Michigan State University

Graduate Student, Teacher Education

College of Education

Advisor: Avner Segall

About

I am a first-year student in the Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education Ph.D. program at Michigan State University.  My research interests revolve around the histories and theories of curriculum thought in the United States; past and present reform movements in teacher education; postmodern studies in education; the nature of social studies education; philosophical investigations into curriculum; conflicts in curriculum development; the origins of the "Reconceptualist" movement in curriculum in the 1970s; and the intersections of popular culture and schooling.

The following are projects I have started recently.  They are eclectic by nature and keep me reading in different facets of curriculum studies, history, theory, and pedagogy:

[1] An analysis of the Anthropology Curriculum Study Project and other social studies curriculum projects from the 1960s during the New Social Studies era funded by the National Science Foundation.  I am interested in the rationales teachers used for trying these projects in their classrooms.  Preliminary research has shown a connection between a desire to ameliorate racial conflicts among students as a wishful goal for these innovations in social studies teaching.  I hope to continue existing scholarship that examines the tense relationships among constituents who control and give shape to social studies in schools.

[2] A survey of how philosophy is taught (and why it often is not) in public schools.  I am examining numerous college outreach programs that have made connections between academic philosophers and school programs.  I am also hoping to do research with some high school social studies teachers who teach courses in philosophy and have incorporated philosophy as content into their social studies curricula.  Once a common staple of high school curricula, philosophy disappeared from high schools by the mid-20th century.  Why did that happen and what would it mean for students to engage in studying and thinking about philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics as 21st century skills?

[3] I am doing archival work on a historical episode of when two rural Indiana high schools consolidated into one school in the early 1960s.  The concessions made, the conflicts that arose, and the violence that ensued engulfed both small towns.  This project blends archival research with several oral histories to tell a narrative that weaves together the effects that place, identity, and communal memory wield when schools close and consolidate.  As many rural communities in Indiana again consider consolidation, the story of Milton High School's closing and incorporation into Lincoln High School in 1963 serves as a powerful example of the power schools have in shaping the identity of small towns and communities.

[4] I am synthesizing conceptual ideas about identity and subjectivity from Deleuze & Guattari to use as lenses for considering how teachers learn to teach social studies.  What does it mean to learn to teach social studies? What would Deleuzian perspectives on learning to teach social studies look like that incorporate Deleuze's notions of arborescence and rhizomatic multiplicities?  Do these and other postmodern approaches to thinking about social studies education have a place in today's neo-positivist climate of research?

[5] Finally, I am researching how soap operas in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s served as pedagogical agents for adolescent viewers.  As many high schools neglected to provide adequate instruction in personal health and sex education, students were, in fact, immersed in the informal curriculum of daytime television.  Both traditional soap operas and after-school specials fulfilled the instructional role of teaching viewers about contraception, date rape, gender roles, personal safety, and interpersonal relationships. 

This extends from a larger interest I have in issues-centered instruction that took many forms throughout the 20th century in American high schools.  From life adjustment education to "mini-courses" to the experimental 'Senior Problems' course, the historiography of American education has only marginally attempted to distinguish among movements in teaching for social efficiency, social reconstruction, social amelioration, and social justice.

Prior to commencing graduate studies, I held an array of teaching positions in schools situated within differing social and cultural contexts after graduating from the Community of Teachers program at Indiana University: from a small, rural school in the Scottish Highlands to an ethnically diverse comprehensive high school in a suburban college town in southern Indiana, and, most recently, an  urban high school in central Phoenix ranked as "excelling" by the State of Arizona and in the Top 100 High Schools by US News & World Report, and while these labels are ultimately meaningless devoid of context, the vibrant nature of this successful high school that served a high immigrant and refugee population is proof that "urban schools" do work and are not a broken system. 

Other teaching experiences have been outside of the confines of a comprehensive public high school: a seminar for undergraduates living in a residential college (the Ralph L. Collins Living-Learning Center); a writing and drama program for incarcerated adults in a correctional facility;  facilitating a teen support group; and teaching sessions in a summer enrichment camp for first-generation college-bound seniors.

Professional activity:

American Educational Research Association:
Div B - Curriculum Studies
Div F - History and Historiography
Div G - Social Context of Education
Div K - Teaching and Teacher Education
* Biographical and Documentary Research SIG
* Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies SIG
* Cultural Historical Research SIG
* Democratic Citizenship in Education SIG
* Foucault and Education SIG
* Lives of Teachers SIG
* Media, Culture, and Curriculum SIG
* Philosophical Studies in Education SIG
* Qualitative Research SIG
* Research in Social Studies Education SIG

Association of Teacher Educators

American Assoc for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies

College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies

History of Education Society

Organization of Educational Historians

Society for the Study of Curriculum History

American Educational Studies Association

Contact Information

Email:

Address: Department of Teacher Education
313 Erickson Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI  48824

Instant Messengers/Skype: Skype, mark.helmsing