Margaret B. Lindsey, Renowned Teacher Educator Dies
Margaret Lindsey, Professor Emeritus of Education, died last week. Professor Lindsey was a world-renowned teacher educator who served Teachers College for nearly thirty years.
Margaret Lindsey, Professor Emeritus of Education, died last week. Professor Lindsey was a world-renowned teacher educator who served Teachers College for nearly thirty years. She joined the Teachers College faculty in 1950 and with exceptions of leaves for work, study or to consult around the county, indeed, the world, she remained at TC until her retirement in 1978. During her tenure at TC, Lindsey had an enormous impact on the course of teacher education, in part, through the people who studied with her. Lindsey was a prolific writer. In a 1948 paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Teachers Colleges, Lindsey said "…that all of the resources available for giving prospective teachers contacts with children, youth and adults constitute a laboratory which is an integrating center for professional experiences." But perhaps her greatest direct effect was on university leaders and education deans. Her influence far exceeded offering information and advice and extended to creating organizational and national mechanisms for shaping teacher education as a profession. In 1858, Lindsey drafted the first standards for the National Commission on Accreditation in Teacher Education. She consulted with an influenced numerous state departments in developing their certification laws and a wide number of colleges and universities seeking to improve their programs for teacher education. In reading her many papers there are three qualities that Lindsey displays, according to Elizabeth Hunter who edited "Margaret Lindsey: A Teacher Educator Speaks" (1981). Hunter says the first two are incisiveness and steadfastness. "Note," says Hunter, "the persistence in which Professor Lindsey developed issues that are central to teacher education; nor does she stay with one single theme, one narrow thread of scholarship. No, she is an educator who understood from the outset what the major themes and issues in her field were, pursued them, and sought integrative solutions…" Hunter adds, "The third quality is Lindsey's "willingness to speak out on important and controversial issues---to call to task groups inside and outside the profession. In clear strong terms, she made herself heard."
Margaret Lindsey received her B.S., from State Teachers College (Shippensburg) in 1943; her M.Ed. from Pennsylvania State in 1939; her Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1946; and her Litt.D. from Eastern Kentucky in 1976.
The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education annually awards the Margaret B. Lindsey Award for Distinguished Research in Teacher Education to an individual whose research "over the last decade has made a major impact on the field of teacher education."
Published Monday, Feb. 10, 2003