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Special Education |
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Graduate School of Education |
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Dr. James O. “Blue” Bickford Assistant Professor |
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To continue to learn from day to day from all of my students and colleagues is perhaps the greatest advantage there is in a university position. Devoting one’s career to the benefit of a low incidence population of individuals brings daily satisfaction which can neither be weighed nor measured by any physical means. I am a teacher. During the past 33 years of teaching and administering educational programs, my philosophy has been most influenced by John Dewey, unarguably the most predominant educational thinker of the 20th century. His work, focusing on schools as social institutions, learning as a process and, therefore, education as a process of living rather a roadmap to attain some future need, has pervaded all that I do. If one accepts the belief that education is a social paradigm and must have significance within the community to have real meaning, and that communication and a constructivist approach are necessary, then one must follow those concepts when facilitating learning with students of any age. I am a member of the community. To be a fully developed person, one needs to be involved with the community on many levels: in employment, charitable work, development and support of the arts, and as an active participant in the development of a society that is dramatic and in constant flux. Without this multi-faceted approach to life, I am as dull as a proverbial doorknob. |
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Graduate School of Education SPED Portland State University |
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Contact Information |
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Office 204-H ED 615 SW Harrison Phone: 503-725-5495 Fax: 503-725-5599 |
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“I have learned much from my teachers, and from my colleagues more than from my teachers, and from my students more than from all” -Haggadah |