Joseph Coulson (born 1957) is a novelist, poet, and playwright. His writing is notable for its lyricism and its blending of American history and social criticism. Also an educator, Coulson served as president of the Great Books Foundation from 2014 to 2018. Dr. Coulson now serves as President and Chief Academic Officer of Harrison Middleton University, a private, not-for-profit, distance-learning university offering programs in the humanities.
Joseph Coulson grew up in Detroit, Michigan. As a youth, he attended both Catholic and public schools and worked as a caddie, grass cutter, janitor, and hospital orderly. He eventually found work as a singer, flautist, and bass player with bands in and around Detroit.
Coulson received a B.S. in education from Wayne State University, an M.A. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and a Ph.D. in American literature and poetics from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Coulson has worked as a classroom teacher, English department chair, senior administrator, and English professor. As an instructor and school administrator, Coulson was named a master teacher, served for several years as a mentor teacher and curriculum consultant, and worked to develop comprehensive teacher-training programs.
Coulson served as president of the Great Books Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization, from 2014 to 2018. He previously worked at the Great Books Foundation from 1999-2003 as senior editor, editorial director, and chief of staff.
Harrison Middleton University named Joseph Coulson, PhD, as president and chief academic officer of the university, effective July 1, 2018. [1] Harrison Middleton University is a great ideas, great works, great conversations, distance-learning university that offers graduate education in the humanities with concentrations in imaginative literature, natural sciences, philosophy and religion, and social science. Harrison Middleton University promotes student-faculty scholarship through research, discussion, and the development of collaborative publications. [2]
Coulson’s first novel, The Vanishing Moon (Archipelago Books, 2004), was a Barnes & Noble Great New Writers selection, and it won the Book of the Year Award, Gold Medal in Literary Fiction, from ForeWord . Chronicling the lives of working-class people, The Vanishing Moon was a critical success, and Coulson’s prose, themes, and historical range drew comparisons with John Steinbeck, William Maxwell, and Russell Banks. His second novel, Of Song and Water (2007) was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award. Both novels earned wide distribution in French and German translations, and The Vanishing Moon was later published as a Harvest Book, the perennial literary series from Harcourt.
Coulson has also published three books of poetry, The Letting Go (1984), A Measured Silence (1986), and Graph (1990). His first play, A Saloon at the Edge of the World (1996), a noir drama showcased by Theater Artists of Marin, enjoyed both popular and critical acclaim in the San Francisco Bay area. Coulson is a recipient of the Tompkins Award in Poetry and the David Gray Writing Fellowship (selected by Robert Creeley), and his essays have appeared in journals and anthologies including The Barnabe Mountain Review,Walt Whitman of Mickle Street,The Critical Survey of Poetry, and The Greenfield Review.
Founded in 1998, Harrison Middleton University provides a liberal arts curriculum and offers Master of Arts, Doctor of Arts, Doctor of Education, and a Continuing Education program. Serving independent learners, post-graduates, and working professionals, HMU supports students in the design of individualized programs of study that focus on primary sources, the history of ideas, and authors contained primarily within, but not limited to, the Great Books of the Western World published by Encyclopaedia Britannica. Shared Inquiry, a progressive and collaborative learning method developed by Mortimer Adler, Robert Hutchins, et al. at the University of Chicago, is HMU's core pedagogy, with all programs and coursework delivered at a distance, and Shared Inquiry discussions between faculty and students completed via telephone or Skype.
The Great Books Foundation is an independent, nonprofit educational organization who for more than sixty years has been a leader in close reading, critical thinking, and cooperative learning for the purpose of advancing civil discourse, civic awareness, and social justice.
The Foundation publishes a wide range of literature anthologies, nonfiction materials, and other classroom books that are designed to empower K–12 students to become independent readers and thinkers. Schools that integrate Great Books materials into their curriculum help their students improve their critical thinking, reading comprehension, writing, and speaking and listening skills.
