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A history of the beginnings of TATE
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Teaching and Teacher Education 20 (2004) 327–328
A history of the beginnings of TATE By all accounts, a journal in the field of teaching and teacher education was mooted at a meeting in 1980 of the International Editorial Board of the International Encyclopedia of Education edited by Torsten Husen and Neville Postlethwaite, eventually published in 12 volumes by Robert Maxwell’s Pergamon Press in 1985. Nate Gage was a member of that board and he might have been the one to do the ‘‘mooting’’. One of the sections of the encyclopedia was ‘‘Teaching and Teacher Education’’, named by me after Gilbert De Landsheere and I were appointed co-editors of that section. At a meeting of section editors of the encyclopedia held in the Bahamas early in 1981, the possibility of a new journal in that area was again mentioned, but, to my knowledge, it was not until I was invited to Pergamon’s headquarters in Oxford in 1983 that the subject was raised again. I was invited, as a ‘‘reward’’ for the work I had done on the 12 volume encyclopedia, for the purpose of presenting a design of the first of a planned series of ‘‘spin-off’’, single volume encyclopedias that was eventually published in 1987 as ‘‘The International Encyclopedia of Teaching and Teacher Education: Research and Studies’’. At that meeting on Sunday, 29 May, 1983, chaired by Robert Maxwell, my design for the single volume encyclopedia was accepted and I was appointed its editor. After discussion of the need for an international journal in the same area, the idea was accepted and I was appointed its editor. I was asked to provide a list of international scholars who might be surveyed as to the desirability of such a journal and charged with the responsibility of drafting a statement of the journal’s aims and scope. I was also asked to recommend scholars in the field who might be appointed Associate Editors and others for mem-
bership of its International Editorial Board. The first of those tasks was easy and before I left Oxford, I provided a long list of people, drawn from the authors of entries accepted for the multivolume encyclopedia. Upon my return to Australia, I wrote to Nate Gage, informing him of the approval of plans for the new journal, of my appointment as its editor, and seeking his advice regarding the appointment of someone from the USA as an Associate Editor. He replied, expressing the view that a person I had suggested was unsuitable. Subsequently, it was reported to me that Pergamon’s survey of the list of scholars I had provided had indicated strong support for such a journal. Some months later, Neville Postlethwaite wrote me a personal letter informing me that Gage was in Oxford on sabbatical as Pergamon’s guest and had been discussing the journal with Maxwell and that Maxwell had decided to appoint Gage as its editor. Postlethwaite wrote that he had urged Maxwell to contact me about the matter. Some time later I received a phone call from Maxwell informing me that he had decided to appoint Gage editor on the grounds of his fame and seniority. I was be the journal’s Associate Editor, along with Sara Delamont, who was subsequently invited, as reported in Sara’s piece in this issue. Gage commenced work on the journal, the first number of which appeared early in 1985. During that year, I went to England on study leave to finish the single volume encyclopedia mentioned above. While I was there, Gage and I went to Russia to discuss the journal with leading USSR educators, with a view of attracting their interest and support. We were looking for scholars who might become members of the International Editorial Board and who might encourage authors
0742-051X/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2004.02.008
ARTICLE IN PRESS 328
M.J. Dunkin / Teaching and Teacher Education 20 (2004) 327–328
to submit manuscripts for publication. We flew to Moscow on Thursday, 24 October, 1985. As an Australian, I proceeded through the immigration check with no trouble at all. Gage, however, was treated with suspicion, with the immigration officer looking repeatedly at Gage’s visage and then at his passport as if to say that the photograph could not possibly be of the real person. Eventually, he was admitted and we were escorted by an Intourist person to our hotel, the Cosmos, which in cyrillic script appeared as the Kocmoc. Gage’s room was filthy and so we complained and he was allocated a different room in which the red light on the telephone would not disappear. Could this be a sloppy attempt to bug the American’s room? Such paranoid thoughts were brushed aside and, later, we met in the lobby to have dinner together at the ‘‘Pectopar at the Kocmoc’’ and subsequently experienced the trauma associated with attracting Russian waiters’ attention, which was to plague us for the rest of our visit. While in Moscow we had a meeting with Mikhail Kondakov, President of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR, the most powerful person in education in the whole USSR, and his associate, Dr. Vladimir I. Kozyr, Director of the Foreign Relations Department of the Academy. The next day we travelled through the
night by train, in sleeping compartments, to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg again), where, on Friday, 1 November, we met Victor Onushkin, member of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, and President of the Leningrad branch of the USSR–USA Society. Alas, these meetings were to no avail, for, to my knowledge, no nominations were ever received for membership of the International Editorial Board, and no manuscript was ever submitted from the USSR. I wonder if the journal ever had a subscriber from that part of the world? Early in 1986, Gage was forced to retire from the editorship of the journal for health reasons and I took over as editor at the AERA annual meeting in San Francisco in April. I, thus, inherited a set of manuscripts edited by Gage but still to be approved for publication. To see the editorial work done on those MSS was awesome! To realise the difficulties under which the meticulous work had been done was more. It was uplifting! I had the most challenging standard imaginable to match!
