A Half-Century of Life in

Classrooms:
The Intellectual Legacy of
Philip W. Jackson
Cheryl J. Craig, Ph.D.
Professor
Houston Endowment Endowed Chair of Urban Education
Texas A&M University
USA
Philip W.
Jackson
Intellectual Legacy
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND
Philip Jackson,
2014
The five intersections I will highlight
occurred in the:

1990s when I was doing my doctoral and post-doctoral work

1990s when he wrote about qualitative research/qualitative

researchers

2000s when the No Child Left Behind Act was instituted in the
United States

2000s after his John Dewey lecture, his article on Dewey and his
book, John Dewey and the philosopher’s task

2000s when he made his final presentation an American Educational

Research Meeting
 AERA 2014
Annual Meeting

Philadelphia, PA
Phil Jackson with his students
Bob Boostrom, David Hansen,
René Arcilla & Craig
Cunningham (2015)
 Book title Publication year Citations
Creativity and Intelligence 1962 2607
Life in Classrooms 1968 5924
The Practice of Teaching 1986 692
From Socrates to Software: 1989 8
The Teachers as Text and the Text as Teacher
Handbook of research on curriculum 1992 412
The Moral Life of Schools 1993 728
John Dewey and the Lessons of Art 1998 501
John Dewey and the Philosopher’s Task 2002 46
What is Education? 2013 0
Biography
John Dewey
• Founded by John Dewey
in 1896 and located in
Hyde Park, the University
of Chicago Laboratory
School is among the
nation’s best.
 Bronze bust of John Dewey by
Jacob Epstein, 1927.This bronze
now sits in a prominent position
outside the Laboratory School
director’s office.
 Photo taken in November
1960, Philip W. Jackson, (left),
the David Lee Shillinglaw
Distinguished Service
Professor in the departments
of Education and Psychology
and in the College at the
University of Chicago, and
Jacob W. Getzels (right), the
R. Wendell Harrison
Distinguished Service
Professor in Education and
Psychology.

Getzels-Jackson effect
Behavorism
“There must be a better
way to understand
children, a better way
than poking them with
sticks”
David Hansen in Aboud, 2015
Nathaniel
“Nat” L. Gage
Artwork by Beatriz
Albuquerque
“too complex an affair to be
viewed or talked about from
one single perspective…all
of the means of knowing at
our disposal [should be
used]”
Jackson, 1968, p. vii
B.F. Skinner
Theory of operant
conditioning -- the idea that
behavior is determined by its
consequences, be they
reinforcements or punishments,
which make it more or less
likely that the behavior will
occur again.
1992 Handbook of Research on
Curriculum
• Jackson had experienced a
radical shift in perspective

• Researches needed to
“face [their] ignorance”
(Jackson, 1987)
Intersection 1—Doctoral and
Post-Doctoral Work
 It was easy for me to
relate to Jackson’s
ideas, which have
since become part of
the everyday
educational
vernacular
 hidden the daily grind
curriculum of teaching

unintended the moral life

consequences of schools
“I walk through the schoolroom
questioning…--the children's eyes. In
momentary wonder stare upon a sixty-
year-old smiling public man”
“How can we know
the dancer from the
dance? ”
Personality

