Presentation “transcript”

I wish to begin by thanking Michael Seaman for initiating what we hope will be an annual event in the College of Education. I have been involved in many such projects, here at the university and elsewhere, and establishing “a vibrant intellectual spirit that typifies a community of scholars” is not easy. I think you now know (and knew before) how difficult it is to bring together a community for discourse. There is little of this in colleges of education throughout the country, and I appreciate Mike’s efforts [I hope not in vain], as well as those of Dean Sternberg and Van Scoy, for trying to build public spaces for the exchange of ideas. Also, I must say that I am truly, truly touched by the attendance; I had no idea that we would have so many here.  I am very hopeful and view this as the beginning for a Wardlaw community of scholars that faces many, many challenges as it transforms into an integral part of a research university.

As a recipient of the Research Award, I wish to give thanks to a variety of individuals who have been important to the scholarly atmosphere of the College. I acknowledge those who have previously received this award, all of whom would have presented brilliant lectures if afforded the opportunity: my entrusted friend and colleague of 32 years Alan Wieder; Peggy Gredler (who sends her regrets; she is teaching now); Judy Rink; Huhyn Huyhn (the most important person for this lecture. Since Huynh’s class in this room begins at 4:30, he asked that I keep my comments to 30 minutes which I have done . . . as long as I don’t dawdle); Mitch Yell; and the first recipient of the award, Lorin Anderson, an individual who has been my mentor here at the University of South Carolina. And I wish to go on the record: I use the word mentor very, very carefully. I also would like to acknowledge the important role of my wife, Mary Bull, but interestingly not as a research librarian, knowing that some of you here have called upon her services at the State Library and Cooper Library and many more have used DISCUS, South Carolina’s virtual library that she established and ran for many years. I thank Mary for challenging me and forcing me to focus my various disparate research adventures, always with the reminder, as I froth endlessly about some idea, that not that many people are as interested as I, and that the role of researcher is not just to study topics of interest but, instead, to “prove” significance. As an experienced reference librarian, Mary continues to remind me that scholarship should have a point, a sense of agency, and the role of researcher is forged, in part, WITH those who would be willing to read our work.

I

I wish to use this opportunity to establish two precedents. First, I have invited two special guests. With us is John King, former dean of the college of education and former president of Emporia State University. As happenstance, in January 1984, John and I arrived in Columbia and were assigned offices next to one another. The College of Education was, what do I say, SURREAL during those years. To allude to Hunter Thompson: The College of Education was an interesting place: one professor chewed tobacco during class; an assistant and full professor had gotten into a fistfight months before; I heard statements from professors that were sexist and racist and gay bashing; one professor was mistaken as being EMR, two of whom said the N word in front of me; and “there was ALSO a negative side.” While I could have left three years after my hiring, John allowed me to realize that our fate as educators, those who work for change and social justice, was to live in challenging settings-- not to flee from unpleasant circumstances-- a lesson applicable to all teachers. Further, his presence caused the college administration to realize that if they wished to end USC’s role as an institutional stepping stone, they must treat assistant professors in ways so that they would not want to leave. And I have not left; thank you, John King.

I have also invited Rev Thomas Norrell, who was at one time enrolled as a student in my Curriculum of Higher Education class. I learned this morning that Tom’s mother is deathly ill and he is with her now. My thoughts are with them. But I wish to read my comments so that I may note to my junior colleagues how one can never anticipate the profound influence from those you meet. Dr. Norrell has already received recognition as one of the finest graduates of the higher education doctoral program; moreover, he was my teacher - - not of fact but of significance. Anyone can teach facts, but through conversation and reflection I came to understand the meaning of being a professor in South Carolina. He helped me to see the honesty and forthrightness of the people of this state; because of Tom Norrell, I have lived here in good faith for 23 years. He also helped me to understand the state’s somewhat peculiar and endlessly interesting customs. I came here in 1984 absorbed in 15th century Italian music; South Carolina culture was easy to ridicule. Thanks to Tom, I saw otherwise. And the result: I never thought I would be embraced by an African American Pentecostal shout band or that I would befriend Gabriel at Black Paradise, Shady Grove in St. George. Thank you, Tom Norrell.
I only hope those graduate students and assistant and associate professors sitting here today may be able to identify, years from now, individuals who have made as much of a difference to them as John and Tom have made to me.

