# Who Was Daniel Jordan?: A Tribute

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Wm. Keith Bookwalter, Who Was Daniel Jordan?: A Tribute, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> WHO WAS DR. DANIEL C. JORDAN?
> A TRIBUTE
> 
> By Wm. Keith Bookwalter
> October 14, 1992
> 
> (Updated: 3/22/2004; 12/25/2020; 10/12/2023)
> 
> On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the passing of Professor Daniel C. Jordan I feel moved
> and personally obligated to write a few words to honor the life of this unique man, this precious
> soul.1 For those of us who knew him personally he was something special for each one of us. The
> following inadequate, yet heart-felt tribute will, I hope, expand your understanding and
> appreciation of his multi-faceted life. For those who know little about Dr. Jordan, it is my sincere
> wish that this paper will serve as an introduction to his work and purposes which you can explore
> further through his extensive writings (both published and unpublished) and through the various
> audio and video recordings of his presentations.2 It is also my longing desire that this brief sketch
> will stimulate someone to take up the task of writing a biography of Dan Jordan’s life in order to
> better preserve his memory and to inspire the lives of succeeding generations of educators and
> spiritual-minded people all over the world.
> The information presented here contains both fact and personal opinion drawn from various
> sources listed in the endnotes. Readers are invited to send to this author3 any comments,
> corrections, additional information, personal memories, photos, etc.; anything which could serve
> a future biographer.
> 
> ****************************
> 
> See also: Harry P. Massoth, A Most Remarkable Man: The Life and Legacy of Daniel C. Jordan:
> Musician, Philosopher, Psychologist, Educator (Bloomington, IN: Archway Publishing, 2022); available
> as a Kindle book at: https://www.amazon.com/Most-Remarkable-Man-Philosopher-
> Psychologist/dp/1665725931 and “Meeting Dan Jordan: A Most Remarkable Bahá’í” by David Langness
> at https://bahaiteachings.org/meeting-dan-jordan-a-most-remarkable-bahai/.
> Dr. Jordan’s publications, manuscripts, recordings, and personal library are housed in the Stanford
> University Libraries, Palo Alto, California. Many of his articles and other Anisa publications, along with
> a more extensive bibliography of Anisa documents compiled by this author, can be accessed at:
> http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/anisa/. (The sources of the following notes will, also, eventually, be
> donated to and housed at Stanford University Libraries.)
> kbookwalter@gmail.com
> Born June 2, 1932 into a large family in Alliance, Nebraska, Daniel Clyde Jordan was a child
> prodigy who at the age of nine was considerably on his own financially, paying, for example, for
> his own piano lessons. At the age of 13 he began his musical studies of the organ at the
> University of Wyoming from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Music when he was
> 17. During his junior year Dan Jordan became the first American to be awarded a Rhodes
> Scholarship for music.4 At Oxford University in England he earned both a Bachelor and Master
> of Arts degree in the composition, theory, and history of music; and he began his doctoral studies
> in musicology at the same institution. Interrupting his studies, he served in the U.S. Army for
> two years from 1956 to 1958.
> At this point, in 1958, Daniel Jordan made a critical decision that would change the course of
> his life and which will change, I believe, the future course of education. Turning down an offer
> to play Beethoven's “Emperor's Concerto” with the Oslo Symphony, which most likely would
> have set him on the tour circuit as a concert pianist, Jordan changed his career direction to human
> development and began collegiate studies again at the University of Chicago. 5 In 1959 he
> completed the course work for his bachelor's degree but did not take the final exams because he
> already had two B.A.’s. From 1959 to 1960 he earned a master's degree in human development:
> an interdisciplinary course of study which examined the development of the human organism
> from conception to death from biological, psychological, sociological, and anthropological
> points of view. In 1964 he obtained a Ph.D. in human development with specialization in social
> anthropology and psychology. He went on to carry out a post-doctoral sequence in brain
> structure and brain chemistry and their relation to memory, emotion, and learning.
> In 1965 Dr. Jordan became the Director of the Institute for Research in Human Behavior at
> Indiana State University in Terre Haute where his principal project was the Upward Bound
> Program for disadvantaged high school students. In 1968 he joined the faculty at the University
> of Massachusetts, Amherst as the director of the Center for the Study of Aesthetics in Education,
> the director of the Tutorial Program for Minority Students, and the director of the
> Comprehensive Study of Compensatory Education in Massachusetts.
