Re: shutdown

KEN GOODMAN (kgoodman who-is-at CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU)
Tue, 06 Aug 1996 07:00:11 -0700 (MST)

How terrible it is to contemplate the end of professional education at
the University of Chicago. Perhaps this is the logical end of the strange
dual personality the University's commitment to education has always had.
It sits in the center of Chicago yet it has never been comfortable
engaging in the reality of public education and contributing immediately
to the schools and school systems that surround it. On the otherhand its
history is the history of research and theory of education in North
America and the world. It's lab school, started by the Deweys has
pioneered innovation from that day until now with Vivian Paley's woderful
work as a teacher there. It has been home to the NSSE and it's yearbooks
since the turn of the century, has published Elementary School Journal
and School Review. Once the annual Reading Conferences were at the cutting
edge in literacy research and methodology. William S Gray, Helen Robinson
and others gave leadership to reading education.

Gray also was part of the work of the committee on the economy of time in
the first quarter of the century and subsequently the University of
Chicago was a major factor in the development of curriculum theory
including the work of Ralph Tyler.

Institutions that don't continually renew themselves can only die no
matter how great their history. We should all do what we can to urge the
reversal by the University of Chicago's abandonment of its commitment to
education but let's also learn the lesson that we must fight in all of
our academic settings for recognition of the importance of our work.

Ken Goodman