College of Education

Ken has been on the faculty of the College of Education since 1990. His interests include literacy teaching, the relationship between literacy and culture, social justice, and research methods. He also coordinates OSU’s collaboration in the state-wide reading endorsement program.

Ken’s elementary teaching career includes work in Colorado, Oregon, Norway, and Japan. He has taught all of the elementary grades (minus kindergarten) as well as English as a foreign language. He even spent one year as an assistant principal when living in western Colorado. In 1998-99, Ken took a sabbatical and taught a one-three blend at Lincoln School in Corvallis, and in 2006 he published a book about this experience; an examination of his re-education as a teacher (Good Day/Bad Day: Teaching as a High Wire Act). Currently, Ken is working on an edited book on doing critical literacy with young children, which will be published in early 2013. Engaged in work to embed the teaching of literacy methods in culture and social justice, he has begun to explore critical (auto)ethnographic action research. Finally, Ken’s goal for the next phase of his career is to more intentionally reconnect with the larger educational community, in Oregon and beyond, to help improve the education of all students, particularly in the area of literacy.