> It was from 1971 until 1975 that Dr. Jordan, with the invaluable collaboration of his long-time
> friend, former doctoral student, and administrative assistant Dr. Donald T. Streets, 6 directed the
> 
> “The San Diego Union,” from an article by Jim Okerblom, Section B-2, Column 1, circa October 24,
> 1982. According to Donald T. Streets, Dan Jordan was awarded his Rhodes Scholarship when he was a
> junior at the University of Wyoming. (Donald Streets to Keith Bookwalter, December 24, 2020.
> Much of this biographical information was taken from a video recording made some time during 1982 at
> National University in which Dr. Gerald Ball introduces Dr. Jordan who speaks about the evolution of the
> universe and life systems during this cosmic epoch and their relation to the processes of differentiation
> and integration.
> According to a telephone conversation of this author with Donald Streets (on 12/22/20), his friendship
> with Dan Jordan began in 1957 or 1958 when Dan invited Don to become a member of the Bahá’í
> National Youth Committee. Their professional collaboration started in 1968 when Dan invited Don to
> Center for the Study of Human Potential at the University of Massachusetts. His principal
> endeavor at the Center was the Anisa7 Project in which he guided the conceptualization of a
> comprehensive educational system organized around a coherent and integrated philosophical
> base. From this organismic philosophy, a theory of human development was deduced from
> which were generated sub-ordinate theories of curriculum, pedagogy, administration, and
> evaluation. Dr. Jordan also guided the successful fielding8 of the Anisa Model of Education 9 in
> Hampden, Maine; Suffield, Connecticut; Fall River, Massachusetts; Kansas City, Missouri; and
> in southern Ohio.10
> In 1978 Dr. Jordan became the Chairperson of the Department of Education at the California
> American University in Escondido, California. In 1979, he established contact with National
> University in San Diego, California and, via the timely intervention Dr. Donald T. Streets,11 Dr.
> 
> carry out his doctoral studies in education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His dissertation,
> The Development of Perception, was a significant contribution to the research-base of the theory of
> development and to the process curriculum of the Anisa Model. Dr. Streets also made significant
> contributions to both the development of the theory of administration and to the management of, what can
> be called, the Anisa Project on both the East Coast and West Coast of the United States. His students (the
> author included) often paid tribute to his kind encouragement, unwavering support, and sagacious
> guidance. The book that he contributed to as one of the chapter authors and edited, Administering Day
> Care and Preschool Programs, published by Allyn and Bacon, Inc., in 1982, is a major contribution to
> the development of the Anisa Model and its application to the field of early childhood education. Both in
> Massachusetts and California, students affectionately termed the Anisa program “The Dan and Don
> Show.”
> The term “Anisa” has two meanings. It is an ancient word meaning “the tree of life” and “symbolically
> represents never-ending growth and fruition in the context of protection and shelter, and signifies the
> blending of the useable and fruitful past with a new sense of future (See: “The Anisa Model: A New Basis
> for Educational Planning,” D.C. Jordan and D.T. Streets, in Young Children, 1973, June, p. 290). ANISA
> is also an acronym that stands for “American National Institutes for Social Advancement,” a non-profit
> organization created to promote the Anisa Model of Education.
> This fielding process was culminated by the official validation of the Anisa program in Suffield,
> Connecticut on October 16, 1976 by the U.S. Office of Education. (Source: letter dated February 1, 1977
> to Dr. Daniel Jordan from Roger E. Richards, Dissemination Coordinator, State of Connecticut, State
> Department of Education.)
> A major source of inspiration and guidance for Dr. Jordan in the creation of the Anisa Model was the
> writings of the Bahá’í Faith most of which can be accessed at https://reference.bahai.org/en/.
> Most of the above biographical information was taken from Dr. Jordan’s curriculum vitae dated
> September 1979.
> Dr. Streets related to the author the story of how the Anisa Model moved from the East Coast to the
> West Coast. Briefly, needing to strike out on their own due to the lack of funding available at the
> University of Massachusetts for continuing the needed research and to hire more salaried staff beyond just
> Streets and Jordan, they presented the Anisa Model to several prestigious universities on the East Coast
> Jordan joined its faculty and founded the University’s School of Education and became its Dean.
