Remembering David Whitebread

David Whitebread

9th July 1948 – 13th April 2021

At nine o ‘clock on a Monday morning over 200 trainee teachers filed into the auditorium of the Mary Allan Building to the accompaniment of ‘We don’t need no education’. On this occasion it was Pink Floyd, another time it might have been the Do-re-mi song from singalong Sound of Music, or perhaps an engaging clip about orangutans from Attenborough. Whatever the soundtrack, the common element was David Whitebread. David’s PGCE lectures were always eagerly anticipated. With an enviable talent for rendering some complex aspects of psychology both accessible and engaging he demonstrated to all of us the value of playfulness in both teaching and learning.

David had a strong personal history of playfulness. As a senior teacher in a primary school he had once showed prospective parents around the school whilst dressed as a North American native chief. When asked to move to a Year 6 class, he employed the pedagogical approaches he had developed in his reception class and looked back on the experience as one of his most successful and enjoyable years in teaching. The most enthusiastic of grandads and the keenest of travellers, we shared David’s sense of fun as he took on his seasonally type-cast role at Christmas, and all knew what was meant when he said that ‘tomorrow he would be going on a course’. It was usually the eighteen holes in Saffron Walden.

David was responsible for establishing the Early Years PGCE course and in this role he offered the trainee teachers the levels of care that he would hope for from tutors supporting his own daughters. This determination to ensure a positive emotional environment for trainees remains a cornerstone of the early years and primary PGCE course. Colleagues on the teaching staff also benefitted from David’s support, with many, over the years, having reason to thank him for fostering their careers in academia. David was the first to invite less experienced colleagues to join in research teams, respecting their professional insights whist gently leading them down the paths of research methods, data analysis and report writing.

Beyond the Faculty David was a champion for early years education at every level. He worked tirelessly to foster awareness of the critical importance of early learning and to raise the professional profile of early years educators. Locally he was the chair of governors at Homerton Nursery for many years and convened the meetings of the regional branch of BAECE (the British Association for Early Childhood Education). He was on the national executive committee of TACTYC (the association for professional development in early years) and through this became a nationally respected advocate for young children. Internationally he developed a vibrant research network, hosting global conferences and publishing books that were translated into a multitude of languages. In recent years he developed the relationship with the LEGO foundation that funded the PEDAL Research Centre (Play in Education, Development And Learning). To be David’s colleague was both great fun and an exciting privilege.

Two of David’s previous PhD students and research colleagues offered to contribute to this article, both having consulted widely with an army of erstwhile PhD students who were keen for their thoughts to be represented. Deborah Pino Pasternak was awarded her PhD in 2008, supervised by David. She is now Associate Professor in Early Childhood Education and Communities at the Faculty of Education, University of Canberra.

Marisol Basilio is based at the Faculty of Education, having achieved her PhD, again under David’s supervision, in 2014. Now an educational psychology consultant, she continues David’s tradition of teaching on aspects of the Early Years and Primary PGCE course whilst maintaining a heavy involvement in the PEDAL centre.

Thank you both. Penny Coltman

David as a PhD supervisor : Deborah Pino-Pasternak

David wore many hats, touched many lives, and made contributions well beyond academia. This is a tribute to him as a supervisor, from those of us who were incredibly fortunate to complete our graduate degrees under his guidance. In the weeks after his passing most of his students have come together to share photos, experiences, and to organise initiatives that will sustain David’s legacy past our own trajectories in academia. This is a true testament to David’s impact on our personal and professional lives. We could talk here about his supervisory achievements, we could count how many students he supervised to completion, how many countries are now represented in his supervisory trajectory, and how many times he was honoured for his supervisory role. We chose, however, to talk about the richness and intimacy of the relationships that David formed with us.

David thrived as a supervisor. He loved it! He was genuinely invested in each one of his students and hungry to learn with us as we deepened the understanding of our own topics. David took risks and saw talents where others did not, and was curious to learn how our vastly different cultural upbringings shaped our research journeys. David was a rare supervisor. Not many get the combination of warmth, support, challenge and critical engagement as right as he did. In reminiscing about his supervision sessions, we all came together in laughter, as humour, even during the lows of our candidatures, sustained us and gave us confidence in our abilities. We all laughed, we all cried, and we all had cups of tea, and David was our constant.

David was more than a supervisor; he was a true mentor and our champion. He generously shared opportunities to become involved in his research projects and he advocated for us. He wrote with us and he supported us well past our completions. He probably has hundreds of reference letters stored somewhere in his computer. He took us to conferences, and he introduced us to our academic heroes. As a result, we were kindly and incrementally inducted into numerous aspects of academia and developed skills that many PhD candidates can only dream of acquiring while doing their higher degrees. Through conferences, symposia, journal articles, fellowship applications, and funding bids, David was our constant.

We extend our gratitude and this tribute to Linda, Lizzie and Sarah, who welcomed us as an extended family and made us feel we had a home far from our own. We are grateful for every minute and every late night David dedicated to giving feedback on our drafts. We know this was time taken away from you and we know this would have not happened without your unwavering family support. In closing this tribute, we thank David once again for all he did for us. He changed our lives and made us grow. We can only hope that, in following his example, we will continue contributing to a generation of researchers who hold a true fascination and curiosity for young children’s learning and development.