The Foundation also sponsors programs in literacy and communication for underserved groups; these initiatives are an important part of the Foundation's mission to serve the common good.
Coulson discusses the work of the Great Books Foundation and how great literature affects 21st century critical thinking skills in an interview with Education Talk Radio.
Coulson lives in Chicago, Illinois. His wife, Christine Hooker, is the Stanley G. Harris Sr. Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry, and Professor in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology at Rush University Medical Center.
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Progressive education, or educational progressivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term progressive was engaged to distinguish this education from the traditional curricula of the 19th century, which was rooted in classical preparation for the university and strongly differentiated by social class. By contrast, progressive education finds its roots in modern experience. Most progressive education programs have these qualities in common:
Educational perennialism is a normative educational philosophy. Perennialists believe that one should teach the things that are of everlasting pertinence to all people everywhere, and that the emphasis should be on principles, not facts. Since people are human, one should teach first about humans, rather than machines or techniques, and about liberal, rather than vocational topics.
The philosophy of education is the branch of applied philosophy that investigates the nature of education as well as its aims and problems. It includes the examination of educational theories, the presuppositions present in them, and the arguments for and against them. It is an interdisciplinary field that draws inspiration from various disciplines both within and outside philosophy, like ethics, political philosophy, psychology, and sociology. These connections are also reflected in the significant and wide-ranging influence the philosophy of education has had on other disciplines. Many of its theories focus specifically on education in schools but it also encompasses other forms of education. Its theories are often divided into descriptive and normative theories. Descriptive theories provide a value-neutral account of what education is and how to understand its fundamental concepts, in contrast to normative theories, which investigate how education should be practiced or what is the right form of education.
The Association of College and Research Libraries defines information literacy as a "set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning". In the United Kingdom, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals' definition also makes reference to knowing both "when" and "why" information is needed.
Experiential education is a philosophy of education that describes the process that occurs between a teacher and student that infuses direct experience with the learning environment and content. The term is not interchangeable with experiential learning; however experiential learning is a sub-field and operates under the methodologies of experiential education. The Association for Experiential Education regards experiential education as "a philosophy that informs many methodologies in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills, clarify values, and develop people's capacity to contribute to their communities". Experiential education is the term for the philosophy and educational progressivism is the movement which it informed. The Journal of Experiential Education publishes peer-reviewed empirical and theoretical academic research within the field.
In education, a curriculum is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experiences in terms of the educator's or school's instructional goals. A curriculum may incorporate the planned interaction of pupils with instructional content, materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of educational objectives. Curricula are split into several categories: the explicit, the implicit, the excluded, and the extracurricular.
Eric "E. D." Donald Hirsch Jr. is an American educator, literary critic, and theorist of education. He is professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia.
Chemistry education is the study of teaching and learning chemistry. It is one subset of STEM education or discipline-based education research (DBER). Topics in chemistry education include understanding how students learn chemistry and determining the most efficient methods to teach chemistry. There is a constant need to improve chemistry curricula and learning outcomes based on findings of chemistry education research (CER). Chemistry education can be improved by changing teaching methods and providing appropriate training to chemistry instructors, within many modes, including classroom lectures, demonstrations, and laboratory activities.
Harrison Middleton University is a private distance-learning university offering Master of Arts, Doctor of Arts, and Doctor of Education programs in the humanities. Harrison Middleton University focuses its scope on the Great Books.
The Great Books Foundation, incorporated in the state of Illinois and based in Chicago, is an independent, nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to help people think and share ideas. Toward this end, the Foundation publishes collections of classic and modern literature as part of a continuum of reading and discussion programs for children and adults. The foundation has two main programs: Junior Great Books, serving students in kindergarten through high school, and Great Books Discussion for college students, continuing education, and Great Books book groups. The organization derives its income from the sale of books, teacher professional development fees, contributions, and grants.
