BA and MA in Education and Licensure Programs
My main interests in Education are in its larger sphere where academic learning and classrooms meet with communities and experience. While I recognize and support a variety of aspects of modern professional education, I also understand the roots of the profession are held within a much longer and more diverse tradition of communities caring for, educating, and growing children. I have strong interests in systems theory, community theory, ecology, and philosophy of ed. curriculum, science and social studies. Besides teaching in both the Goddard Campus and off Campus programs for the last six years, I also taught at Lesley University, where I was a master teacher/guide with the National Audubon Society Expedition Institute (AEI), an innovative mobile environmental studies/education program were students live and study while traveling through North America on a school bus. My experience at AEI was the focus of my dissertation work. I taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) and more recently I have taught courses at the University of Vermont in Curriculum and Critical Theory.
While completing my doctoral work at HGSE, I worked on the Annenberg Rural Challenge Project as a researcher/evaluator. This national grant focused on the sustainability of rural communities through place-based pedagogy and interdisciplinary curricula. Projects included locally developed citizen-based science, environmental action and justice, oral history, intergenerational studies, rural studies, and grassroots democratic action in diverse rural areas. I have continued work on place based learning consulting and developing courses focused on landscape and locale. I began an oral history of Goddard College in Central Vermont last year. I am interested in tracing the progressive education philosophy longitudinally over time and its effects on the communities, politics, and people of this area. I am also serving as evaluation consultant for the Vermont Peace Academy in their Peaceful Schools Initiative and serve as an officer on my local school board. Aside from my many academic interests, I also spend time on ornithology and natural history and old-time fiddling, contra dance and walking with Emmett, our dog.
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Ben Williams, MS, Ed.D