> During this same year he was appointed to a National “blue ribbon” Task Force on Nutrition
> Education for Pregnant Women, Lactating Mothers, Infants, Children, and Adolescents which
> was jointly sponsored by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the U.S. Department
> of Agriculture, the White House, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Association
> for Nutrition Education.12
> At the time of his passing on October 15 or 16, 1982, at the age of 50, Dr. Daniel Jordan was
> at the peak of his career. He had established at National University an accredited master's degree
> program; a university-based, laboratory school for kindergarten through high school; and was on
> the verge of obtaining accreditation for a doctoral program. He had obtained a contract with the
> Association for the World University 13 to develop their curriculum and had founded the
> International Center for Human Development. 14 All of these programs were based on the
> concepts underlying the Anisa Model of Education. 15
> 
> with the hope of implementing an Anisa-based school of education. The universities of renown turned a
> “deaf ear” to the proposal. Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey invited them to the West Coast to
> establish a department of education at their fledgling California American University. However, it proved
> to be too small of an operation for the resources needed. National University, the newly founded, fastest-
> growing, and most innovative universities in California at the time; was contacted. Interest was expressed
> but hesitation followed. Dr. Streets intervened, reminded them that they needed a school of education,
> that Dr. Jordan was a Rhodes Scholar and an up and coming figure in the field of education. The proposal
> was accepted and the Anisa-based School of Education was then founded.
> National University MU Weekly bulletin, December 3, 1979.
> According to Douglas McAdam, a student and close associate of Marian Lippitt who was the principal
> compiler of the book The Worlds of God: Basic Classifications of Existence as Defined in the Bahá’í
> Writings: A Compilation, prepared by The National Reference Library Committee of the National
> Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, 1965-1974 and developer of a new science called Science
> of Reality, which is based on this book, Dan Jordan was also a protégé of Marian Lippitt and that they
> collaborated closely on the proposal of a curriculum for the world university project referred which,
> according this author’s understanding, although independent UNESCO, was an outgrowth of a perceived
> need of that organization. See, for example, the monologue “An Integrative Framework for a World
> Education Curriculum—Science of Reality” prepared by Marian Lippitt and Daniel Jordan and presented
> by Dr. Jordan to the Committee for the World University, Inc., June 1980.
> During a visit at the author’s home in Honduras in 1979, Dr. Jordan showed us the physical plant
> designs of the International Center for Human Development. One of its purposes was to serve as an
> international “think tank” for generating solutions to stubborn, national and world problems. The project
> proposal had received a favorable response from the sitting Vice President of the United States at the
> time, Walter Mondale (copy of letter on file) who passed the project on to the Department of Health,
> Education and Welfare for its consideration. Unfortunately, due to Jordan’s untimely death, the dream
> that was perhaps the closest to his heart was never realized.
> National University Bulletin, Vol. 12, No. 3, Summer, 1982, pp. 177-205.
> This chronology of Daniel Jordan’s professional life needs to be supplemented with other
> miscellaneous notes of interest. During his undergraduate studies at the University of Wyoming
> he was the recipient of several awards: Phi Sigma Iota Award for highest grade average in
> Modern Languages, Phi Mu Alpha Award for work in Music, Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Beta Kappa
> Awards for the highest grade average in his graduating class, and the Theodore Presser Award
> for Music. His doctoral dissertation, An Experimental Approach to the Jungian Theory of the
> Archetypes won Honorable Mention in the Creative Talent Awards sponsored by the American
> Institute of Research. (In addition to being an authority on the work of Carl G. Jung16, Dr. Jordan
> had a deep understanding and was an outstanding interpreter of the ideas and philosophy of
> Alfred North Whitehead. He gave courses, conducted seminars, and lectured extensively on his
> work.) During the period 1959-1960 Jordan worked as an orderly on the Psychiatric Ward at the
> University of Chicago’s Medical Clinics and in 1975 he obtained a license to practice
> psychology. In addition to his extensive and varied consultant work (twenty-two projects are
> referred to in the documents on file), he was a guest lecturer at over seventy universities
> throughout the U.S. and other countries; and was a speaker or panelist on over two hundred
> television and radio programs including popular talk shows over national networks such as The
> Dinah Shore Show and The Mike Douglas Show.
