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John Laukaitis

Professor of Education

Dr. John J. Laukaitis is an expert in the history of philosophy of education and has written and edited several books in his areas of scholarship. Prior to his becoming a professor of education, he was a high school English teacher and administrator.

“The preparation that our teacher candidates receive,” Laukaitis says, “is nothing less than exceptional.” He routinely hears the praises of school administrators as they share how well North Park graduates exceed their expectations. “It is not uncommon for me to hear how well our graduates serve the schools in which they teach or hear that a school administrator recommended North Park University to a prospective student in the field of education,” he says.

To prepare future educators, the School of Education relies on dedicated professors who have extensive classroom experience and who care deeply about each teacher candidate who enters one of its programs. Additionally, Laukaitis states, “North Park University integrates meaningful clinical experiences that provide students with exposure to a variety of school settings such as neighborhood public schools, charter schools, magnet schools, and parochial schools.”

Recent Publications

John J. Laukaitis, ed. Denominational Higher Education During the Vietnam War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.

John J. Laukaitis, ed. Denominational Higher Education During World War II. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

John J. Laukaitis. Community Self-Determination: A History of American Indian Education in Chicago, 1952–2006. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2015.

John J. Laukaitis. “Positioning the American Indian Self-Determination Movement in the Era of Civil Rights.” In Why You Can’t Teach United States History without American Indians, eds. Susan Sleeper-Smith, Juliana Barr, Jean M. O’Brien, Nancy Shoemaker, and Scott Manning Stevens. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.

Popular Courses

EDUC 2120: Introduction to Teaching
EDUC 3130: Intercultural and Urban Education
EDUC 3160: Instruction in Secondary Schools

Inspirations & Interests

Favorite Books

Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

Favorite Quotation

“But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
—Santiago in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea