking, writing, and collaborating with you who share a commitment to equity, opportunity, and powerful learning for all.I live and work in New York City.