My second precedent actually pertains to the content of this lecture. I have chosen not to talk about my research passions because I will be the first to admit that my interests are not yours. And, to a degree, I think that is common among any college grouping of scholars during this time of research specialization in higher education . . . . but one that not all academics are willing to admit. I have recently analyzed over 6500 AERA’s Division B conference presentations from 1976 and 2005 with many insights about the direction, or actually lack of direction, of curriculum studies. I have had a passionate affair with the Eight Year Study, a 1930s project considered to be the most important example of American school experimentation in the 20th century. I have uncovered astonishing information about the cimbasso, bassoon russe, and buccin. But I am not going to talk about any of this because, while important to me, there is nothing that could be said in the next 21 minutes to make these topics more than an idle curiosity to you.

II

Instead, I wish to discuss the choices that we make as researchers and describe a unique decision I made, one that I do not necessarily encourage for others but still a choice worthy of consideration and discussion. While there are undergraduates here who at this point in time may not be planning a career in higher education, I would maintain that you too will become a researcher as classroom teacher. That is, all good teachers are active, productive researchers, individuals engaged in inquiry not as an instructional tool, i.e. inquiry-learning, but as an act of self-reflection and curriculum development, a point that came through very clearly in my Eight Year Study research.

Today I’m here to talk about the 18 Year Study, that is the eighteen years I gladly spent researching the Eight Year Study manuscript and, more importantly, the choice I made to embark on a life’s work. During this time of a “publish or perish” mentality and when “being prolific” is considered a compliment, we don’t think much about a life’s work - - - a project that becomes a multi-year endeavour, a profound and a defining research quest. Please don’t view this as one’s research area, those subject themes, similar to AERA’s program descriptors,  that pile up through the years. That is not what I mean, nor am I talking about a life’s work as a singular paper that gets presented, renewed, refreshed, republished, reprinted, and represented over and over for years.

Instead, I mean researching a life’s work—neither for promotion nor for tenure—but for something larger than oneself . . . as a form of service to our specific fields of scholarship and as a way to add to the collective wisdom of a community of researchers, be it elementary school classroom teachers or university academics. In 1990, Ernest Boyer published Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate where he articulated a profound redefinition of the role of scholarship, bringing into play important but then (and still now) overlooked dimensions. He discussed the scholarship of discovery, the scholarship of application, of integration, and of teaching and expanded what research could and should accomplish. I wish to draw upon his efforts by identifying what I have chosen—an 18 years study—as an example of the service of scholarship. This is not the conventional service component of ones university role, those duties that are begrudgingly accepted or avoided by professors. Nor is it national service comprised of volunteering for conference committees or preparing SIG newsletters. What I am calling the service of scholarship is much more.
One example is William Schubert and the late Ann Lopez Schubert’s massive bibliographic study, Curriculum Books: The First 80 Years, published in 1980 at 371 pages and providing the most comprehensive overview of the field of general curriculum. After this publication, the Schuberts’ continued writing many essays, articles and books. Bill published the finest synoptic text in the curriculum field and Ann wrote in the arts and humanities while also providing adventurous company for a community of scholars. But in 2002, they released Curriculum Books: the First 100 Years, a 608 page tome, an even more considerable undertaking caused by the exponential rise of publications during the intervening years. They did not have to continue their bibliographic research even though they were well aware of the importance of the first collection. The task was thankless, but it fulfilled their feelings of gratitude to the countless number of authors whose books they had read. In essence, the Schuberts’ life work was a  reclamation of knowledge, reminding contemporary audiences of the many important scholarly contributions that had been made before. This was the service of scholarship that they willingly accepted - - partly by temperament (they were great at being comprehensive) and partly from a sense of duty, a sense of service, to the field of curriculum.