> In the area of the arts, in addition to being a virtuoso on the piano, Daniel Jordan had
> expertise in dance, 17 drawing, music composition, and film production. As part of his doctoral
> work he wrote and directed a ballet titled Metamorphosis of the Owls for which he wrote the
> musical score and scenario.
> In the field of architecture Professor Jordan was an expert on The Pattern Language of
> Christopher Alexander, considered by many during the 1970’s and early 80’s to be the foremost
> design theorist in North American; an opinion which was more recently confirmed when
> Alexander won the 2001 Residential Architect Leadership and Hall of Fame Award.18 In 1979
> Dr. Jordan was instrumental in commissioning Christopher Alexander to design an Anisa-based
> school at a Bahá’í property near Davison, Michigan. The resultant design plan--Patterns for the
> Design of the Louhelen Educational Center 19--was never realized due to a financial crisis caused
> by the 1978 revolution in Irán. In 1979 Dan Jordan traveled to Tegucigalpa, Honduras to train
> the faculty and administrators of The Mayan School in the Anisa Model and to create design
> 
> According Donald T. Streets, Dan Jordan was scheduled to meet with Dr. Jung, be the latter passed
> away two weeks before the appointment. (Donald Streets to Keith Bookwalter, December 24, 2020.)
> Proposal for Graduate Degree Programs, prepared by the Center for the Study of Human Potential for
> Pepperdine University, January 1976, Appendix III, “Faculty and Staff Vitae,” 1.
> As accessed on March 22, 2004 at www.patternlanguage.com
> Patterns for the Design of the Louhelen Educational Center, Volume V, Submitted to The National
> Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States by The Louhelen Educational Center Project
> Committee, June 1979.
> specifications for their new school plant. 20 Dr. Jordan understood the depth and long-range
> prospects of Alexander’s approach to environmental design, especially the great potential it held
> for the creation of educational facilities that would support rather than restrain human
> development and learning.
> Dan Jordan, the husband, father, and family man is a story I am not able to tell. Someday I
> hope it will be told by his beloved wife Nancy and his three precious daughters, Melissa, Sarah,
> and Charlotte.
> His religious life and services were deep and extensive. He served many years as an elected
> member of the governing body of the Bahá’í community of the United States. I recall one of our
> last conversations during which he mentioned that he would be entering upon his 20th year of
> service on this board of directors. He reminisced about all the changes he had seen take place. I
> asked him about his management of time and how much of it he dedicated to his religious
> activities. He estimated about 40 hours per month. But again, this fascinating aspect of Dan
> Jordan’s life will have to be told by those who have better access to the pertinent information. 21
> What I am able to offer the readers are a few comments made by some of his students and
> colleagues. They are not extensive, yet they serve as flashes of light in the darkness, illuminating
> briefly the various facets of one of the Creator’s very special souls as perceived by those who
> worked with, loved and admired him.
> In the words of Lynn Laing, the news bureau director at the Vista Campus of National
> University, “I would say the best way to describe him is to say he was a genius. He also had a
> good sense of humor. He laughed often. He was well-liked and respected... especially for his
> contributions to this university.”22 To this comment about Dr. Jordan’s genius I would add a
> further dimension. He was a genius who was fully conscious of both his Divinely-granted gift
> and of his responsibility to serve humankind that such genius entails. On one occasion, while he
> was speaking on some subject with his usual superb command of both concepts and pertinent
> data, he must have sensed my awe (or seen my jaw drop in wonder), for he stopped and
> commented to me, “But I am not even bilingual and YOU are” in an unsuccessful attempt to
> reduce my amazement.
> 
> My participation in the project I found to be so intriguing that in 1982, as a culminating master’s degree
> project at National University, under the tutelage of Professor Jordan, I carried out an in depth study of
> Christopher Alexander’s now classic trilogy—A Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, and The
> Oregon Experiment—and applied his “language” to the creation of specifications for a new school facility
> titled, “Fits, Misfits, and Omits: Patterns for the Design of the New Campus for the International School
> of San Pedro Sula, Honduras.”
> For more information regarding his services to the Baháí Faith, see:
> https://bahaipedia.org/Daniel_Jordan.
