Columns and Articles
WILLIAM VAN TIL
Deceased on 24 May 2006

WILLIAM VAN TIL was Coffman Distinguished Professor of Education Emeritus, Indiana State University. Before his 1967-1977 decade at Indiana State he was a professor at the Ohio State University School, the University of Illinois, George Peabody College, New York University, and the Director of Learning Materials at the Bureau for Intercultural Education.

During the 1960s he was elected president of the National Society of Teachers of Education, the John Dewey Society and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Throughout his teaching and administration career he was a prolific writer of books, pamphlets, columns, and articles on education. He was named a Kappa Delta Pi laureate in 1980 and was named to the Hall of Fame of Ohio State University in 1989.
 

For further information see his autobiography, My Way of Looking at It, expanded 2nd edition, 1996 (Caddo Gap Press), and the article by Daniel Perlstein titled “William Van Til and the Nashville Story: Curriculum, Supervision, and Civil Rights.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks for continuing support of my writing by Bee Van Til, my wife these past seventy years.

Thanks to my sons, Jon and Roy Van Til, and my daughter Barbara Nichols for urging me to communicate these selections through the internet rather than in book form.

Thanks to Jon for editing and to Professor David Hofmeister and Dean Robert Williams of Indiana State University for facilitating this collection via the Indiana State University web site.

Thanks to the University of South Carolina faculty members and students who gave time including an afternoon and evening to reading and advising on possibilities for inclusion: Elizabeth Adams, Deidre Clary, Joanna Gilmore, Sheri Hardee, Craig Kridel, Laura MacLeod, Valencia E. Morton, Jonathan Payne, Kimberly Smith, and Michael Thigpen.

A special thanks to Professor Craig Kridel for supplying copies of possible inclusions and for his coordination of the reading project.

While all of the above are sincerely thanked, none is responsible for the final selection which is my responsibility alone.

WILLIAM VAN TIL
2006

CONTENTS

PART ONE: WITH MY TONGUE IN CHEEK

1. The Remarkable Culture of the American Educators (Educational Leadership)

2. The Ladder to Success in Universities (Educational Leadership)

3. A Fable of Textbook Strategy (Educational Leadership)

4. The Hair Decision of 1973 (Contemporary Education)

5. The Second Coming of the One-Room Schoolhouse (Phi Delta Kappan)

6. Horace Mann’s Only Appearance on TV (Phi Delta Kappan)

7. John Dewey’s Disciples (Educational Leadership)

8. Wonderland is a Strange Place (Phi Delta Kappan)

9. Return to Wonderland (Phi Delta Kappan)

10. Tricentennial Speech, 2076: Two Versions (Phi Delta Kappan)

PART 2: OF CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION

11. Two Approaches to Planning (Experiencing Dewey)

12. The Genuine Educational Frontiers (Saturday Review)

13. The Key Word is Relevance (Today’s Education)

14. Experience Centers Afford Sound Learning (Leadership Through Supervision)

15. Better Curriculum—Better Discipline (NEA Journal)

16. How Not to Make an Assignment (NEA Journal)

17. What Makes a Good High School Curriculum? (Woman’s Day)

18. Is Progressive Education Obsolete? (Saturday Review)

PART 3: TOWARD DESEGREGATION AND INTEGRATION

19. The Great American Cop-Out (Phi Delta Kappan)

20. “But There Aren’t Enough of You” (Contemporary Education)

21. Now It’s “How” and “When”—Not “Whether” (Educational Leadership)

22. The Nashville Story (Educational Leadership)

23. Going the Second Mile (Phi Delta Kappan)

PART 4: EDUCATORS AND THE PUBLIC

24. Educational Freedom in an Age of Anxiety (12^th Yearbook, John Dewey Society)

25. The Climate of Fear (Educational Leadership)

26. Wanted: Effective Communication (Phi Delta Kappan)

27. Curriculum Improvement: Who Participates? (Educational Leadership)

28. Can Educators Trust Representatives of Government? (Phi Delta Kappan)

29. Toward Some Agreements at Geneva (Phi Delta Kappan)

30. Editorial Roulette (Phi Delta Kappan)

PART 5: ADVICE TO PROGRESSIVE EDUCATORS

31. To Walk With Others (Contemporary Education)

32. William Heard Kilpatrick: A Memoir (Teaching Education)

33. Whose Retirement? (Phi Delta Kappan)

34. What I Have Learned (The Educational Forum)

35. Start Your Own Spring Conference (Phi Delta Kappan)

36. Confrontation and Consequences (Contemporary Education)

37. Advice to Young Teacher Educators (Teaching Education)

38. Let Them Eat Space (Contemporary Education)

39. The Raccoon Died (Contemporary Education)

40. Admonitions and Challenges (The Sophist’s Bane)

APPENDIX

PREFACE

Credo

• After many years as a professional educator, these things I do believe:

• that the over-all purpose of American education is to develop the understanding and practice of democracy as a way of life

• that the salient characteristic of democracy as a way of life is faith in the method of intelligence

William Van Til

• that the best learning experiences are those which begin with the needs of the learner, illuminate the social realities of the time, and contrast competing ways of living

• that teacher-pupil planning is desirable and feasible

• that controversial issues are the life blood of general education learning experiences

• that indoctrination of set answers to controversial issues, such as indoctrination for laissez-faire or for socialism, indoctrination for isolation or for world government, is an abuse of the method of intelligence and thus undemocratic

• that by thinking through using facts, and applying values, students can reach conclusions for themselves; they need not and must not be innocuous neutrals on human issues

• that, if men are to act, young men and women must learn to act.