Faculty Profile

Joeritta de Almeida

Assistant Professor
(617)879-2363
jdealmeida@wheelock.edu

B.A. 1966, State University of New York at Fredonia, M.Ed. Boston College, 1968, Instructor-Director, 1984 Rio Abierto Institute, Buenos Aires, Argentina, M.Ed., 2000, Ed.D, 2005 Harvard Graduate School of Education

Joeritta Jones de Almeida received her M.Ed. and Ed.D. from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She also has a M.Ed. in Urban Education from Boston College, and holds teaching certificates in Elementary Education and Secondary Social Studies. She completed a course as instructor-director of a comprehensive system of Harmonious Human Development that uses body-mind techniques, at the Rio Abierto (Open River) institute in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In Boston, she is the founding Director of the Open River/ Rio Abierto System in the USA. While living in Brazil, she started a “school without walls” project that consisted of educational activities in public spaces such as parks and museums. This eventually led to the formation and construction of a small private school with five other educators in a small town in the mountains outside of Rio de Janeiro. The school, CEPE, is now over 30 years old and includes grades K-12. She completed a study on what activists in a grassroots organization mean when they use the term “empowerment,” and how does the meaning relate to how they see themselves, others and their organization. Currently her research interests focus on the implications of body-mind orientation of self-development for teacher education and how the self-development of the teacher informs his/her pedagogy.