Michael J. Dunkin 15 Richard Johnson Crescent Ryde, New South Wales 2112, Australia E-mail address: [email protected]
Teaching and Teacher Education 20 (2004) 327–328
A history of the beginnings of TATE By all accounts, a journal in the field of teaching and teacher education was mooted at a meeting in 1980 of the International Editorial Board of the International Encyclopedia of Education edited by Torsten Husen and Neville Postlethwaite, eventually published in 12 volumes by Robert Maxwell’s Pergamon Press in 1985. Nate Gage was a member of that board and he might have been the one to do the ‘‘mooting’’. One of the sections of the encyclopedia was ‘‘Teaching and Teacher Education’’, named by me after Gilbert De Landsheere and I were appointed co-editors of that section. At a meeting of section editors of the encyclopedia held in the Bahamas early in 1981, the possibility of a new journal in that area was again mentioned, but, to my knowledge, it was not until I was invited to Pergamon’s headquarters in Oxford in 1983 that the subject was raised again. I was invited, as a ‘‘reward’’ for the work I had done on the 12 volume encyclopedia, for the purpose of presenting a design of the first of a planned series of ‘‘spin-off’’, single volume encyclopedias that was eventually published in 1987 as ‘‘The International Encyclopedia of Teaching and Teacher Education: Research and Studies’’. At that meeting on Sunday, 29 May, 1983, chaired by Robert Maxwell, my design for the single volume encyclopedia was accepted and I was appointed its editor. After discussion of the need for an international journal in the same area, the idea was accepted and I was appointed its editor. I was asked to provide a list of international scholars who might be surveyed as to the desirability of such a journal and charged with the responsibility of drafting a statement of the journal’s aims and scope. I was also asked to recommend scholars in the field who might be appointed Associate Editors and others for mem-
bership of its International Editorial Board. The first of those tasks was easy and before I left Oxford, I provided a long list of people, drawn from the authors of entries accepted for the multivolume encyclopedia. Upon my return to Australia, I wrote to Nate Gage, informing him of the approval of plans for the new journal, of my appointment as its editor, and seeking his advice regarding the appointment of someone from the USA as an Associate Editor. He replied, expressing the view that a person I had suggested was unsuitable. Subsequently, it was reported to me that Pergamon’s survey of the list of scholars I had provided had indicated strong support for such a journal. Some months later, Neville Postlethwaite wrote me a personal letter informing me that Gage was in Oxford on sabbatical as Pergamon’s guest and had been discussing the journal with Maxwell and that Maxwell had decided to appoint Gage as its editor. Postlethwaite wrote that he had urged Maxwell to contact me about the matter. Some time later I received a phone call from Maxwell informing me that he had decided to appoint Gage editor on the grounds of his fame and seniority. I was be the journal’s Associate Editor, along with Sara Delamont, who was subsequently invited, as reported in Sara’s piece in this issue. Gage commenced work on the journal, the first number of which appeared early in 1985. During that year, I went to England on study leave to finish the single volume encyclopedia mentioned above. While I was there, Gage and I went to Russia to discuss the journal with leading USSR educators, with a view of attracting their interest and support. We were looking for scholars who might become members of the International Editorial Board and who might encourage authors
0742-051X/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2004.02.008
ARTICLE IN PRESS 328
M.J. Dunkin / Teaching and Teacher Education 20 (2004) 327–328
to submit manuscripts for publication. We flew to Moscow on Thursday, 24 October, 1985. As an Australian, I proceeded through the immigration check with no trouble at all. Gage, however, was treated with suspicion, with the immigration officer looking repeatedly at Gage’s visage and then at his passport as if to say that the photograph could not possibly be of the real person. Eventually, he was admitted and we were escorted by an Intourist person to our hotel, the Cosmos, which in cyrillic script appeared as the Kocmoc. Gage’s room was filthy and so we complained and he was allocated a different room in which the red light on the telephone would not disappear. Could this be a sloppy attempt to bug the American’s room? Such paranoid thoughts were brushed aside and, later, we met in the lobby to have dinner together at the ‘‘Pectopar at the Kocmoc’’ and subsequently experienced the trauma associated with attracting Russian waiters’ attention, which was to plague us for the rest of our visit. While in Moscow we had a meeting with Mikhail Kondakov, President of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR, the most powerful person in education in the whole USSR, and his associate, Dr. Vladimir I. Kozyr, Director of the Foreign Relations Department of the Academy. The next day we travelled through the
night by train, in sleeping compartments, to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg again), where, on Friday, 1 November, we met Victor Onushkin, member of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, and President of the Leningrad branch of the USSR–USA Society. Alas, these meetings were to no avail, for, to my knowledge, no nominations were ever received for membership of the International Editorial Board, and no manuscript was ever submitted from the USSR. I wonder if the journal ever had a subscriber from that part of the world? Early in 1986, Gage was forced to retire from the editorship of the journal for health reasons and I took over as editor at the AERA annual meeting in San Francisco in April. I, thus, inherited a set of manuscripts edited by Gage but still to be approved for publication. To see the editorial work done on those MSS was awesome! To realise the difficulties under which the meticulous work had been done was more. It was uplifting! I had the most challenging standard imaginable to match!
Michael J. Dunkin 15 Richard Johnson Crescent Ryde, New South Wales 2112, Australia E-mail address: [email protected]