McDowell Foundation Award Recipients

Art McBeath
1998 McDowell Foundation Award for Contributions to Educational Research

Art McBeath began his career as an educator in 1949 as a teacher on a remote Indian reserve in northern Manitoba. In the years that followed, he gradually expanded his experience of elementary and secondary education as a teacher, vice-principal, and principal in Quill Lake and as school superintendent in the Blaine Lake School Unit. In 1962, after one year as principal and teacher at Sir John Franklin School in the Northwest Territories, he became an Executive Assistant with the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation, working primarily in the area of professional development. Nine years later, he moved on to become a Professor of Education and Coordinator of Professional Development and Field Experiences at the University of Regina. He also served as acting head of the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College's education department, and he has taught in the Northern and Indian Teacher Education Programs.

To the many positions Art filled so capably within education, he brought a lifelong interest in educational research. In keeping with the norms of his day, he pursued this interest largely through university studies, earning a B.A. from Queens University in 1950, a B.Ed. from the University of Saskatchewan in 1952, a M.Ed. from the University of Alberta in 1959, and a doctorate in administration and curriculum from the University of Illinois in 1967. However, Art also developed early in his career a vision of teacher-centred educational research that did not rest with universities or government departments. In a letter to the STF in 1959, he wrote:

I am quite sure that the main road for [teachers' professional organizations] should be in the line of getting teachers and principals to take and have more responsibility for educational decisions that are made by boards, administrators, departments and training colleges....It is going to have to mean that teachers will and should share to a greater extent in policies that are made at all levels. Both within their school and within their unit and the province. Thus the big job for the Federation is to prepare teachers to do this kind of thing. They have to...become known, and known as willing to give professional advice. Teachers will have to be up to date on results of research as it will be impossible for an administrator to know it all and boards are going to be left back in the dark ages.

Ten years later he was still refining this idea when he completed a doctoral thesis based on a survey of the perceptions of the levels of decision-making in educational programs in the elementary and secondary schools of Saskatchewan.

Art attempted to implement his vision of teacher-centred research in numerous ways. As an STF Executive Assistant, he spearheaded the publication of A Teacher's Guide to Classroom Research, and he helped to organize a provincial conference on classroom research in 1963. Many Saskatchewan schools received a visit from Art McBeath encouraging them to develop and implement their own research projects. Art also advocated and became an important contributor to a research council composed of representatives from Saskatchewan's educational organizations. Under the auspices of this council, a Saskatchewan Educational Research Association was formed that held several provincial research conferences in the 1970's before it faded away. Later, as a university professor, Art continually sought ways to integrate theory and practice in teacher education. His understanding of the fundamental principles and practices of teaching led him to articulate to his students and colleagues a "practical theory-based approach to planning and instruction" that blended knowledge gained from both teaching and research.

A distinguished educator like Art McBeath has won many awards in the course of a long career. He has received the Kellogg Fellowship Award in Studies in Administration; he has been elected as president of the Canadian College of Teachers; he holds an Honorary Life Membership in the STF; he was the first educator to be honoured at an Excellence in Education dinner sponsored by the University of Regina Faculty of Education; and his name has been given to the innovative Art McBeath Faculty Associate program at the University of Regina. However, one contribution for which he has not received the recognition he richly deserves is his role in shaping the climate for teacher-centred research in Saskatchewan and preparing the ground for the eventual establishment of the McDowell Foundation. It is to correct this omission and celebrate his work as a pioneer and builder in the field of educational research that the first McDowell Foundation Award has been presented to Art McBeath.

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