Chapter 6: A Lifelong Student of O.L.: Learning to Be a Curriculum Researcher and a Mentor

When I arrived at The University of Texas at Austin as a new doctoral student, I had just left my career as a former teacher in Texas and as a school administrator in the Little Rock Public Schools. I was confident in my practical knowledge of schools and how they work, but I was much less confident in my knowledge of curriculum development and in my abilities in scholarly writing. The Program Area Coordinator and Advisor for Curriculum Studies was O.L. Davis, Jr. I had no idea then that my new career as an academic had begun, even on the very first day of advising. I met O.L. on that day, and I also met my good friend Alan Garrett, now a Professor at Eastern New Mexico University. Alan said that I should "always plan [my] schedule each semester so that [I] could take every one of the classes that O.L. offered." I heeded that advice, registered for O.L.'s Curriculum Organization and Curriculum Policy classes, and my learning from O.L., which has continued for the last 20 years, commenced. While completing a degree in curriculum and instruction, students of O.L. took the courses that were currently required by the university. During my graduate studies, those courses included curriculum foundations, curriculum theory, curriculum policy, curriculum organization, and seminar in curriculum, plus courses in the four core areas of curriculum theory and practice, learning and instruction, social and cultural foundations, and research. O.L. always recommended that students take as many courses from a variety of professors as possible, both within and outside the department. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, students also had an opportunity to learn from other curriculum professors, Mark Seng, John Laska, John Rich, JoAnn Sweeney, and Gary McKenzie. Learning about curriculum from O.L. was always a new adventure each semester. His teaching methods, which included the Socratic method, were always hallmarked by his asking questions of his students and of himself. These methods remained steadfast throughout O.L.'s formal teaching career. Indeed, his skillful art of asking questions ensured that his students left his tutelage with the same sense of wonder--and wonderment--that permeated and still permeates his life's work. Perhaps his asking of questions stems from his interest in an array of topics. For me, those questions were refreshing. Here was someone who didn't profess to know all of the answers. Instead, O.L. prompted me and others to begin to ask a variety of questions about topics in which we were most interested, and he supported our inquiry in a variety of ways. The questions we all remember involved the practical, the doing, of curriculum. And, oftentimes, the questions had a historical nature. The following excerpt, exemplifies the nature and content of O.L.'s questioning techniques. A story about curriculum? When did you last hear a story about curriculum? A real story set in an understandable time, maybe just recently in a nearby school, or maybe one which took place years ago in a distant place? A story which relates the actions of fully-dimensioned people, individuals with names, ones with ideas and passions and concerns? A story which, in its telling, unfolds meanings or a story which you must probe for meanings? ... But do curriculum stories exist to be told and to be heard or read? To be talked about and wondered with? To inform the proposals and decisions of practice? Not to be only decorations to conversations or as trophies for a career? As in so much scholarship, both a simple yes and no must be the answer to this reasonable question. Some curriculum stories exist. Most stories, however, exist in fragments and wonder and await their construction and telling. Therefore, opportunities for fruitful inquiry into curriculum history may be unmatched with any in other areas of curriculum study. (Davis, 1991, pp. 77-78) Although the curriculum questions O.L. asked in the essay quoted above were written in 1991, and were indicative of those I heard him ask in curriculum seminar, they are not really so different from O. …