A

GOODLAD, JOHN I. 1920-

DEAN, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

A Teacher's Teacher

John Goodlad, author of a landmark 1980s study of American education titled A Place Called School, began his teaching career in a rural one-room school. Since that time he has taught at every grade level from first grade through advanced graduate work. During the quarter-century preceding the 1980s, he inquired into the nature of schooling at all levels in more than ten countries. As dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles, he read the numerous reports published in the late 1970s that contended that American education had gone seriously wrong. Dissatisfied with their alarmist tone and simplistic suggestions, Goodlad set out to write a study of schooling that identified what was actually going on in American schools. Because he believed that most school improvement efforts "founder on reefs of ignorance" and therefore inspire reforms that are merely cosmetic, he insisted on gathering "thick descriptions" of schools—composites of observations by students, teachers, parents, principals, and trained observers.

Scope of the Study

Goodlad directed more than twenty trained investigators who went to communities all over the country to collect information on every aspect of schooling. The sample of schools studied was enormously diverse in regard to size, family income, and racial com-position of the student bodies. Although only thirty-eight schools were examined, the data came from 8,624 parents, 1,350 teachers, and 17,163 students. For the first time ever, researchers examined and made detailed observations of more than one thousand classrooms. The descriptions raised questions about schooling and suggested many patterns of teaching and learning common to most schools.

What Were Schoolrooms Like?

The picture was not particularly rosy. Researchers learned that classes, at all levels, "tended NOT to be marked with exuberance, joy, laughter, praise and corrective support of individual student performance." Although the elements commonly regarded as positive were observed in early elementary grades, a decline set in by the upper elementary grades and continued through the secondary years, with a sharp drop at the junior-high-school level. Students at all levels were passive, listening to their teachers and spending a good deal of time just waiting for the teacher to hand out materials or to tell them what to do.

Different Approaches

Effective instructional practices were found more often in high-tracked classes (those with more-advanced students); indeed, students in the lower tracks were the least likely to experience the types of instruction most highly associated with achievement. For example, in high-track classes teachers were much more likely to express clearly their expectations for students, and they were perceived by students to be more enthusiastic in their teaching. Students in high-track classes also saw their teachers as more concerned about them and less punitive toward them. In general, profound similarities existed: students in the high tracks in schools all over the country were experiencing quite similar curricular content, instructional practices and human relationships in their classes; the same was true for the low tracks.

Conclusions

Goodlad concluded that the thirty-eight schools in the study "received children differentially ready for learning, educated them differentially in their classrooms, and graduated them differentially prepared for further education, employment, and, presumably, vocational and social mobility." The 17,163 students in the study had quite different opportunities to gain access to knowledge during their years of schooling. At least some of these differences, it appears, were "differentially associated with economic status and racial identification." The schools reflected the surrounding social and economic order; therefore, "the home advantaged or disadvantaged the child in enormously significant ways—especially in the acquisition of language, attitudes toward others, and social and economic values."

Reform Suggestions

Goodlad saw that the schools in the 1980s were "reproducing and perpetuating in practice inequalities of the surrounding society." Teaching practices reflected the well-established notion that there are winners and losers in learning and that teachers require only common sense and not much professional preparation. If these conditions were to be changed, Goodlad suggested, teachers must begin with the optimistic pedagogical assumption that nearly all children can learn—given appropriate support, corrective feedback, and time. Teachers must be trained to display their excellence, he said, not by failing a third of the class but by bringing an overwhelming percentage of children to mastery of the material. Real reform, according to Goodlad, must begin with teacher reform: they must first be convinced that all students can learn, then they must receive from their districts full support for staff development.

Goodlad's Influence

Goodlad's picture of schooling in America was clear: pedagogy and curriculum were worlds apart, and only joining schools of education with schools of liberal arts was likely to remedy the situation. Indeed, Goodlad's study motivated many teacher-training institutions to rethink their requirements. By the end of the 1980s many schools demanded that future teachers get a degree in their subject matter first, then be trained in pedagogy. Also, Goodlad observed that many teachers were frustrated, burned out, uncertain as to what was expected of them, and suffering from low morale. He gave impetus to another major reform movement of the 1980s when he suggested eliminating the "flatness" of the teaching profession—the situation in which the motivated teacher who is better prepared intellectually and academically is paid the same salary as a less effective teacher. He advocated providing differentiated salaries based upon differentiated roles and preparation, not merely on seniority. He called for opening up new career paths for teachers and creating new staffing patterns. These changes helped pave the way for the idea of "master teachers" who could advance in salary without having to leave the classroom for administrative duties.