Romances with Schools by Goodlad John I.;Goodlad Stephen J.;

Author:Goodlad, John I.;Goodlad, Stephen J.; [Goodlad, John I.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Unlimited Model
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

ATLANTA

At the end of a session with Virgil Herrick, he said that there was a man visiting the campus whom I should meet. Floyd Jordan, from Atlanta, Georgia, was seeking graduate students at the dissertation stage who might be interested in a fellowship with a unique collaborative venture, the Atlanta Area Teacher Education Service (AATES). I saw little reason to meet him, but I agreed to talk with him anyway. And I did, that afternoon.

Jordan smoked cigars but had the decency always to do so outside. We walked around the campus. He already had recruited a fellow from The Ohio State University and hoped to complete the roster of two with someone from the University of Chicago. Half of the time was to be free for research, and there would be a fellowship stipend of $400 tax free for each of nine months. I was astounded. The cost of living was rising, but in those days, that appeared to me to be a lot of money. At the end of our walk, he offered me the opportunity. He was leaving the next morning and would wait until then for my answer.

Herrick was still in his office. He thought going to Atlanta would be a good way to get some experience with schools in the United States and, he surmised, would provide access to some for my study. I called Len. She was flabbergasted. I guess I wasn’t very clear regarding the specifics, and she interpreted the prospect to be my going to Atlanta and her going back to Vancouver. Learning that this was not to be the case probably caused her to accept the unknown. Atlanta was some faroff place with a past we had seen depicted in the epic movie, Gone with the Wind. A few weeks later, almost a year to the day that we had left for the far-off place we had now come to know a little, we packed the little Ford coupe one more time and went there.

During the weeks before leaving Chicago, I learned a lot about the AATES from materials Jordan sent me. It was, indeed, a unique creation, far ahead of its time. My experience with it, over far more years than initially intended, deeply influenced my thinking about teacher education. Many teachers, largely female, lacking degrees and often other credentials, had been recruited during the war. The dynamic Atlanta area was growing rapidly, attracting returning veterans and their families and straining the capacity of the schools. Long a major producer of teachers, the University of Georgia, more than an hour’s drive away, simply could not meet the demand for upgrading experienced teachers now pressured to secure the baccalaureate. Few of the smaller, private institutions in Atlanta were equipped to pick up the slack. And, of course, the educational institutions of the South at all levels were still segregated. Georgia Tech prepared no teachers, Emory University only a few, and Atlanta University helped provide for “the colored.”

The AATES was the brainchild, I

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