With much love and endless gratitude,

Dr Deborah Pino-Pasternak (PhD 2008) Dr Valeska Grau Cárdenas (PhD 2009) Dr Daniela Jadue Roa (PhD 2014) Dr Matt Somerville (PhD 2016) Dr Hanne Jensen (EdD 2020) Dr Lysandra Sinclaire-Harding (PhD 2017) Dr Mohini Verma (PhD 2017) Dr Aileen O’Connor (PhD 2015) Dr Sanjana Mehta (PhD 2006) Dr Donna Bryce (PhD 2011) Dr Martina Kuvalja (PhD 2014) Dr Marisol Basilio (PhD 2014) Dr Antonia Zachariou (PhD 2015) Dr Laura Renshaw-Vuillier (PhD 2014) Dr. Anies Al-Hroub (PhD 2006) Dr. Qais I. S. AlMeqdad (PhD 2008) Dr. Claire Sangster Jokić (PhD 2009) Dr Lisha O’Sullivan (PhD 2016) Mona Nemer (MEd 2010) Dr Heyi Zhang (PhD 2016) Eleni Papacosta (MPhil 2003) Dr Dave Neale (PhD 2016) Dr Pablo Torres (PhD 2017) (and others who we were not been able to reach at the time of publication.)

David as a research colleague: Marisol Basilio

David was a teacher of teachers, a ‘Grandmaster Jedi’ of Education and a playful researcher. I was lucky to work closely with him from 2009 until his retirement, so I witnessed first-hand the most important successes of his research career. He led two applied research projects, working collaboratively with teachers to implement innovative pedagogies based on dialogue and play. Who gets to study children chatting and playing for a living? David did.

David’s collaboration with the LEGO Foundation also started during this time and resulted in the foundation of a brand-new research centre: PEDAL. Who gets to say they founded a research centre in one of the most prestigious universities in the world? David. But to everyone who knew him, it was clear that his motivation was not prestige. I admired David’s selflessness during this process. He knew he would retire soon and wouldn’t personally benefit from the opportunities this new centre opened. He wouldn’t become the first LEGO Professor, and wouldn’t guide PhD students anymore. Yet the LEGO Professor of Play Chair, and the annual PhD scholarships at Cambridge to further the study of play exist because of David’s efforts.

David was, as Sara Baker – a colleague at PEDAL – put it, a ‘trailblazer’ in his areas of research. A keen observer of young children’s development, he contributed to the evidence recognising signs of early self-regulation at a time when the field only accepted these skills to be present much later in life. He also contributed significantly to the understanding of the importance of

play in children’s development and learning in various areas. Both of these ideas are now becoming mainstream and are being brought increasingly into educational practice.

David held leadership roles in professional bodies such as the European Association of Learning and Instruction, and contributed many academic publications in psychology and education. He also held editorial memberships in a number of academic journals. But his most valuable legacy in this area is the large group of mentees from all over the world, who will carry on with his mission of understanding development and learning to improve children’s lives. I am lucky to count myself as one of them.

David was a passionate activist. I remember in his office a poster that replaced the iconic red and blue image of Obama with that of Darwin, and a legend that said: “Very gradual change we can Believe in” – he lived by this, and he did his part. In 2012, he led a review on the ‘Importance of play’ for the European Parliament, which he presented in Brussels. For this work he received the BRIO Prize presented by the Swedish Toy company. This was very fitting because one of the main observation tools he and his team developed to assess self-regulation in young children used a BRIO Train Track toy.

David talked to government officials in the UK and many other countries, advocating high quality early childhood education. He participated in campaigns against early testing and the early school starting age in the UK, always putting children at the heart of educational practice. Perhaps David’s most impactful work was his most recent involvement with the PlayLabs initiative, together with the LEGO Foundation and BRAC University. This is a community program in Bangladesh, Uganda, and Tanzania, that has reached the lives of thousands of children by providing opportunities for learning through play. He was proud of this work and I am sorry – like all his colleagues in this initiative – that he won’t get to see the full extent of the benefits it will create.

It has been a source of comfort knowing that David received so much love and appreciation in life, through the 'best supervisor' award and the celebrations that took place when he retired. He deserved that 'fuss' and much, much more. For me, more than a mentor and colleague, he was a close friend. Without putting himself in a fatherly role, he was my champion and my guide. He really was the closest father figure I ever had, and I owe him a great deal. I will miss him forever, and I will live to make him proud.

I thought it would be lovely to reproduce here the first few lines of David’s article for the 2018 Newsletter with the splendid title of Dr Trouble and the Tutti Fruttis. Libby

The Drummer When I came for my interview at Homerton in December 1985, applying for the post of Lecturer in Education and Psychology, I was questioned in some depth about my experience as a Primary school teacher and my MEd and PhD level academic studies in developmental and educational psychology. I thought I did OK in the various interviews. However, my interviewers’ ears really pricked up over lunch when I announced that I had played drums in various bands over the years. Oh, came the reply, we have a staff band at Homerton, but we don’t have a drummer!

So, there has always been the suspicion in my mind that the other candidates for the post had equally good or perhaps rather better qualifications in education and psychology, but what really tipped the balance in my favour was my apparent ability to hit calf skin with a stick in a vaguely rhythmical fashion.

I joined the staff at the start of the Easter term in 1986, and I joined the staff band very soon after …