Coming upon a topic for a life’s work, then, becomes self-directed and somewhat self-determined. How does one contribute to the ongoing dialogue of a field of study? Does this occur by changing the conversation to focus upon one’s own passing interest or, obviously, by learning of those unsolved issues and lingering questions that appear in the literature and that remerge when scholars engage in true discourse? I acknowledge that this has become more difficult to determine during our postmodern times of constructed truths and self-proclaimed expertise where any sense of “common learnings” is elusive if not non-existent. Nonetheless, there remain the remnants – or at least organizational structures - - of fields of study, and every area of inquiry has its perennial questions that transcend contemporary fads, those larger than life dilemmas: the Millennium Problems in mathematics, aspects of causality in the field of history, issues of creativity in the arts and literature. Further, there are in each field forgotten heroes and heroines worthy of study; myths, good and bad, that have turned into legend with little reference to facts; normative claims that have never been proven but instead are assumed by mere conjecture.

For me, this was the Eight Year Study, a topic that would transcend the areas of curriculum, administration, policy & change, evaluation, and teacher education: a legendary project that produced the educational leaders of the second half of the 20th century; an experiment that allegedly had little impact on school practice since it did not overturn forces that really could never be altered; a program that had been reduced to a few mottos and miscued findings; and a study whose director was often misidentified and, if correctly stated, his name was typically misspelled. The topic was sitting there—the subject of many dissertations—but never grasped as a real research project. As I carefully listened to comments and read accounts, I sensed that the story of the 8YS (the title of the 1942 summary report) had yet to be told.

In 1989, after receiving tenure and promotion, I decided to explore the Eight Year Study and to consider if I could begin the archival chase of bringing together materials from over 40 locations. As Bill and Ann Schubert have distinguished themselves with their thoroughness as bibliographers, I am a tracker—quite frankly, one of the best in the field of education, if I do say so myself. Leave me in a room full of books and papers for five hours, and I can find what needs to be found. During the years I came upon six unknown memoirs; I found stashes of materials that no knew still existed. By 1991, I was convinced that this would be my life’s work. It did not become my yearly conference paper. My first AERA paper on the 8YS occurred in 1990; during the next 15 years and 35 AERA presentations dealing with a variety of topics, I presented my 8YS research only twice more (actually, just trying to sense from the audience whether my interpretations were too crazed). In 1998, I was getting lonely and wanted someone to share the adventure. That is when I invited a graduate school colleague, Robert Bullough, to co-author the manuscript with me, believing correctly that he would add greatly to the analysis for contemporary school reform and renewal. Writing together and forging a common style was not without its difficulties; however, our work is so much better from our frank and honest discourse. Bullough added greatly to my scholarship prior to 1998, and his companionship strengthened my resolve—the Eight Year Study research became even more important. Further, Bullough came to realize that he too was living a 32 year life’s quest. Last autumn he said to me that little did we know that the Eight Year Study was our destiny; that we were meant to write this book.

III

Deciding to devote a career to such a massive undertaking was never unnerving. In fact, I felt somewhat exalted especially since, in the late 1980s, I was meeting so many unhappy emeriti professors. As curator of the Museum of Education I was spending an exorbitant amount of time building what became one of the finest archival education collections in the country. And as I cheerfully met one nationally-acclaimed professor after another, all of whom had surpassed anything that I would ever hope to achieve during my career, I noticed that most of them were miserable. They had completed one publication after another but were never satisfied. Their common refrain: no one seemed to understand or appreciate how important their work had been. That is when I realized that rattling off the number of books, chapters, and articles really means little. A fulfilling research career was one that devoted itself to a topic larger than life, a topic that many others wished was being addressed by someone.

