SPECTRUM COLLEAGUES
Michael Goldberger
Kinesiology Department Head
James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA
Email:
goldbems@jmu.edu
I met Muska Mosston in 1968 at a conference in Pittsburgh. I was a graduate student at the time at Pitt. My job involved supervising Physical Education student teachers. When I saw an advertisement about a conference in Pittsburgh on teaching, I just had to attend. A number of the national leaders in Physical Education, including Larry Locke, Joan Tillotson, Jack Stovall, and Tom Evaul, set up several conferences across the country ostensibly to promote Muska's work on the Spectrum of Teaching Styles. These leaders were aware of the power of his work.The first conference was in Pittsburgh. Locke had written glowingly about the Spectrum being an important innovation in Physical Education. I was taken back by Muska's presentation that weekend. Muska was unforgettable- clear and forceful. His ideas were incredible. His energy was infectious. In closing, he mentioned another conference upcoming in Philadelphia. My Pitt sponsor, Mike Sherman, and I decided we would attend the Philadelphia conference. Again, it did not disappoint and I was hooked. After the conference I waited to have Muska sign my newly acquired textbook. I didn't know him and, again, I was just a graduate student. He wrote "Mikey, this was the first link, really!". And it was.
That year, 1968, was the beginning of a professional and personal relationship that grew and intensified over the next twenty-five years. I still call him my mentor. In 1970, I took a job at Temple University in Philadelphia and I saw Muska and Sara at least once or twice a month for the next twenty years. I would call him on the phone (pre- email days) and say something like, "Muska, we are doing the Inclusion style in my class next week. Any chance of you and Sara coming to Philadelphia?". I can't ever remember him saying no. Along with my colleagues Phil Gerney, Jim Chamberlain, and Arnold Dort, we conducted a series of 'process-product' studies designed to provide the empirical evidence about the Spectrum's effectiveness. Doing this research was suggested as necessary by Nixon and Locke in their mid-1960's encyclopedia article on Physical Education teaching. Those studies generated interested in the sport pedagogy community for additional Spectrum research. Muska and Sara were traveling all over the world by now spreading the word.
While on the Temple faculty I taught the Spectrum to both undergraduate and graduate students for over twenty years. Hundreds of my students were exposed to the Spectrum. Most were as excited about the Spectrum as I way. To make the Spectrum real, I worked with my public school colleagues to assure that the Spectrum was used in their schools. In all my work, research and teaching, I have never seen or heard of anything to suggest that the Spectrum was not effective in teaching Physical Education. It has been at the center of my professional life since 1968. I look forward to continue working with Sara Ashworth Lankler and others associated with the Spectrum Teaching and Learning Institute as we attempt to implement Muska's dream. As Muska would say, "Its only 2008. There’s lots of time ahead."