Colin Marsh: building a scholarship of practice, developing an Australian curriculum voice

Abstract

Academics are often pictured in ivory towers disconnected form the real world. Colin Marsh was not such an academic. He was a multi-tasker. He worked in the areas of teacher education social science education and curriculum studies while at the same time pursuing the development of a formal structure to give curriculum studies in Australia a voice both in the local community and internationally. This reflected his own personal engagement. He worked tirelessly in Australia but also had a strong international presence in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Asia.

His work, including academic articles, textbooks and edited books was, at its core, concerned with schools and classroom practice. He was not a theorist dreaming of the next European or North American theory to which he could attach himself. Rather, he was concerned with schools and teachers and how they could be supported to help students excel in their learning. None of this is to mention the novels he wrote, the jazz he not only listened to but played or the photographs he took. He left a professional legacy in his textbooks, in the Australian Curriculum Studies Association and in Curriculum Perspectives that he edited for over thirty years. This legacy will be long remembered in a field currently under stress and seeking a major role in addressing the complexities of the twenty first century.