I felt some degree of duty so that writing about the Eight Year Study served as a way to honor members of an intellectual community whose work had been so important to me. I was indebted to a group of progressive educators from the 1930s, linked through my doctoral advisor, Paul Klohr, and from friendship with my elders: Margaret Willis, Lou LaBrant, Robert Gilchrist, Ralph Tyler, and others. What defined these individuals - - what each described as their most profound professional experience - - - was the Eight Year Study. As I became more and more intrigued by the project, I quickly realized that I would be spending years visiting school sites around the United States. No foundation was ever going to fund my travels. That didn’t matter; this was honorable work.

Researching the Eight Year Study never proved overwhelming. There was no pressing deadline; if I spent 10 years or 20 years, it made no difference (of course, I continued with other writing projects and presentations). I came to realize, similar to the Eight Year Study participants who embraced their faith in school experimentation - - that good was going to come from my research whatever that would be. I had faith that unlimited time permitted an expansiveness that would lead to something special, that I would make meaning from the experience. Others could research the topic and, in fact, my second AERA presentation led to one educational historian becoming so enthused that he wrote three papers and proposed a book on the topic. Fine; it didn’t matter. Biographical research taught me that there can be many wonderful accounts of a person’s life. Albeit, there may be only one “factual account” of the 8YS, but I was not going to waste my career on merely reporting facts. Time allows one to become engulfed in a topic where significance fuels the flame, creating a passion that caused me quite willingly to spend Saturdays and Sundays and week nights and summers reading transcripts from 1930s classrooms and poring through grant reports of the Study. Unlimited time—somewhat unheard of in education, don’t you think—brings unusual dimensions to a project.

I had learned to write a dissertation prior to 1984, and I was becoming an adequate essayist during my assistant professorship years. But I had to learn how to write a book, and for that I learned patience as I reviewed material over and over, seeing new facts and insights leading to novel realizations. I’ve always maintained that repetition is one of the most unappreciated dimensions of learning and is too often seen as a form of failure in our schools. In fact, repetition allows for the recognition of nuance. I’ve just spent two months rehearsing a music concert where I sat through pieces 50 times and the entire program for nine full runs. Something new always occurred. The material was the same but slightly different on every occasion. And, of course, we all have the experience of seeing a movie for a second or third time - - with new insights arising from a more comprehensive perspective of the entire film. The same occurred for me when I continue to look at 8YS documents and review again and again to oral history interviews.

Our book, originally entitled With Adventurous Company, is not the definitive statement of the Eight Year Study. It’s not even the history of the Study. But its significance for contemporary school reform and renewal comes forth. What is our contribution; what came from my 18 years of work: articulating a basic moral framework underpinning the Eight Year Study: trust in the ability of teachers and school administrators to reason through complex issues towards sensible and worthy conclusions; belief in democracy as a guiding social ideal, a basis for a community of investigation and endeavor; and faith in thoughtful inquiry, including school experimentation, to create ways of making education more life-enhancing for students and teachers. The significance of the Eight Year Study is found in its commitment to school experimentation. In fact, the Progressive Education Association recognized that all school faculties should be actively engaged in such exploration to then pursue their own adventures in teaching and learning, and our book re-emphasizes experimentation as a basic and foundational need, not a luxury, for students and teachers and for the future of extraordinary education in America.

Well, there is much more to say about an 18 year study but, for the record, I will proclaim that I did this willingly. And it is over; my research quest was never a psychological drama of whether I could let go of a project that had taken on its own mythic dimensions. There was no writing block or fear of failure; it just took this long. There are a few statements I would like to change, but that’s always the case with any publication. My 18 year study was never going to be a 19 year study. I received criticism and quite a bit of ridicule from some colleagues for taking so long. But I knew better. Bullough and I have brought to life an era of American education that otherwise would have been lost. If I had rushed to publish this book in 1998, as I could have easily done, it would have been completely different in terms of tone and direction (and publisher). The rest of my career would have been filled with emptiness of knowing what could have been but was not done. Instead, I have finished my life’s work, and during my emeriti years IF you see me around Wardlaw muttering, it IS NOT due to any regrets from not accomplishing more in the area of scholarship.