Dr.
John I. Goodlad, one of America’s most prominent educators, began his
professional career at the most basic level: teaching in a one room
schoolhouse.
For
there he worked his way up the professional ladder by teaching every grade
level possible. He has been the Dean of the U.C.L.A. Graduate School of
Education and Professor of Education and Director of the Center for Educational
Renewal at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Goodlad
published his first article in 1955. Since then he has published 30
books, two hundred journal articles, and 80 book chapters. Goodlad’s
output is prodigious, and given the wide range of subjects that he has written
about, apparently holistic in his approach and views too.
Goodlad’s
influential reputation as an educational researcher and theorist is tied to his
investigation of American schools in the early 1980’s, A Study of Schooling, that he’s most noted for. In 1983,
Goodlad published the results in a well-received book A Place Called School: Prospects for the Future.” The
exhaustive study included 38 schools, 1,016 classrooms, 1,350 teachers, 8,624
parents, and 17,163 students. The work is considered by many to be one of
the most important explorations of what goes on inside U.S. schools and classrooms.
I
briefly met John Goodlad in 1982 when he visited Northside High School of the
Atlanta Public Schools. He was being escorted around the school and
entire system by the then superintendent Dr. Alonzo Crim, who introduced
me. That was, for me, a personally meaningful moment, for I had quoted
Goodlad in my doctoral dissertation An
Evaluation of the Atlanta Public Schools Ethnic Heritage Studies Project’s
Staff Development Processes, Multiethnic Resources, and Multicultural Press; Georgia
State University, 1977. Goodlad included Northside High in his
comprehensive study.
During
the 1960’s, Goodlad was primarily concerned with the future of teaching and
education. One area was boosting new technologies in the hope that
educational delivery systems would be improved. Goodlad urged teachers
and student to utilize computers and word processing as a new and important
learning tool (Application of Electronic
Data Processing in Education Methods, 1965, California University Press; Computers and Information systems in Education,
1966,
Harcourt, Brace, World.
In
the Future of Learning and Teaching,
National Education Association, Washington, D.C., Center for the Study of
Instruction, 1968, Goodlad predicted that “the era of man-machine interaction
will replace the current era. We must identify the truly human tasks of
the human teacher and the more routine, highly programmed tasks which can be
done better by the computer…..It, school, will be replaced by a diffused
learning environment – homes with computer consoles, public parks and museums,
and an array of guidance and programming centers in which the formal process on
instruction must involve all the most able members of our society.”
Goodlad
also conducted a rigorous search for a conceptual system in which the central
problems of curriculum development and instructional innovation could be
identified and related to each other – The
Development of a Conceptual System for Dealing with Problems of Curriculum and
Instruction, 1966. He took into account the influence of values,
educational aims, and learning opportunities upon curriculum development.
A major emphasis was that one cannot legitimately deduce educational ends from
values, or learning opportunities from educational ends, simply on the basis of
logic or common sense alone.
During
the 1970’s, Goodlad wrote on a number of emerging trends, issues, and ideas:
global education, humanistic strategies and alternatives, change strategies,
networking, leadership, the effectiveness of local school boards, and
curriculum development.
In
Education for Mankind, he stated that
schools should incorporate a “unity of mankind” perspective into the elementary
curriculum. Goodlad was reflecting the trend away from an
America-centered view of the world towars a more internationalist perspective,
or an evolution of International Relations courses into Global Studies.
In
Perspective on Accountability, Phi
Delta Kappan, 57;2; 108-112, Goodlad examined Michigan’s model of educational
accountability and advised the state not to adopt it. His recommendation
was based on the fact that there appeared to be few guidelines in policy and
practice.
A
Study of Schooling: Summary of Sampling, Data, Sources, Procedures
List
of Sources: