Celebrating Seymour Sarason

By Michael Fullan, Andy Hargreaves, & Ann Lieberman

The beginning of the second decade of the 21st century sadly marks the passing of a visionary giant of psychology and education in the 20th. Seymour Sarason died on Jan. 28, 2010, at the age of 91.

Seymour wrote more than 45 books, in areas as diverse as community psychology, mental disability, educational change, teacher education, teaching as a performance art, the theory of relativity, and (now in press) life in nursing homes. He helped shape the field of community psychology; championed a new role for academics that valued working with and learning from real problems in the community; and was one of the earliest, most original, and most outspoken writers and thinkers in the field of educational change.

The three of us are among the many who have been influenced, inspired, and emboldened by his remarkable contributions to understanding educational change and advocating for positive visions of it that address and include the cultures of the students and teachers whom reform...