UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #185
PELLA, MILTON O.

PELLA, Milton O. (1914-2010)
Professor of Curriculum and Instruction
At UW: 1939-1942; 1946-1980

Interviewed: April 6, 1979	
Series: School of Education
Interviewer: Mark Van Pelt
Indexed (time code) by: Elaine Ayers
Length: 2 hours

Background; Changes in faculty attitudes; Student admissions procedures; Wisconsin High School; Elementary Education program; ILS; Faculty personalities; Student teaching; Program for Indian science teachers; Retraining science teachers; Ford Foundation; DPI relations with Department of Curriculum and Instruction; Wisconsin Improvement Program; Center for Study of Scientific Literacy; Relationship of School of Education and L&S; School of Education reorganization; Creation and nature of Curriculum and Instruction; Student evaluation; UW attitude to international programs; Evaluation of Nigerian and Arab teaching programs.

First Interview Session (April 6, 1979): Digital File
Time	Keywords

00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction [Tape 1/Side 1]

00:00:20	Early background of Pella; at university since 1939.

00:01:49	Contrast of early with present faculty; love for university began to subside in late 1950s and allegiance to departments became foremost until mid 1960s; then the discipline became of primary importance; in early 1970s the self became all important ("I")

00:04:43	Academic excellence more important in past than now; faculty of School of Education was truly multi-disciplinary, with heavy input of Letters and Sciences; was true up to mid 1950s, at least.

00:07:18	Lem Frazier; William Burns; Joseph Dillinger; John Willard; Edward Gilbert; Harvey Sorum were all very active in School of Education work.

00:09:08	Students formerly were interviewed individually to gain admittance to School of Education.

00:10:06	Eight Year Study did not have much impact on Wisconsin High; exception--biology moved from tenth grade to ninth grade in curriculum.

00:11:34	Gordon MacKenzie description; an educationalist's educationalist.

00:13:16	Creation of Elementary Education program; John Guy Fowlkes; purpose and nature of program; Integrated Liberal Studies (ILS) program; tough screening of entrants; program has changed since its origin.

00:19:13	Loss of Virgil Herrick in 1963 caused tremendous change in elementary education program because of his control of control of it; how Fowlkes brought in Herrick; Chester Harris; Sara Rhue and Frank Estvan; Paul Eberman; names first person in elementary education.

00:23:05	Philip Falk did not get student teachers into Madison city schools--overcrowding did it; two problems of student teaching in Wisconsin High; teachers in Wisconsin High School more professional than supervising teachers today; in 1940s, UW people were highly respected; Fowlkes picked superintendents for most schools in the state; professors worked closely in advising public schools; this does not happen anymore; attitude of students changed.

00:28:50	[end side 1; begin side 2] Changes in education faculty; Ira Davis, lack of research but heavy service load and text writing; text writing was a respectable course of activity; there were researchers--Clarence Ragsdale in educational psychology, but research not highest priority; Fowlkes pushed harder for research than Anderson; John Mayor's term as acting Dean turbulent.

00:32:42	Fowlkes organization of program for Indian Science teachers; Ford Foundation supported; Pella was campus coordinator; Pella also worked on National Science foundation (NSF) program for retraining of science teachers; E.B. Fred instrumental in this.

00:36:30	More on the Indian science teacher program. Its set-up and conduct in mid 1950s; a unique program.

00:40:01	How Fowlkes tied into Ford Foundation money.

00:40:48	Reaction of Wisconsin teachers to Indian teachers; general relations.

00:42:01	Indian government selected candidates for program; the Indian science education program came under control of people sent to Wisconsin; influence of Wisconsin not in curriculum or materials, but in attitude of teachers toward teaching.

00:44:44	Comments on Lindley Stiles; his style of administration; Stiles really touched off research in School of Education, gave people free hand in research; UW science education program in re-education of science teachers, began in 1955, served as model for future program in United States; developed into program for training of science supervisors, which ran until early 1970s.

00:48:15	Walter Wittich, Charles Wedemeyer, Julian Stanley and Pella studied science films in physics with United States Office of Education (USOE) grant; Pella helped put these films into use in Turkey; films were Encyclopedia Brittanica productions; this film program led Pella to discover that many people were teaching science courses in high schools who were not properly prepared in academics; this had big impact on upgrade of science education in Wisconsin.

00:54:57	DPI relations with C & I poor: two-way communication is gone; too much commanding from DPI without consultation; this due to political problems with UW system operation.

00:55:41	Wisconsin Improvement Program (WIP) history; Pella's work in development of team teaching. [end tape 1; begin tape 2] WIP doing little since Fowlkes out of program; program has lost its creativity; Stoltenberg; Fowlkes personally recruited Pella.

01:01:01	Stiles' influence on Wisconsin; development of Center for Study of Scientific Literacy (CSSL); George O'Hearn, funded by USOE and Aerospace Foundation (via Stiles' connection); this program began in 1957.

01:05:22	Relationship of science education to academic science department is very close; Letters and Science losing interest in education; believes too many academics are technologically; rather than scientifically minded; Letters and Science participation dying with McCarty, dead with Palmer; too much isolation of education people from academic departments; DPI a discouragement to creative development.

01:12:07	Closing of Wisconsin High School: Pella believes it was a mistake to have done so; Wisconsin High part of its own reason for downfall, as well as Stiles desire for research money; Philip Lambert's synoetics laboratory, costly and worthless; Russell Hosler did "spade work" for Stiles; Central not put together well.

01:16:48	Suggestions to upgrade Wisconsin High in 1950s just to keep up staff morale, not serious. Closing of Wisconsin High has isolated methods people from experiences with high; school students; keeps people pragmatic and with feet on ground.

01:19:12	Reaction of faculty and National Council of Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) controversy, Stiles maintained rapport with Letters and Science and Engineering; Fowlkes very big on Letters and Science participation.

01:22:52	Ira Davis; how Pella came to be on faculty; how science teachers in Wisconsin High picked up.    

01:24:55	Respectability of education as a discipline in eyes of rest of university.

01:26:50	Wisconsin Elementary Teacher Education Project; Vere DeVault; it did not produce anything.

01:27:59	Reorganization of School of Education, creation and nature of C&I.

01:29:30	[end side 1; begin side 2] Proposal to create a department of elementary education in mid 1960s; DeVault; Robert Tabachnick pushed for this; objections to reorganization existed mainly due to fears of over-isolation from teacher training.

01:35:44	Relationship of C&I to other education departments non-existent; much control of teacher training in C&I; change in nature of Ph.D. training over the years.

01:39:28	Elimination of the language requirement for a PhD in C&I.

01:41:20	Change in nature of students; elementary education main area of students' complaints.

01:45:11	Changes in nature of student evaluation; grades are increasingly inflated; less noticeable changes for graduate students; Harris; changes in prelim system.

01:50:54	Changes in attitude of university toward "worldly obligations" since World War II; originally university did not feel persons should be allowed leave to work elsewhere in the world; Northern Nigeria Teacher Education Program badly planned; Henry Van Engen; did not leave anything of lasting value; Arab science teaching program Pella started in 1964 did better by taking a different design--that is by recruiting people from Arab countries to come to Wisconsin; personal contacts of Northern Nigeria Teacher Education Program (NNTEP) brought good Nigerian students to Wisconsin; Biafran War did not politicize NNTEP program.

01:59:25	End of First Interview Session

End of Oral History #185