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Dr. Paul Theobald was born in Rochester, Minnesota on March 7, 1956. His father was a rural mail carrier, and mother was a homemaker. He had eight siblings. Dr. Theobald is currently the Woods-Beals Endowed Chair in Urban and Rural Education at Buffalo State College. He is a nationally known scholar and expert on the history of education in the United States. He is an accomplished educational historian whose work frequently crosses disciplinary boundaries and has appeared in such distinguished research journals as Educational Theory, American Journal of Education, Journal of Educational Studies, Journal of Educational Thought, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, American Historical Review, Educational Foundations, History of Education Quarterly and many others. In terms of curricular thought, he is an advocate of place-based education. According to him, there are two main arguments that support it. One is the “learning” argument, since what we know about how humans come to create understanding makes the immediate locale, one’s immediate surroundings, a perfect contextual lens for looking into the traditional school subjects and coming to understand how they can be used in the world. The second is the “purpose” argument, for an education means much more than preparation for an economic or occupational role. We go to the expense of providing public schools at least partially to prepare citizens for the burden of democracy - and the only way to teach students how to shoulder this burden is to give them a chance to use the traditional school subjects in such a way as to improve life’s circumstances where they live. In his mind, if we want to maximize what students learn and we want them to be as prepared as possible to play economic AND political roles as adults, place-based pedagogy is the direction we must take.

Dr. Theobald completed his BA in History from the St. John’s University in 1978. After receiving his BS in Social Studies education, from Mankato State University in 1981, he took a faculty position as the Social studies and English instructor at Fairfax, Minnesota where he worked from 1981-1986. In 1986, Dr. Theobald joined as the Social studies instructor at Waconia, Minnesota after completing his MS in history from Mankato State University in 1985. After receiving his PhD in educational history from University of Illinois in 1990, he took a faculty position at the Texas A&M University. His time at South Dakota University resulted in his first book (1995), Call School: Rural Education in the Midwest to 1918, which has remained the definitive study on the history of rural education in this country for the past twelve years. Prior to joining SUNY College at Buffalo recently, he served as Professor and Dean of the School of Education and Counseling at Wayne State College in Nebraska. He has additionally served as professor and director of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Teacher Education at South Dakota State University. Dr. Theobald is on the editorial board for the Journal of Research in Rural Education and Encounter - The Journal of Education, Meaning and Social Justice. He is also a member of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and the American Educational Research Association. Currently, Dr. Theobald is working with Warren Gleckel on an essay - “White Paper” for School of Education Faculty Buffalo State College. Joining the National Network for Educational Renewal? With this brief essay, they are to make a case for attempting to join the National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER), an entity created by John Goodlad and his associates in the late 1980s. Dr. Theobald designed The Teacher Study Group project in year 2006-2007 to serve as a useful and viable professional development effort for rural teachers. Dr. Theobald currently facilitates two teacher study groups, one in Alexander, NY, the other in Randolph, NY. Each is a group of eight educators who read articles and books and discuss the implications of what they read on their day-to-day work lives. During the 2005-2006 school year with guidance from the Dean of Buffalo State’s School of Education, Dr. Theobald has orchestrated the non-tenured faculty mentorship project which is intended to clarify matters related to promotion and tenure on the Buffalo State campus and have orchestrated meetings for two years now.

Research Interest
Dr. Theobald’s research interests include the relationship of community to culture, character, education, and democracy and teacher education as a contribution to democracy. His research is an attempt to tie three realms of the human condition, politics, economics, and education, a little more tightly together at a conscious level.

Major Works of Dr. Paul Theobald
•	Theobald, Paul. “A Case for Inserting Community into Public School Curriculum,” American Journal of Education, 112(3), (May 2006): 315-334

•	Theobald, Paul. Recasting America’s Political, Economic, and Educational Theory, Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, CO, manuscript in preparation.

•	Theobald, Paul. Teaching the Commons: Place, Pride, and the Renewal of Community. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1997.

•	Theobald, Paul. Call School: Rural Education in the Midwest to 1918. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1995.

•	Rodriguez, Alicia, Theobald, Paul, et al. Foundations of Educational Policy in the United States. Fourth edition. Needham Heights, MA: Ginn Press, 1989.