This post was written by Jerome C. Harste, member of the Alliance of Distinguished Professors at Indiana University and a Past President of NCTE.
March 10, 1930–July 4, 2024
Age 94
Dorothy Watson passed away on Independence Day, a fitting date for someone who championed the freedom of teachers to create curriculum tailored to the children they teach. She saw teachers as knowledgeable professionals and believed that good teaching practices ought to align theoretically with what is currently known about language, learning, and the reading process. She championed living your curriculum by not only “talking the talk” but also “walking the walk.”
Dorothy envisioned our profession as a community of learners. As the advocate of teacher study groups, she inspired a Teachers Applying Whole Language (TAWL) movement, a key feature of which was that every meeting started with educators sharing their best teaching strategies. Teachers loved Dorothy, and it came as no surprise that the original 2,000+ TAWL teachers voted her as the first president of their newly created Whole Language Umbrella organization (now Literacies & Languages for All, a constituent group of NCTE). I had the honor of following Dorothy as the president of WLU. I was conducting my first board meeting when Dorothy stopped in. The board meeting immediately dissolved into chaos as members jumped up to greet Dorothy often with a hug or a kiss. I turned to one of the board members who was sitting beside me and said, “I hope someday people love me the way they love Dorothy!” “Oh,” she responded, “they do. It’s just that you love a teddy bear a lot different than you love a porcupine!”
Dorothy’s career spanned from teaching elementary school in Kansas City to mentoring doctoral students at the University of Missouri, Columbia. In between, she served as a reading consultant and coordinator of the Kansas City Teachers Corps, with short overseas teaching stints in Kenya and Sierra Leone. As a student herself, she was one of the original research assistants at the Reading Miscue Center at Wayne State while earning her doctorate under the direction of Dr. Kenneth S. Goodman.
Dorothy’s passion for education and reading left an indelible mark on countless educators and students. Her leadership resulted in Dorothy’s being named the Outstanding Elementary Educator in the English Language Arts by NCTE in 2002. Her legacy of knowledge and dedication will continue to inspire future generations.
I’ll close on a personal note: There is something about watching a good teacher that simply takes my breath away. Dorothy’s teaching did that for me in the many workshops in which we were featured speakers. To share what I learned, I created two videotape series featuring master teachers using an inquiry-based, whole language approach to instruction in various classroom contexts. Many of the teachers featured in these videotapes not only “took my breath away” but were members of the TAWL group that Dorothy originally created. So, thank you Dr. Watson.
Rest in peace. Your enthusiasm for good teaching and child-centered education endures.
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