John Goodlad, former dean of the then-UCLA Graduate School of Education from 1967 to 1983, died in Seattle on Nov. 29 at age 94. He was the author of "A Place Called School," a seminal book written with data from the largest study of U.S. schools ever conducted, involving more than 27,000 students, teachers, and parents.
Goodlad was often credited with launching research efforts on school improvement and was known for maintaining the position that teaching is an ethical act.
He earned his doctorate at the University of Chicago and held 20 honorary doctorates from colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. In addition to professorships and administrative positions, Goodlad was an experienced classroom teacher in all grade levels and in a variety of institutions, including a one-room, eight-grade, rural school in Canada.
Goodlad served as president of the Institute for Educational Inquiry in Seattle and held professorships at Emory University, the University of Chicago and the University of Washington.
In 1960, Goodlad was appointed director of UCLA’s University Elementary School (now UCLA Lab School) and, soon after, was named dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Education, now the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. A leader in the non-graded school movement, he encouraged the implementation of team teaching and multi-age grouping. His writings, based on his work and research at UES, stimulated these practices throughout the country.
“A Place Called School," published in 1984, received the Outstanding Book of the Year Award from the American Educational Research Association and Distinguished Book of the Year Award from Kappa Delta Pi. In addition, he wrote more than three dozen books, many of which have been translated into multiple languages, including Japanese, Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish and Hebrew.
“The passing of John Goodlad, a giant in our field, brings profound sadness to the entire UCLA Ed and IS community,” said Dean Marcelo Suárez-Orozco. “We mourn our former dean and we also remember and celebrate a life in full, dedicated to the idea that teaching is, above all, an ethical act in the service of bettering the human condition.”
This obituary is posted at Ampersand, the online newsletter of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. An obituary is also posted in the Washington Post.