Foibles

Knowledge

Skills

Dispositions
Past research blamed teachers…

School reforms were primarily

meant to correct teacher deficits…
“adequately moved
by their own ideas and
intelligences” (Dewey,
1904, p. 16)
 “teachers [as] reflective
practitioners, their practices [as]
an art, and their curriculum
agency [as] necessarily eclectic
and context based” (Ross, Cornett
&McCutcheon, p. 5)
“understand
practice, rather
than to dictate
practice” (Clark &
Lampert, 1986, p. 30)
AERA-1990
April 16-20
Boston, MA
Conclusion Decision
making making
research research
“Let our writing be as difficult as it
has to be to deliver its message in
full”(Jackson,1990)
“God guard me from the
thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone”
(Yeats, 1958)
Intersection 2—Qualitative research
and qualitative researchers
 Jackson believed
qualitative research is the
genre of research that is
discursive and belle lettristic
in form.
 “not be sullen because [their]
audiences are not large or that
[they] are not attracting readers
of a ‘certain type”
(Jackson, 1993).
• Dylan Thomas, Maritime
Quarter, Swansea
Be satisfied with attracting
these readers
Intersection 3—Division B, American
Educational Research Meeting (post-
2001)
 President George W. Bush
signed the No Child Left Behind
Act, ratcheting up the federal
role in education by invoking
accountability/performativity
measures based on high stakes
testing
Accountability | Performativity
=
Stress + Anxiety
 “The approach makes winners and losers of
children and pits teachers against teachers ”
“the schools have taken quite a
beating in recent years and I do
not wish to join in the
pummeling…but…” (Chomsky,1977)
“a curious mix of
doubt and hope in
their hearts”
William Blake
Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau,
Mock on, mock on; 'tis all in vain;
You throw the sand against the wind
And the wind blows it back again

William Blake’s (1790) poem, The Scoffers

“…gem[s] reflected in
the beams divine”

(Blake,1790)
Intersection 4—Dewey lecture, Dewey
book, Dewey article
AERA Annual Meeting
April 19-23, 1999
Montré al, Quebec

On the Threshold of the

21st Century:
Challenges &
Opportunities
 School Feeder Pattern

High School 10-12

New Intermediate
7-9
School

Elementary Schools Pre K-K 1-2 3-4 5-6

 philosophy Grade
Grades 3-4
and 5-6
Campus
practices Campus

Jackson’s blending of Dewey, art, arts-based learning and education helped

me to more fully understand the issues with which the specially prepared arts
teachers at the existing Graders 3-4 campus wrestled as they tried to
transplant their philosophy and practices to the new, state-of-the-art
intermediate campus
“expressive [products]
seldom ever come with
directions of how to
use them”
 “snatched at the
fringes of real life”
(Buber,1937, p. 17) `
 “too complex an affair to be viewed
or talked about from one single
perspective… All the means at our
disposal [should be used]” (Jackson, 1968, p. vii)
email

From: Philip W. Jackson ……………………………………………

To: Cheryl J. Craig …………………………………………
…………………………………………
I am writing to compliment you on …………………………………………
your article, Why is Dissemination …………………………………………
So Difficult?, which was just …………………………………………
published in the American …………………………………………
Educational Research Journal, …………………………………………
that I just read……………………… …………………………………………
………………………………………… ………………………………….
………………………………………… Sincerely,
………………………………………… Phil Jackson
Intersection 5—Jackson’s final
AERA presentation (Slide 99)
• Picasso self portrait 1917
• 35 years old
“Phil, you are studying
the oil lamp in the age
of the electric light.”
“it is not what you see in
classroom that’s important…it’s
what you don’t see or fail to
see…it is your own
shortsightedness that is
important” (Jackson)
“Things that are not seen or paid
attention to may have far greater
significance…, despite them being
unacknowledged.”
 This caused Jackson to
consider classrooms through
the analogy of weather
 Cumulatively, this led Philip
Jackson to stop counting
because he had counted
everything there was to count
Jackson found himself never completely
able “to probe the depths.”
 “it is hard to imagine thought
without imagination.”

“Nate Gage—just got it wrong…

he did not allow himself to be
mystified by education
and the only way you can do it
is to allow your imagination to be
exercised…
“that “classroom life…is too complex an
affair to be viewed or talked about from
any single perspective” (Jackson, 1968)
 Our focus of being
must be played the
way you play a
musical instrument by
lifting different fingers
to get different notes…
 “I do not think that there is a
formula for how to do that. But
you can tell when people are
brilliant. They ask even [better]
questions when they are playing
themselves”
Conclusion
I decided to seam this talk
together with the poetry,
quotes and songs he used
to carry his powerful
messages across.
In the opinion of fools it is a humble task
But in fact it is the noblest of occupation
“”
Questions?
Comments?
Thank you