Joseph Adelson, Carl Dolce, Denis Doyle, Gilbert Sewall, and Donald Stedman, in their discussion of education in the United States, focus on the topics of traditionalist/fundamentalist versus modernist/innovative/progressive approaches to teaching; school curricula; and the communication of social and moral values to American youth. The speakers describe our schools as a battlefield between several impossible and extreme value systems. To be successful, they suggest, a school’s community must have a single, moderate voice or disposition and that private schools may be one solution.
At the time of this interview, Adelson, a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1978-79), was professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. Dolce was dean of the School of Education at North Carolina State University. Doyle was the education policies studies director at the American Enterprise Institute. Sewall, a Fellow at the Center (1981-82), was former education editor of Newsweek. Stedman was associate vice-president for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
