Legacies Goodlad Notes

Goodlad, J. I. (1990). Teachers for our nation's schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Chapter 3: Legacies

·      "In its rhetoric, our society values teachers, but little is done to ensure that individuals attracted to teaching will find conditions conductive to staying (p. 70)."

·      A History of "Not Quite"

o   Normal Schools

§  "It (teacher training) was born out of intimacy with the public schools, for which teachers needed no clearly defined preparation (p. 72)."

§  Elementary teachers were and still are primarily female.

§  The original teacher education programs were the normal schools. Normal schools were the secondary and the "higher education" preparation for teachers, whose preparation was no different than other students.

§  Normal schools became extinct around the 1940s.

o   Regional Public Universities: An Era of Transition

§  Regional public universities evolved from normal schools.

o   Beacon Schools of Education and the Rise of Research

§  Teacher education was and is perceived to be a non-intellectual task.

§  "Alas, a widespread complaint of teachers and future teachers is that teachers of teachers are less than experts in the teaching craft and often fail to practice what they preach (p. 75)."

§  The focus of these institutions is research. It is preferred over teaching and receives more accolade than recognition for outstanding teaching.

§  "Transition from much to little attention to teacher education appears to be a rite of passage for all schools of education seeking national recognition - a transition comparable to that of normal schools that became regional universities (p. 76)."

o   Liberal Arts Colleges

§  "When there are large introductory classes, they are likely to be taught by professors and not teaching assistants - although this may be less true than in the past (p. 81)."

§  "Academe is not without its share of people so skillful with the verbal stiletto that the victim is scarcely aware of having been cut until the blood spurts (p. 82)."

o   Regional Private Universities

·      An Unclear Mission

·      Keepers of the Gates

o   "At best, however, licenses denote only minimum competency, and they are unable to predict human behavior (p. 97)."

o   Part of the reason of the low status of teacher education is its connection to females. Since it is seen as the preparation for a female occupation, it is perceived to be of lower class than preparation for other occupations whose workforce is predominately male.

o   "Alongside these circumstances was the general view that elementary teachers, in particular, did not need to know much that one teacher could not pass easily to another (p. 104)."

·      Reform and Reformers

·      Concluding Comments