Vito Perrone Sr., a nationally acclaimed educator, leader and author, passed away on Aug. 24, 2011 due to congestive heart failure. He was 78.
Throughout his truly influential career, Perrone was an advocate of humanistic and regimentation-free public education. He believed that education should focus less on standardized testing and more on promoting children’s natural love of learning.
Perrone earned his bachelor’s degree in history at the Michigan State University College of Arts & Letters, and was also named an All-American wrestler and a Big Ten Wrestling Champion. Shortly after graduation, he served in the U.S. Army, and then returned MSU, where he earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. Simultaneously, he began his career as an educator at Lansing Eastern High School, his alma mater, where he taught social studies and coached wrestling.
From 1962-68, Perrone was hired at Northern Michigan University as an associate professor of history and Dean of Common Learning and Graduate Studies. Immediately after, he joined the faculty at the University of North Dakota as Dean of New School of Behavioral Studies in Education and Dean of the Center for Teaching and Learning. In 1986, he became vice president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Two years later, at Harvard University, he served as director of Teacher Education and chair of the Teaching, Curriculum, and Learning Environments Program.
Perrone might be best known for coordinating the North Dakota Study Group from 1972-2000. These annual meetings were important loci for national critical discussions of teaching and learning, with an emphasis on recording evidence of student learning. Regular participants included faculty from the MSU College of Education, such as professor emeritus Jay Featherstone and Sharon Feiman Nemser.
During his lifetime, Perrone was regarded as a leader and a hero by educators across the nation. In 1998, he received the Fourth Annual Global Citizen Award from the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, and in 2001 he was the Theodore R. Sizer Senior Lecturer on Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He will always be remembered for his devotion and outstanding contributions to the field of education.
A memorial for Perrone will take place on Dec. 3 at the Boston Arts Academy, where selections of his published writing will be read. Perrone wrote many education books, including A Letter to Teachers: Reflections on Schooling and the Art of Teaching, Lessons for New Teachers and the 101 Conversations to Have series.
Gifts in Perrone’s memory can be made to the Aphasia Community Group of Boston, c/o Jerome H. Kaplan, M.A., CCC-SLP, Sargent College, Boston University, 635 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215.