Utah's Republic

John Goodlad

Bill Ayers

University of Washington.

University of Illinois, Chicago

Earned a Ph.D. and was on the faculty

Currently on the faculty

Published over 30 books, 80 book chapters, and more than 200 journal articles about education reform.

Written at least 23 books on education reform

Author of Toward a Mankind School: An Adventure in Humanistic Education

“The curriculum of the future ‘will be what one might call the humanistic curriculum.’” (John Goodlad, NEA Journal 1966)

“For humanists and democratic educators, the largest, most generous purpose of education is always human enlightenment and human liberation, and the driving principle is the unity of all humanity. We embrace the conviction that every human being is of incalculable value.” (Ayers commentary of Eugenics and Education, July 2008)

Author of Education and the Making of a Democratic People with Roger Soder and Bonnie McDaniel

Goodlad says we will not have the schools we need, “until community leaders, educators and policymakers agree on the democratic purpose of public schooling and work together toward its advancement.” (Seattle pi opinion, November 28, 2008, Judging the Bush years: Well-educated or much-schooled?)

Enculturating the Young into a Social and Political Democracy (Developing Democratic Character in the Young)

Agenda for Education in a Democracy (AED) (Teacher training to advance democracy training, National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER)

Bill Ayers, “The State of Democracy in America: Education Reform and Civic Engagement”

In the 1960’s belonged to Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in Chicago which eventually became the Weather Underground under Ayer’s leadership, a terrorist organization to revolutionize America.

“Capitalism promotes racism and militarism – turning people into consumers, not citizens. Participatory democracy, by contrast, requires free people coming together voluntarily as equals who are capable of both self-realization and, at the same time, full participation in a shared political and economic life.”(2006 speech at the World Education Forum, Venezuela with President Hugo Chavez)

Goodlad wrote, “A century has passed since the prescient educational historian Ellwood Cubberley wrote the epigraph with which this writing began: “Each year the child is coming to belong more to the State and less and less to the parent.”

“My only disagreement with his observation pertains to the implication of our owning children. We parents do not own our children; we just rent them for a while. Given the extent to which what he was troubled about has expanded, however, his reference to state ownership may well be appropriate.”

(2010, Washington Post, Goodlad on school reform: Are we ignoring lessons of last 50 years?

In Praise of Education (John Dewey Lecture Series)

Earned John Dewey Society Outstanding Achievement Award (2009)

Ayers said, “John Dewey was one of the brilliant, brilliant writers about what democratic education would look like and was himself an independent socialist. (October 2006 interview of Bill Ayers in Revolution (the self-styled “Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA”)

“Schooling is a practical, political affair.” (Developing Democratic Character in the Young)

“The state we should strive for is better described in Deweyan terms as a social democracy.” (John Goodlad, 2001: Developing Democratic Character in the Young)

“…the separation of the concept of progressive education from the concept of politics and political change. You can’t separate them.” (2006 interview with Bill Ayers, Voice of Revolutionary Communist Party, USA)

“Parents do not own their children. They have no ‘natural right’ to control their education fully.” (Developing Democratic Character in the Young, pp. 164.)

“Most youth still hold the same values of their parents…if we do not alter this pattern, if we don’t resocialize, our system will decay.” (Education Innovation, Issue 9.)

Wrote The Moral Dimensions of Teaching with Roger Soder and Kenneth Sirotnik

“Educators must resist the quest for certainty. If there were certainty there would be no scientific advancement. So it is with morals and patriotism.” (Education for Everyone, p. 6.)

Wrote Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom

“Even though we think of ourselves as political, we weren’t politicians. We were people who had a moral vision of what was possible.” (At a 2007 reunion of former members of the Weather Underground and Students for a Democratic Society)

“It is my expectation that Teacher Education for Democracy and Social Justice will become a rich resource for continuing this multi-layered conversation-from democratic belief to democratic action-that is the hallmark of educational renewal.” (Goodlad’s forward to Teacher Education for Democracy and Social Justice, Nicholas Michelli and David Lee Keiser)

Wrote Education in and for Democracy: The Case for Social Justice in the Classroom

Teaching for Social Justice: A Democracy and Education Reader (1998)

“I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position—and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice.”(Bill Ayers’ 2006 speech at the World Education Forum in Caracas, Venezuela in front of Pres. Hugo Chavez).

Goodlad’s best known book, A Place Called School (1984), received the Outstanding Book of the Year Award from the American Educational Research Association and the Distinguished Book of the Year Award. He is a past president of the American Educational Research Association and, in 1993, received that organization’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to Educational Research.

In 1997 Chicago recognized him as Citizen of the Year because of his key role in advancing educational reform in the city’s public schools.

Ayers was elected Vice President for Curriculum Studies by the American Educational Research Association in 2008.

“Schooling is a practical, political affair.” (Developing Democratic Character in the Young)

“It was clear a year later that health care and schooling were high on President Obama’s action agenda.” The nation’s cultural readiness for a long-overdue great turning—might come to pass.

“Clearly, there must be a great turning in schooling. The new will not evolve out of what we have now or try to fix. It is not broken. Indeed, it is very stable and solid, guided by ideologies that will not be disturbed, no matter what the evidence to their contrary.

“What we must do now nationwide is begin the 20-or-more-year process of creating a new tomorrow.

“Education is the great equalizer. Unfortunately, in policy, family, community, the marketplace, institutions, and more, it turns out not to be.” (2010 Washington Post article by Goodlad)

“A standardized curriculum of basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic cannot prepare people to participate in a democracy.” ”Enlightened social engineering is required to face situations that demand global action now.”

(John Goodlad, Preface to J.M. Becker: Schooling for a Global Age)

“We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution… overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.” (Bill Ayers’ 2006 speech at the World Education Forum in Caracas, Venezuela in front of Pres. Hugo Chavez).

“Education either reinforces or challenges the existing social order, and school is always a contested space…” (2006 Speech, Venezuela)

“Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education– a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation.” (2006 Speech, Venezuela)

“Education—teaching and schooling—either reinforces or challenges the existing social order. For humanists and democratic educators, the largest, most generous purpose of education is always human enlightenment and human liberation, and the driving principle is the unity of all humanity.”

(Bill Ayers.wordpress.com, review of Eugenics and Education by Ann Winfeild)