TECHNOS

November 20, 2008

Special Feature: Audio File

In addition to this important interview, you can read our TECHNOS Quarterly Interview with Dr. Goodlad.

Educational reformer and author of A Place Called School, JOHN GOODLAD is director of the Center For Educational Renewal at the University of Washington.

Our interviewer is Phil Harris, former director of Professional Development for Phi Delta Kappa and currently executive director of Association for Educational Communications & Technology. This interview with Dr. Goodlad is featured in AIT's professional development series, John I. Goodlad: New Schools, New Teachers and is brought to you by TECHNOS.

You've devoted your entire career to education and the reform of education. What have you learned from your experience with school reform that is helpful in understanding the current movement? Dr. John Goodlad, left, with interviewer, Phil Harris	On the three things he's learned from education reform through the years: ? “One of the things you learn is that good things keep recycling. If it's a good idea, if it doesn't make it this time, it'll make it next time.” (RT=00:33) ?“The other thing is that you learn and it's discouraging - is that you're always getting newcomers on the scene for the recycling process.” (RT=00:31) ?“Third and most important thing I'd identify ? would be, it doesn't matter ? how many policies you lay down from on high, when it comes right down to it, the individual school has an incredible capacity for rejecting it passively, or taking it on and doing something about it.” (RT=00:59) On the time it takes to effect change in school (RT=00:25) “I wish we could, because the thing that's blocking school change more than anything right now is time.” On restructuring: (RT=00:17) “Restructuring has been a popular word for a long time, and yet we're asking teachers to create the schools for the 21st Century while they keep the present ones going on the same 180 days per year.”
What have been some of your major concerns over the years, in school reform?	On misplacing of educational values in this country: (RT=01:28) “I think it is the intensive cycles of seeing the need to use our schools in some sort of instrumental way.”
Is the movement that's been going on in the past few years toward empowering teachers ?going to be promising?	On the empowerment of teacher: (RT=02:03) “Absolutely critical. ? There is fundamental agreement that the way to bring about change is school by school, by empowering the principals and the teachers.”
Will our current attitude toward assessment affect this process that you've just described?	On new forms of student assessment: (RT=00:30) “There's some wonderful thinking going on in assessment that's quite different than in the past.” (portfolios, exhibitions of learning) On the evils of norm-based tests: (RT=01:38) “I think it just absolutely one of the worst things that could have happened is that the national assessment ? is being converted.”
You do believe that there is some hope in the future with regard to getting this anchor cut off from us of norm-referenced testing.	On eliminating standardized, norm-referenced testing in the schools: (RT=01:20) “I think it's going to be a hard, hard struggle because it is so much in line with Western linear rationality.” “Standardized, norm-referenced testing gives us absolutely no diagnosis of the ills of the American educational system” (RT=00:07)
And is it also keeping us from seriously looking at the issue of curriculum reform?	On teacher responses to standardized testing: (RT=00:58) “Teachers know where the rewards are - and if the rewards are going to be that we have our school at the 80th percentile, they're not going to turn their backs on that.”
If you could put yourself 20 years into the future, what would you hope people would be saying about schools and educational reform?	On public schools in the future: (RT=02:01) “About public schooling, I'd want to say, ‘Why should I send my child to a private school when the public schools are so good?’”
What advice would you give to educators and others interested in expanding their efforts in the area of school reform? Dr. John Goodlad, left, with interviewer, Phil Harris	On the moral responsibility to participate in school reform: (RT=01:10) “You have a moral responsibility as a steward of the schools to participate in school renewal - you cannot be an observer. ? As a teacher, you have a responsibility for all the children in the school.”
If you could respond to the question of what you believe the purpose of education to be, could you do it in a brief sentence or two?	On the purpose of education: (RT=01:15) “To cultivate the sensibilities and sensitivities of the individual to the highest possible level - every individual.”
I would think, from what you just described, that might be very hard to assess with a pencil and paper exercise and a multiple-choice format.	On predicting success in school: (RT=00:54) “The most powerful predictor of success in school is the educational level of the parents. ? It's the greatest predictor we have.” On academically talented kids and meaningful information: (RT=00:29) “What about schooling had made a difference in their lives? Only that which was meaningful at the time which they encountered it.”
What advice would you give to people who are currently engaged in the training and preparation of teachers? Who would like to get involved or to fundamentally change the way in which they're doing business?	On getting involved in training teachers: (RT=01:43) “First of all, identify who should be involved in the decision-making process?” (disciplines, department, subjects, levels) On sunsetting the old teacher-education program at university level: (RT=01:04) “Critical: Sunset the existing program. ? What does that do? It forces you to design a new program.”

Click here to access the Center for Educational Renewal.