A to B: Jack Miller, M.A.T.’67

During my senior year at the University of Missouri, I was uncertain about what do upon graduation. Late in the fall, I saw a poster that advertised the Harvard-Missouri Fellowship in Teaching. This fellowship was for the Master of Arts Teaching Program at Harvard. I applied and in late March received a telegram stating that I had won. I also received a letter from the assistant to the dean that stated, “The Administrative Board of the Master of Arts in Teaching Program felt you had the potential to be a superior teacher, but also a ‘shaper and mover’ in American education.” That prophecy with regard to being a shaper and mover in American education was not fulfilled.

After graduating from Harvard, I spent one year assisting in the education department at Grinnell College in Iowa. I was asked to do a seminar for the students on Carl Rogers. That was a formative experience for me as I became interested in humanistic psychology and humanistic education and I have spent my entire career working in the field of holistic/humanistic education. However, it was not in the United States, but in Canada. In 1969 I immigrated to Canada because I was opposed to the Vietnam war. I did my doctorate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto and on graduation was hired by OISE to work in one of their field centres in Thunder Bay. I have worked for OISE and the University of Toronto since 1972.

Leaving the United States was difficult and very stressful. I began doing hatha yoga and meditation at a time when they were not part of the mainstream as they are now. I have continued doing these practices since then and they have formed the basis for much of my work in holistic education. Meditation, in particular, helps one see how everything is interconnected, which is a central principle of holistic education. In 1988 I introduced meditation to my courses where students meditate every day for six weeks and keep a journal. Since then, more than 2000 students — who are mostly teachers doing graduate work — have taken my courses and been introduced to meditation in a public university. Many of these students have told me how valuable this have been to their development. I am not sure this would have been possible at that time in an American University. 

In 1994 one of my books, The Holistic Curriculum, was translated into Japanese. This led to being invited to Japan to lecture and teach at women’s University in Kobe. Since then, I have gone almost every year to teach a course in Japan as well as lecture in other Asian countries. I also met my wife there, Midori Sakurai. So, I did not become a “shaper and mover” in American education, but my M.A.T. at Harvard was the beginning of a wonderful journey in education.

— John (Jack) Miller, M.AT.’67, is a professor with the department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at OISE and the University of Toronto

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