> The San Diego Union newspaper, article by Jim Okerblom, section B-1, circa October 24, 1982.
> The Anisa consultants, Gordon and Irene Hartley,23 attributed Dr. Jordon’s power to attract
> and motivate people to his unique combination of genius and deep spirituality—his ability to
> “touch people at the very center of their being.” They were also amazed by his knowledge and
> expertise in such a wide variety of activities, some of which were of a very practical and
> technological nature: cooking, baking, carpentry, mechanics, construction, and others. 24
> Dr. Magdalene Carney, a close friend of Dan Jordan, wrote the following memo which I
> found appended to her dissertation, “Dan, your ideal of excellence is a constant lure. With
> grateful heart and abiding affection for all you have done for me. Mag.” 25
> Dr. Pattabi Raman, in his dissertation wrote the following acknowledgement:
> 
> Words cannot do full justice to the encouragement and constant guidance I received from
> Professor Daniel C. Jordan, Chairman of my Committee. His exemplary dedication to
> excellence in providing quality professional direction in all of his undertakings, a virtue
> on the wane in academic circles, has been one of the greatest sources of inspiration in this
> effort. His indefatigable energy, which met its ultimate test as he tried to read every
> sentence of the manuscript, and his constant emotional support during my periods of
> fatigue and depression will long be remembered and greatly appreciated. 26
> 
> Another doctoral student, Lawrence N. McCullough, expressed his “deep feelings of
> indebtedness and gratitude” to “Dr. Daniel C. Jordan for his professional interest and friendship
> extending over many years and for the inspiration of his broad vision of possibilities in
> education.”27
> 
> The late Gordon and Irene Hartley were international Anisa consultants who dedicated their retirement
> years to promoting the Anisa Model throughout the world. They implemented the Model in Connecticut,
> California, Canada, West Germany, India and Colombia, and in 1992 were invited to Brazil and Bolivia.
> Gordon Hartley had expertise in the design and arrangement of classroom furniture and didactic materials
> in accordance with the specifications of the Anisa Model. Irene Hartley was an Anisa master teacher,
> curriculum specialist, and staff developer. Dr. Jordan referred to her as his “model practitioner.” She was
> the first teacher to offer to implement his theories in her kindergarten classroom in Suffield, Connecticut
> in 1973 and became the first person to be credentialed by the State of Connecticut as an Anisa Curriculum
> Specialist.
> Based on interview notes of this author.
> Margaret Magdalene Carney, The Learning Competence Paradigm of the Anisa Model and the
> Preparation of Teachers, Ed.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1977.
> S. Pattabi Raman, Biological Dimensions of the Value Theory of the Anisa Educational Model, EdD
> diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1974, v.
> Lawrence N. McCullough, An Organic Approach to Educational Program Development: Model,
> Method, and Framework, EdD diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1978, v.
> In the “Acknowledgements” section of his dissertation Walter Leopold stated,
> 
> ...I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness, gratitude and love for Dr. Daniel C. Jordan,
> who by his personal example taught me that a teacher is not only responsible for the
> intellectual growth of his students, but must also be a physician of the soul. 28
> 
> Dr. George Bondra included the following words of acknowledgement in his doctoral dis
> sertation The Anisa Model: A Scientific Paradigm for Education and Its Implications for a
> Theory of Evaluation:
> 
> I wish to express my deepest thanks to Dr. Daniel C. Jordan, chairman of my dissertation
> committee, for his substantial contribution to the growth of knowledge and his devotion
> to putting that knowledge into practice as he did in working with me. To experience the
> universal in the particular, as I did in each step of this work with Dr. Jordan, is unique
> indeed—beyond any explicit verbal thanks. 29
> 
> In order to understand the profound and far-reaching effect that Jordan’s work has brought
> about and will continue to bring about on the development of education as a new science (and
> art), I think that it is worthwhile quoting the following section from Dr. Bondra’s dissertation:
> 
> Since scientific models are the creation of an inventive mind, it will be helpful in
> understanding the Anisa Model to discuss briefly some of the influences that have shaped
> the inventor’s view of reality. Daniel C. Jordan, a Rhodes Scholar, epitomizes C. P.
> Snow’s “two cultures.” He has earned three degrees in music. He holds two advanced
> degrees from the University of Chicago in an interdisciplinary course of study involving
> human development from biological, psychological and anthropological perspectives.
