Chapter 30: A Curator and A Catalyst: Reflections on the Editorial Work of John Lounsbury

When I began my career as a professor of middle level education at the University of South Carolina in 2003, I was among those new faculty described in the preface to The Legacy of Middle School Leaders who “lacked a comprehensive understanding of the early years of the middle school movement” (Smith & McEwin, 2011, p. xv). I had not taken any courses in middle school philosophy or the history of the middle school movement, and though I had taught on a team in a middle school that embraced the principles of This We Believe (National Middle School Association, 1982), my practice was not rooted in a knowledge of and appreciation for the rich past and robust body of scholarship that underpinned the principles. My faculty colleagues in the South Carolina Professors of Middle Level Education organization and the South Carolina Middle Level Teacher Education Initiative soon helped to fill that gap. They taught me about the early thought leaders in middle level education whose work inspired the middle school movement, including John Lounsbury. Thus, it was a significant moment—a celebrity encounter, of sorts—when I met John Lounsbury early in my career at a gathering of middle level professors in South Carolina.