Lindsay France/University Photography

Scott Sherman, executive director of the Transformative Action Institute, gave three workshops and lectures to the Cornell and local community to explain innovative approaches to social change, which are being adopted by the newly named CRESP Center for Transformative Action. Copyright © Cornell University

Employing a blend of the inspirational and the improvisational, Scott Sherman, executive director of the Transformative Action Institute (TAI), led about 100 people through an introduction to his educational model, "Teaching to Transform the World: An Innovative Approach to Education," in Alice Statler Auditorium on Oct. 26.

Sherman's program is based on his work in developing TAI, a nonprofit group that trains college students in innovative social change strategies. The approach is being adopted by the newly named CRESP Center for Transformative Action. Sherman said his model is analogous to "Teach for America" and that he would like to have "transform America" advocates teaching students across the nation in the use of transformative action skills, "unlocking new, creative routes to social change."

He urged his audience "to pursue your life's dreams, your passions; to start an organization for social change, to become social entrepreneurs, to become the innovators, visionaries and problem solvers of the 21st century."

Paraphrasing Walt Whitman's "The Learned Astronomer" and drawing from his own experience working to reform gang members in southern California, Sherman stressed the importance of experiential education.

"The gang members that I was working with had seen homicides, they had seen lots of acts of prostitution, drug transactions … and many of them had never seen the stars," he said. Convinced that the right experience could change the lives of the gang members, Sherman took the group to Sequoia National Park to gaze at the stars and giant redwood trees in order to gain an appreciation of nature.

Sherman's talk was the third in a series of events sponsored by the CRESP Center for Transformative Action.

Jack Hoge '07 is a writer intern with the Cornell Chronicle.