FROM THE EDITOR

Virginia R. Monseau
English Journal

How exciting to begin the twenty-first century looking forward to new developments in the field of English teaching and new approaches to helping our students learn. As we look to the future, we might also spend some time recalling the past and how it informs what we do and who we are as a profession today.

How well do you know your professional history? Here’s a little quiz. (These are easy recall questions, but if you don’t know the answers, you can find them on the EJ Web page.)

1. When did the National Council of Teachers of English come into being and why? 2. Who was the first president of NCTE?
3. Who was the first female president of NCTE?
4. Who was the first editor of English Journal?
5. What was the Dartmouth Conference?

How did you do? If you answered all five questions correctly, congratulations! If you knew the answers to three or four, that’s respectable. If you could answer only one or two, you need to brush up on your history. If you couldn’t answer any of the questions, rush to your nearest college or university library and check out a copy of Arthur Applebee’s Tradition and Reform in the Teaching of English: A History (NCTE, 1974), a book that you will find invaluable in helping you understand your professional ancestors, the problems they faced, and the contributions they made to the field of English teaching. We’re all familiar with George Santayana’s famous remark, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Though we know this to be true, few of us pay much attention to the evolution of this profession to which we devote our teaching lives. We’re so busy coping with the present that we don’t have much time to think about the past, but we need to understand and care about our professional evolution and the people who have made our history, not only to avoid past mistakes, but to build on the foundations our ancestors have laid for us.

Though I had been a high school English teacher for several years, I was ignorant of most of the history of English education in America until I became a graduate student and first read about Dora V. Smith and her remarkable career as an English teacher, teacher educator, researcher, writer, and NCTE president. Learning about “Dora V,” as she was lovingly called by her students and colleagues, made me curious about her contemporaries, many of whom were active in the progressive education movement of the 1930s. (See Chris Crowe’s column in this issue for a list of Dora V’s many descendants, who are now themselves creating history.) Reading Applebee’s book, along with J. N. Hook’s A Long Way Together: A Personal View of NCTE’s First Sixty-Seven Years (NCTE, 1979), prompted me to join forces with Jeanne Gerlach and other members of NCTE’s Women’s Committee to write the first history chronicling the contributions of women in our profession: Missing Chapters: Ten Pioneering Women in NCTE and English Education (NCTE, 1991).

As I learned about the personal and professional lives of these remarkable women, they came alive for me in ways I never expected. I could envision Dora Smith sporting her fingerwave hairdo and Angela Broening wearing her trademark wide-brimmed hat to the annual convention. I could sympathize with Broening, who, as NCTE president in 1944, presided over the showdown at the national convention between NCTE’s Committee on Newspapers and Magazines and Reader’s Digest, whom the Committee accused of using its reputation to foster propaganda. I could imagine Dora Smith’s frustration at being falsely accused of being a Communist during the McCarthy era of the 1950s and cheer her scathing article criticizing Rudolf Flesch and his highly acclaimed book, Why Johnny Can’t Read. Putting this issue of English Journal together has been a labor of love for me because over the years I have come to believe so strongly that we are our history. Articles by past EJ editors Stephen Tchudi, Alleen Nilsen, Ken Donelson, Ben Nelms, and Leila Christenbury remind us of the many issues that have been addressed, battles that have been fought, and compromises that have been reached over the years—all in the name of a better education for our students. Jeanne Gerlach and P. L. Thomas examine the work of two giants of the English education profession: Rewey Belle Inglis, the first woman to be elected president of NCTE; and Lou LaBrant, a later NCTE president, whose brilliant work in the teaching of writing, literature, and language is still meaningful today. Looking beyond our borders, Nancy Thompson explores the work of New Zealand educator Sylvia Ashton-Warner and its impact on whole language education in this country. Further merging the past with the present, Tom Romano describes the personal and professional contributions of Donald Murray, beloved teacher and writer, while Linda Shadiow looks to the past to illuminate the future. Finally, Julie Jensen and Nancy McHugh, both former presidents of NCTE, take us back in time as they highlight the people, the publications, and the progress that have made NCTE the organization it is today.

Why history? Because we cannot enter a new millennium without acknowledging our debt to the past. We become better teachers—true professionals—when we can anticipate the future while still revering the forces that brought us to the present. We may be a throwaway society, but not when it comes to the education of our children.

Copyright © 2000 by the National Council of Teachers of English.
All rights reserved.

Link to Table of Contents http://www.ncte.org/pubs/journals/ej/contents/106433.htm