Education, Research and Educology (ePub)

People call me Jim. I was born in southwest Missouri in the village of Stella (Newton County) in 1941. I finished high school at Carpinteria, California (1959) and completed my BA in liberal arts at the University of California, Berkeley (1963). I started my career in high school teaching in Kenya (1964-66) as part of a USAID funded foreign aid project (Teachers for East Africa). I continued with high school teaching in the Huntington Beach High School District, California (1966-69). During that time, I completed my MA in history at California State University, Long Beach. I decided to do further studies and completed a PhD in education (what I now call educology) at the University of California, Los Angeles (1969-72). From there, I pursued a career in university teaching in educology in the USA and Australia. Throughout my career, I have had an abiding interest in the questions of (1) what is education, (2) what is knowledge about education and (3) how can knowledge about education be used to take rational action in education to achieve worthwhile goals. In 1974, I emigrated from the USA to Australia, where I have since resided. I received Australian citizenship in 1988. I have lived in NSW (Wagga Wagga and Terrigal) and Queensland (Brisbane). I currently live on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, with my wife, the author, Maggie Christensen. I have three grown children and seven grandchildren, all living in Australia.