> Post-doctoral study involved brain chemistry and its relationship to memory and learning.
> These influences contributed to his bridging the two cultures of art and science. He
> characterizes Kuhn’s observation about men who have invented new paradigms; they are
> either very young or new to the field and not fully committed to the traditional rules
> permitting them to be freer to conceive of another set. Professor Jordan became aware of
> gaps between theory and practice in education. He believed that education was dominated
> more by practice than theory. There was no organized knowledge about human growth
> 
> Walter Daniel Leopold, Creativity and Education: Some Theories and Procedures to Enhance the
> Development of Creativity Within a Classroom Setting, EdD diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
> 1972, v.
> George Bondra, The Anisa Model: A Scientific Paradigm for Education and Its Implications for a
> Theory of Evaluation, EdD. diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1980, v.
> and development that could be optimally used for practice by teachers.
> His initial conceptual efforts began over eighteen years ago as Director of the Institute
> for Research in Human Behavior at Indiana State University. Initially, Jordan observed
> that educators were more concerned with curriculum and not the nature of the child for
> whom it was designed. Very early on, therefore, Jordan selected his basic unit of study—
> man. Toward that end, he studied man’s best thinking about the nature of man reviewing
> all major philosophers from Parmenides to the process philosophers of today.
> Over a ten year span, Dr. Jordan, reviewed the most significant philosophic works as
> the basis for theory construction. The organismic philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead
> generated the best framework for analyzing and synthesizing knowledge about human
> growth and development, including the concept of purpose. In order to design a new
> educational system that is comprehensive (i.e., to be able to unite every aspect of human
> experience) required a philosophy that held promise for a new ideological base.
> Whitehead (1969) believed that “philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent,
> logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our
> experience can be interpreted (p21).”30 His process philosophy, which is integrative and
> all-inclusive, nevertheless, keeps any system open to new data with no claim that it his
> system is final. Whitehead’s system is a synthesis of both Eastern and Western streams of
> thought. However, it is not eclectic; the synthesis was seen as providing the basis for an
> educational model with cross-cultural implications.
> Hartshorne (1950), currently the most outstanding process philosopher, makes the
> following observation on Whitehead’s philosophy:
> 
> ... one may say that the basic principles of our knowledge and experience,
> physical, biological, sociological, aesthetic, religious—are in this philosophy
> given an intellectual integration such as only a thousand or ten thousand years of
> further reflection and inquiry seem likely to exhaust or adequately evaluate. . . (p.
> 19)31
> 
> Jordan, in his review of the major philosophers, therefore, discovered an organizing
> principle for a science of education in specific form from the cosmology set forth in
> Whitehead (1929) Process and Reality. For Whitehead, the most pervasive characteristic
> of the universe is change. Change means process, and process presupposes potentiality.
> This for Jordan served as his first principle: the concept of process as the translation of
> potentiality into actuality.
> 
> Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 3.
> Charles Hartshorne, Whitehead’s Philosophy: Selected Essays 1935-1970 (Lincoln and London:
> 
> University of Nebraska Press, 1972), 19.
> As noted in the Introduction (p.1), Jordan viewed science as more than knowledge. A
> science of education could not be created until the massive information available about
> human growth, development, learning, and behavior could be organized into usable form.
> Jordan found such a principle in Whitehead’s concept of the process of creativity; this
> provided him with a basis for deriving a set of concepts that could be used to organize
> current knowledge about human development. This offered the possibility of translating
> our knowledge into a coherent body of theory that could serve as the substantive body of
> knowledge for professional educational practices. With such an empirical scientific
> footing, educational practices could be evaluated and continuously refined. Analogous to
> medical practices, which are based on the biological sciences, education could then make
> more accurate predictions, providing, as a consequence, improved accountability.
> Jordan and his colleagues, in establishing a coherent body of theory that addressed all
> aspects of education (i.e., human development, curriculum, pedagogy, administration,
> etc.) attempted to test every newly developed theoretical concept against relevant
> empirical studies available from the literature of the biological and behavioral sciences.
