[Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: Walter MacGinitie

[Carol D Lee]

Hi All,
So I always find interesting these generational distinctions between who is old guard and not.  At 75 I like to push elderhood, except when I talk to Edmund Gordon, who will turn 100 in June,  for whom I’m still a youngin.   However, because I didn’t enter the academy until I was in my mid-forties, I guess I’m somewhere in that in between generational space.

So thinking in response to Shirley’s comments --- I think emerging work in the neurosciences opens up interesting opportunities for more traditional language and literacy folks, just as the cognitive revolution and attention to the role of schema played a useful role in research around reading comprehension.  The uptake of that cognitive work was less so taken up by strict cognitive psychologists.  In the same vein, emerging findings from the neurosciences have deep implications for the practice of reading or the practice of teaching others to comprehend texts, it is not likely that they will be the folks to take up the implications of that work.  Dan Schwartz co-authored several articles a few years ago on the limitations of basic research in the neurosciences around brain functioning for the teaching of mathematics.

I think the task of the emerging generation of language, literacy and culture researchers is to spread their wings to understand the basic research in relevant areas of the neurosciences, spread their wings to understand fundamental propositions in the field of human development, and then to test empirically the implications of foundational work in these areas.

I have been deeply interested in the last decade in the implications of physiological processes we inherit from our evolution as a species for what it means on the ground to think about the design of robust learning environments – in my own area with regard to literacy.  I initially begin to explore these ideas in my 2010 AERA Presidential Address.  That was the time when Dick Anderson and I were great dance partners at my presidential party !!!!  Since that time I’ve spread my wings to co-author a handbook chapter with two folks in the neurosciences (Andy Meltzoff and Pat Kuhl).  Boundary crossing is challenging but really interesting.

So Shirley I don’t think the neurosciences will take over our field.  Rather I think they will make substantive contributions to our understanding of the sheer complexity of text comprehension, but we need to support and encourage upcoming generations to learn to cross intellectual borders.

My 2 cents!

Carol





Carol D. Lee, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
School of Education and Social Policy
Northwestern University

Member, National Academy of Education
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellow, American Educational Research Association
Fellow, National Conference on Language and Literacy
President-Elect, National Academy of Education
Member, Reading Hall of Fame



From: <reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> on behalf of Shirley_Brice_Heath Heath <sbheath at stanford.edu>
Date: Friday, February 19, 2021 at 4:34 PM
To: Richard Anderson <csrrca at illinois.edu>, "Leu, Donald" <donald.leu at uconn.edu>
Cc: reading hall of fame <Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>
Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: Walter MacGinitie

You are so right, for he was such a gentleman, ever ready to help younger scholars.  I first met him in that role after I began seeing my work interpreted as related to reading research.  He seemed puzzled by that, as was I in many ways, but he was so helpful to me and many other scholars.

Yes, I see the "old guards" leaving us with greater frequency than we could have imagined.  What we do not know is what will replace what we now think of as the "old guard" along with their ideas.  I predict it will be neuroscience research with more and more revelations about how the brain works in both oral language and in written texts.  That work now appears in many different journals, so we will see further division within that field, all to our advantage in learning more about the many miracles of just how we learn by taking in information from very varied sources.

Thanks to all willing to share memories about the full humanity of the "old guard."  What will happen now that much of the research on reading and related activities has gone to neuroscience will be increasing divisions within that field.  Keeping up will get harder and harder, for sure.  My fear is that those working within departments with titles such as "language, literacy, and culture" will begin to feel either left behind or pushed in new and exciting (though challenging) directions.  I wonder if others are seeing similar patterns within their departments and among their colleagues in the age bracket of 40s-60s.

Best to all, and thanks for the memories!

Shirley
________________________________
From: reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk <reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> on behalf of Richard Anderson <csrrca at illinois.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2021 1:59 PM
To: Leu, Donald <donald.leu at uconn.edu>
Cc: reading hall of fame <Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>
Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: Walter MacGinitie

I first met Walter MacGinitie in the late 1950s at a conference for graduate students held at Northwestern. He represented Teachers College. I represented Harvard. Another person I got to know at the conference was Gordon Bower, then a grad student at Yale. My first job was at New York University. We saw Walter and Ruth a couple of times in New York and I saw him at conferences in subsequent years. With the passing of Walter and other giants in the field, it seems we are at the end of an era. Or maybe just the end of my era.

Dick

Richard C Anderson
University Scholar and Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois
Member, National Academy of Education


On Wed, Feb 17, 2021 at 2:53 PM Leu, Donald <donald.leu at uconn.edu<mailto:donald.leu at uconn.edu>> wrote:
Sadly, I report that another member, Walter MacGinitie, has passed.  I never knew Walter personally, only his important work, but word travels among members of the environmental communities concerned about the San Juan Islands of Washington. Walter lived on San Juan Island and he and his wife, Ruth, hadgifted 13 acres of important land to the San Juan Preservation Trust, an organization that my wife and I, as boaters who enjoy the islands, contribute to.    A tribute recently appeared in the SJPT newsletter:  https://sjpt.org/remembering-walter-macginitie/<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/sjpt.org/remembering-walter-macginitie/__;!!DZ3fjg!uaQMx0MjECCG-H9dbMd8mJz9YP89SfkKyjksfaPQBvoVAsBA_a_1YG6sVnuNLOFe$>

Be well.

Don

—
Donald J. Leu, Ph.D.
"Every  one of us is given the gift of life, and what a strange gift it is.  If it is preserved jealously and selfishly, it impoverishes and saddens. But if it is spent for others, it enriches and beautifies.”
  -- Geraldine  Ferraro.
     Acceptance speech at the 1984 Democratic Party National  Convention.





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