William L. Goodwin, an expert in early-childhood education and a professor at the University of Colorado Denver, died May 26. He was 75.
“He was a remarkable person and knew his stuff,” said John Paull of Denver, a colleague at UCD.
“Bill always, always had time for everyone, even when he was busy and his desk was stacked,” Paull said.
In his autobiography, Goodwin said he entered teaching because he was impressed as a child when visiting a college campus. He thought it would be a great job because he’d have summers off, have “fun kids” to teach and college football teams to watch.
“The fun students did live up to my early imaginings,” he wrote.
But he spent most of his career at schools with no athletic teams, and he usually worked through the summers.
“He was devoted to teaching and always adamant that he’d get back to it,” even as his cancer progressed, said his son Matt Goodwin of New York City.
William Goodwin often brought young children, including his own, into the classroom to show class members (who were teachers) the differences in cognition at different ages, his son said.
Matt Goodwin recalled his father asking another son, William C. Goodwin, the meaning of the phrase “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
William C. Goodwin responded, “That’s because the Joneses water their lawn more often.”
William C. Goodwin said his dad “was very good about letting us learn from our own mistakes” and when something they did went wrong, “he never said, ‘I told you so.’ “
The elder Goodwin believed that worry solved nothing and that if something now important would still be important a year from now, it was worth thinking about, said William C. Goodwin.
William L. Goodwin was born Oct. 21, 1935, in Galesburg, Ill., earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Nebraska, a master’s at the University of Chicago and his doctorate in educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin. He did post-doctoral study at Harvard.
He came to Colorado in 1970. He worked for 40 years in educational psychology/research methods and early-childhood education. Illness forced him to retire in February.
He often taught master’s degree courses in other Colorado cities during the summer.
He married Barbara Benzel, and they had four children. They later divorced. In 1979 he married Laura Driscoll, and they had one son, Matt Goodwin.
In addition to his wife and sons, William L. Goodwin is survived by three daughters: Christina Jurgens of Melrose, Mass., Teresa Goodwin of San Francisco and Linda DeBruin of Seattle; and eight grandchildren.
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Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