> Based on this broad philosophical and theoretical foundation, the beginning of a
> comprehensive and coherent model of education was generated. 32
> 
> How did Jordan describe himself? As a specialist he considered himself to be an authority on
> human development.33 But during one of his lectures,34 he used a term which is far more
> accurate. He referred to himself as an “integrative generalist.”35 And indeed he was. His
> knowledge and expertise were far too vast for anyone to refer to him only as an authority on
> human development. He was also a psychologist (cognitive psychology was his area of
> specialization36), an educator, philosopher, brain/mind expert, administrator, dean, staff
> 
> Bondra, The Anisa Model: A Scientific Paradigm for Education and Its Implications for a Theory of
> Evaluation, 120-23.
> Based on a diagram created by Dr. Jordan for Irene Hartley outlining the major theorists and
> philosophers drawn upon for the Anisa Model.
> Based on this author’s lecture notes taken during the summers of 1981 and 1982.
> The only similar type of integrative generalist which I can compare Dr. Jordan to is R. Buckminster
> Fuller in the applied, physical sciences. As a note of interest, in a letter to the author, Dr. Jordan refers to
> an hour-long interview with Buckminster Fuller whom he deeply admired. He stated that the recording of
> the interview should be at the University of Massachusetts and that he has a letter from Mr. Fuller in
> which he offers to serve as a consultant for the development of the Anisa science curriculum. [A
> transcript of this interview is now available at Stanford University Libraries where the R. Buckminster
> Fuller Collection is also housed.]
> During a personal conversation with this author, Dr. Jordan related that in 1976 the Teacher Training
> University of Teheran, Iran, asked the U.S. Department of State to send them an expert in cognitive
> psychology. The American Specialist Program, Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs first chose
> developer, curriculum specialist, school plant design consultant, educational and religious leader,
> visionary, theorist, writer, author, pianist, artist, dancer, husband, father, friend and much, much
> more. He exerted himself day and night to keep his mind on the cutting edge of new
> developments in any and all fields which offered possibilities for increasing the quality of human
> life: medicine, science, technology, parapsychology, psychiatry, brain research, social
> movements, government, religion, etc. Armed with this knowledge he not only moved the pre-
> paradigmatic field of education onto a scientific foundation, but also chose for that foundation
> the leading edge paradigm variously described as organismic, holistic, process-oriented,
> Whiteheadian—a new cosmology, a unified world view, a philosophy of reality which has
> already swept through the hard sciences and is now bringing about radical changes in the human
> sciences and the traditional world religions. And beyond being a “man of powerful ideas” Dr.
> Jordan was also the epitome of the “man of action” who wanted to translate his new schemes of
> thought into viable, practical programs for the benefit of all peoples.
> Dr. Nancy McCormick Rambusch, one of Dr. Jordan’s doctoral students, founder of the
> American Montessori Society and major contributor to the pedagogical practices of the Anisa
> Model and trainer of Anisa teachers, makes reference to Dr. Jordan in her doctoral dissertation as
> follows:
> 
> The impulse behind the development of the ANISA model came from within Daniel
> Jordan, its architect. It was in response to the broadest assessment of existing cultural and
> moral conditions and existing education options within them, that he developed the
> model.
> At the present time the world of humanity and the different cultures it
> represents are in the midst of the most extensive crises ever known to man. The
> ways we have learned to feel, think, and act are no longer functional….
> These crises are forcing humanity to seek a new culture, one that is universal
> and therefore functional for all men everywhere; one that can create a new race of
> men, new social institutions, and new physical environments (Jordan, World
> Order, 1970, 5(1), pp. 12-13).
> 
> There was no external pressure on Daniel Jordan to develop the ANISA model. He
> was impelled by a personal sense of urgency to do this. The public problem which served
> as the basis for his action was his perception of the world as being in a state of collapse;
> 
> Jerome Bruner, but he had just returned from a consulting assignment. Their second choice was Dr.
> Jordan who accepted and carried out the request.
