Jan Arnow is an internationally recognized authority on multicultural education, violence abatement, prejudice reduction, and leadership, and is a highly respected and award winning author of eight books and scores of articles for a variety of national magazines. She was the founder and Executive Director of both Stand and Be Counted, a national grassroots community mobilization organization that provides consulting services to progressive campaigns, and the Institute to Prevent Youth Violence. Her books include Teaching Peace: Raising Kids in Harmony Without Fear, Without Prejudice, Without Violence, published in September 1995 by Putnam Group Publishers, and Safe School Strategies, published by Parlay International in 2001. She also authored the comprehensive peace curriculum for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Steps Along the Way: Living as Peacemakers in a Violent World, which was distributed to 11,500 congregations in 2003. Her teaching experience ranges from workshops to university courses. She has developed and successfully taught pilot programs both regionally and nationally on various issues of creativity and education, cross-cultural communication, multicultural education and violence abatement. Her speaking and consulting engagements have included such museums as the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, California, the American Academies of Psychoanalysis and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry as well as many universities and school systems, not-for-profit organizations and corporations throughout the country. She addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on the issues of children and violence in 1996, and has been interviewed on numerous radio and television programs including NPR’s Morning Edition and New York’s Channel One. She has also been a consultant for the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. on issues relating to the education of migrant children. Her continuing work in grassroots program development and child advocacy, particularly for at-risk children, has made her a sought-after speaker and consultant on matters of political mobilization, violence abatement, multicultural education and prejudice reduction. Articles on her and her work have appeared in many regional and national publications.
For three years in the 1990s, she was the Director of Multicultural Education at the Kentucky Department of Education during their historic school reform. As part of her responsibilities at the Department, she defined multicultural education for the Commonwealth during their landmark school reform; created policy guidelines for implementation of a multicultural curriculum; designed and implemented state-wide multicultural education workshop/training matrices and conferences; and worked closely with both Department and district personnel to bring them up to operability on multicultural instruction.
She established the Institute for the Prevention of Youth Violence in Louisville, Kentucky (formerly known as the Institute for Intercultural Understanding) in the 1980s, an organization involved nationally and internationally in fostering understanding about the causes of youth violence and providing relevant violence abatement solutions. Under her direction, the Institute began an international program titled Voiceless Victims, a project documenting the effects on children of conflict, violence and war shown in their drawings and poetry.
Arnow’s work has received funding from two unique entertainment products -- a benefit recording from Columbia Records created just for this project called ‘Til Their Eyes Shine -- The Lullaby Album (released July, 1992), and the companion film, Child of Mine -- The Lullaby Video, first broadcast on the Disney Channel in December 1992 and winner of the CableAce Award for Best musical special on cable television during 1993. This recording and film feature prominent vocalists including Carole King, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash, Dionne Warwick, Brenda Russell, Gloria Estefan and others performing lullabies, many of which were composed for this album.
She is currently working on several new books and projects.
