Joan F. Goodman

Joan F. Goodman earned her B.A. in social anthropology at Radcliffe College and her M.Ed and Ed.D. degrees at Harvard School of Education. Dr. Goodman has spent her career combining applied psychology with teaching. At various hospitals in Washington, D.C., Oakland, California, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she carried out diagnostic evaluations with preschool children, counseled families, and directed a therapeutic-educational program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). For many years, Dr. Goodman combined her clinical work with teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.
Dr. Goodman has written on the challenges that preschool children with developmental disabilities present to parents, teachers, and the science of psychology. She is the author of a book on early intervention, When Slow Is Fast Enough (1992); a nonverbal assessment instrument, The Goodman Lock Box; a series of videotapes (with Susan Hoban) on families raising children with disabilities; and numerous articles on classification and outcomes of children with delayed development. Dr. Goodman also studies the practices and moral underpinnings of school discipline and authority in classrooms. She has written The Moral Stake in Education: Contested Premises and Practices (2001); and Moral Education: A Teacher-Centered Approach (2004) with Howard Lesnick. She also wrote Teaching Goodness: Engaging the Moral and Academic Promise of Young Children (2003) with Usha Balamore. She received the Lindback Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1994 and served as University Ombudsman from 2009 to 2011.