Fittingly, a week filled with midterms at Macalester was also Ed Week. From Oct. 13 – 17, MacSEE, or Macalester Students for Educational Equity, held events all over campus. The goals of Ed Week mirrored those of its parent organization: to highlight the issues of educational reform, educational equity, and other education-related topics.

“For a lot of people who don’t study education [at Macalester], we think it’s important to have an opportunity to discuss issues surrounding educational reform,” said Kelsey Larson ’16, who is one of the co-chairs of MacSEE. “We seek to create multiple forms of engagement for people who are new to the topic of education.”

On Monday, MacSEE kicked off Ed Week with a mock recess event on the Kagin Lawn, complete with a large, colorful parachute tent for students to play with. Later in the day, the group created a community art project which consisted of two pairs of eyeglasses. People were able to write on the project answers to two prompts — what they saw in education today, and what they hoped to see in education in the future.

The next day, MacSEE hosted a panel discussion on Teach for America. The panel consisted of community members, teachers, union leaders and TFA staff and continued the conversation about Teach for America’s role on Macalester’s campus. The CEO of Teach for America visited campus a few weeks ago, and last spring organizers held a “TFA Truth Tour” event, which discussed alum’s experiences with the Organization.

“This event came from a need to foster more discussion about Teach for America on campus, especially since TFA recruits heavily from Macalester,” said Eura Chang ’15, MacSEE’s other co-chair. “We felt that there wasn’t a lot of critical discussion about TFA, especially last year.”

On Wednesday, MacSEE held a screening and discussion of First Generation, a documentary that follows the lives of four first-generation college students. The film was particularly relevant for Larson and Chang, both of whom are first generation college students.

On Thursday, MacSEE invited Sarah Lahm to speak about her work as the Minnesota organizer of the National United Opt Out movement. As a whole, the organization opposes corporate education reform. Lahm spoke about parents keeping their children home on test days to oppose standardized testing.

Ed Week concluded with the Twin Cities 3rd Annual Social Justice Education Fair, which was hosted at Ben Mays International Magnet School.

Both Larson and Chang encourage anyone who is interested in education to come to MacSEE’s weekly meetings, which are held every Thursday at 9 p.m.