Chapter 2: Reconsidering Universitybased Teacher Education

Thirty-three years ago, I visited Professor Harold Dunkel (1965) at the University of Chicago. I was exploring graduate school options and had made an appointment with Dunkel to talk about curriculum studies. He told me to find another field. He agreed with Dwayne Huebner's (1999) then recent assessment that the field of curriculum studies was moribund if not dead. He didn't see a future there. I sometimes wonder if I should have heeded his advice. However, in the late 1970s Michael Apple (1979) was breathing life into curriculum studies, and I chose to pursue my path at Madison. Things have changed in the last 30 plus years, and if today someone were to ask me whether to pursue curriculum studies, I'd respond—perhaps. The field continues to struggle and appears hobbled, infirm, and in need of new life. But that's a topic for another time. Now my other central field of scholarly interest and engagement is said to be on its deathbed and I'd like to attend to it.