Wesley Null

 

Forgotten Heroes of American Education:

The Great Tradition of Teaching Teachers

edited by

J. Wesley Null, Baylor University

Diane Ravitch, New York University

This book is titled Forgotten Heroes of American Education because it contains representative writings by significant educators who challenged mainstream thinking. The editors of this volume believe that the work of these thoughtful and important educators deserves to be remembered. They have been forgotten because in the great pedagogical battles of the twentieth century, they lost. They argued on behalf of a well-educated teaching profession, a coherent academic curriculum, and clearly defined standards. Time and again, they found themselves in conflict with the leaders of the education profession, who had fallen in love with romantic or political theories that diminished the value of teachers, curriculum, and standards. Time and again, they battled with their Progressivist colleagues over the purpose and goals of elementary and secondary education. Because they lost the arguments, their role as leaders and thinkers was almost completely ignored by historians of education, who identified with the winners.

We think this was a grand mistake, for the ideas of men such as William Chandler Bagley and Isaac Kandel about curriculum, philosophy, teacher education, student discipline, educational ideals, and the purpose of schooling continue to be pertinent today, perhaps even more pertinent today than ever before. Today, we would call them traditionalists, for they understood the great tradition of education in which they worked. Yet they were by no means reactionaries or old fogies. They did not romanticize “the good old days.” They had a clear understanding of what needed to be changed as well as what should be preserved. To their credit, they were never swept up by the fads and follies that periodically captivated their colleagues. It is for these reasons that this volume, written to honor their legacy, is called Forgotten Heroes of American Education.

——————

“Few aspects of educational reform are more crucial than improving the quality of teacher education. Null and Ravitch have gathered an impressive collection of essays from a group of pedagogical “dissidents” who, for almost a century, have advocated a different approach to teacher education than the one that has led to our current educational morass. This book should be required reading not just for teachers and teacher educators, but for anyone concerned about the future of education in this country.”
—Jeffrey Mirel, Professor of Educational Studies and Professor of History, University of Michigan

——————-

“This splendid collection reminds me of a friend’s shelf: ‘Books banned by the Nazis,’ containing Freud, Marx, Kafka, Brecht, and a host of other outstanding thinkers and writers—much better authors than the ones the Nazis permitted. Is the analogy far fetched? Not entirely. Just as those earlier book-banners labeled authors ‘Un-German,’ so our schools of education now think it sufficient to label authors ‘traditional’ to consign them to oblivion—even when the writers gathered here aren’t currently traditional at all. In today’s education world, the writers in this collection are radical. This book contains some of the most profound writing about education that our country has produced.”
—E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Best-selling author of Cultural Literacy and Founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation

——————–

“Forgotten Heroes is a refreshing, provocative and timely contribution to the deliberations and debates about the future of teacher education. It is highly stimulating to read the work of “anti-progressivists” like Bagley, Kandel—and John Dewey himself, who was shocked by some of the excesses of his disciples and acolytes. Null and Ravitch have made a superb contribution to our policy and practice discussions of teacher education by reviving the work of these ‘forgotten heroes.’”
—Lee S. Shulman, President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

More here.