Stephen Brookfield is a scholar in adult education who has held positions at the University of British Columbia, Columbia University, Harvard University and the University of Saint Thomas. He is currently Distinguished Scholar at Antioch University, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, and Emeritus Professor at the University of St. Thomas.
The Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) is located at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama and is the United States Air Force's intermediate-level Professional Military Education (PME) school. It is a subordinate command of the Air University (AU), also located at Maxwell AFB, and is part of the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) headquartered at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.
Learning Through Art is an educational program of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. LTA pairs practicing artists with participating public elementary school classrooms throughout the five boroughs of New York City. These resident artists spend one day a week for a period of 10 or 20 weeks working with classroom instructors to create and execute an art curriculum for the students that ties in with current Guggenheim exhibitions and supports the core curriculum learning inside of the classroom. Participating classrooms visit the Guggenheim multiple times throughout the duration of their program, and student artwork is shown in a culminating exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in their annual A Year With Children showcase.
Harbin Medical University (HMU) (Chinese: 哈尔滨医科大学) is a public university located in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China.
Eleanor Ruth Duckworth is a teacher, teacher educator, and psychologist.
The UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program (JMP) is a joint degree program in the University of California system between the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the UCSF School of Medicine. Students spend their pre-clerkship years at UC Berkeley engaging in a unique medical curriculum centered around student-led inquiry while simultaneously earning a master's degree (MS) in the Health and Medical Sciences at Berkeley Public Health. After two and a half years, students move across the Bay to UCSF to finish their medical education and receive their medical doctorate (MD).
Gifted pull-outs are an educational approach in which gifted students are removed from a heterogeneous (mixed-ability) classroom to spend a portion of their time with academic peers. Pull-outs tend to meet one to two hours per week. The students meet with a teacher to engage in enrichment or extension activities that may or may not be related to the curriculum being taught in the regular classroom. Pull-out teachers in some states are not required to have any formal background in gifted education.
A classic is a book accepted as being exemplary or particularly noteworthy. What makes a book "classic" is a concern that has occurred to various authors ranging from Italo Calvino to Mark Twain and the related questions of "Why Read the Classics?" and "What Is a Classic?" have been essayed by authors from different genres and eras. The ability of a classic book to be reinterpreted, to seemingly be renewed in the interests of generations of readers succeeding its creation, is a theme that is seen in the writings of literary critics including Michael Dirda, Ezra Pound, and Sainte-Beuve. These books can be published as a collection or presented as a list, such as Harold Bloom's list of books that constitute the Western canon. Although the term is often associated with the Western canon, it can be applied to works of literature from all traditions, such as the Chinese classics or the Indian Vedas.
The classical education movement or renewal advocates for a return to a traditional education based on the liberal arts, the canons of classical literature, the fine arts, and the history of civilization. It focuses on human formation and paideia with an early emphasis on music, gymnastics, recitation, imitation, and grammar. Multiple organizations support classical education in charter schools, in independent faith-based schools, and in home education. This movement has inspired several graduate programs and colleges as well as a new peer-reviewed journal, Principia: A Journal of Classical Education.
Global education is a mental development program that seeks to improve global human development based on the understanding of global dynamics, through the various sectors of human development delivery. In formal education, as a mode of human development delivery, it is integrated into formal educational programs, as an advanced program where global dimensions to local problems are appreciated through interconnectivity. Its first phase began as an undertaking to restructure education and society in the 1960s and 1970s, through the initiatives of educationalists, NGOs and intergovernmental organizations. The program evolves with the internet, and is in its virtual interconnectivity phase, through social media and other global public spheres. This global approach to mental development, seeks to fix the failing curriculum-based global education program that is: stuck in limited subject knowledge, based on theories that have failed the world ;hinged on memorization without visual exposure to knowledge development resources and global culture, limited by access to human development resources. Instead, the program seeks to improve the global mental resources pool through the appreciation of global dynamics and local perspectives on issues. This is through alternative motivations for global human development, and alternative global futures hinged on interconnectivity.