> his response was the formulation of an educational model which aspired to create a 'new
> race of men [Ibid.].”37
> 
> In another section of her dissertation Ms. Rambusch states:
> 
> Dan Jordan was in a situation similar to that of Montessori before she left the University
> of Rome and struck out on her own to franchise her own educational model. The
> university setting represents a free market of inquiry. To work within a university setting
> is to invite criticism and evaluation. Dan Jordan was willing to do this, as Maria
> Montessori was not. He was the ANISA model; the ANISA model was he, in the sense
> that he was its ultimate interpreter as well as proximate “manager.” The model was fully
> articulated in its essentials, prior to diffusion and it was fully realized in its essentials in
> the person of Daniel Jordan. Dan was the “center” of the center. 38
> 
> Ms. Rambusch made, what would turn out to be, a tragic, yet inspiring, parallel between the lives
> of Daniel Jordan and Mahatma Gandhi:
> 
> It [the Anisa Model] might also be considered, in its educational guise, as a social
> movement39 . . . Those drawn to participate in the ANISA model came both because of
> the stunning intellectual clarity that informed it and because of the opportunity it offered
> them to work with Daniel Jordan, its propagator. A rare person and a genuine innovator,
> Jordan can be compared to Gandhi in his effect on those working close to him, as I
> perceived the relationship.
> 
> Whatever their identity when they met Gandhi.... their pasts have now become
> part of his life and his death… men and women forever living in a glorious past
> when historical actuality had been quickened to a rare intensity and pace...
> [Erickson, 1969, p.61]
> 
> Nancy McCormick Rambusch, Intuitive and Intentional Change Agentry, EdD diss., (Amherst:
> University of Massachusetts, 1977), 186. (Retrieved in print in 1987 from University Microfilms
> International, Xerox University Microfilms No. 77-21,492, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48106.)
> Rambusch, Intuitive and Intentional Change Agentry, 131.
> Dr. Rambusch also referred to the impact of Anisa on the “social ecology” of a school:
> Complex innovations [in reference to the Anisa Model] which involve not only discrete
> administrative and pedagogical strategies but an alteration in the social ecology of the school
> must be “lived” to become clear. In a Research, Development, and Diffusion model of change,
> such as the ANISA model, not until the model was in the field was it possible to speak of clients
> having more than a theoretical understanding of it. (Rambusch, Intuitive and Intentional Change
> Agentry 185.)
> They felt augmented in his presence beyond personal desert and native capacity...
> For the numinous 40 person has the strange power to make the participant feel part
> of him and yet also feel augmented in himself.” [Ibid., 1969, p.63].41
> 
> And now, looking back over these past ten years, it can be seen that the “augmented participants”
> have not failed to carry forward “historical actuality” towards the fulfillment of Daniel Jordan's
> dream of a new, universal cultural in which every person’s potential faculties and talents will be
> brought forth into the sunlight of honoring the Creator and His creation through service to the
> world of humanity. His fellow colleagues, his students, and those who have been attracted to the
> elegance of his scheme of thought and his call for a “new way” of educating the future
> generations of humankind have taken up his ideas and applied them each in his or her own
> sphere of life: in their classrooms; the raising of their children; university research 42; professional
> 
> “Numinous,” according to Webster’s New International Dictionary, means “… characteristic of… the
> divine force or potency ascribed to objects or beings regarded with awe.”
> Ibid., 118.
> Regarding Daniel Jordan’s profound influence on this author, upon the completion of my master’s
> degree in the Anisa Model of Education at National University, San Diego, in the fall of 1982, Dr. Jordan
> extended to me a formal invitation to engage in doctoral studies with him. He gave me a description of a
> course of study that he had designed. His untimely passing just a few weeks later, of course, made this
> impossible. Nevertheless, I decided to carry on with the pathway he had mapped out. At one point we had
> discussed what a study of Alfred North Whitehead’s most significant works would entail along with the
> perusal of the most significant commentaries and elaborations of Whiteheadian scholars. It took me
> nearly a decade to complete the outline Dr. Jordan had made for me. Then, in 1994, after a great deal of
> searching and false starts, I finally found a university (The Union Institute & University in Cincinnati,
> Ohio) that made it possible for me to design my own doctoral program (which I based on Dr. Jordan’s
> vision of an Anisa-based, doctoral course of study) and to place on my doctoral committee two principle
> players in the development of the Model—Dr. George Bondra and Dr. Malcom Evans. In 1998 I
> graduated with a Ph.D. in human development with specializations in cognitive development and
> education. In my dissertation—The Development of Four Logical Structures in a Sample of Colombian
> Children—the dedicatory frontispiece features the words, “To the memory of my beloved mentor, Daniel
> C. Jordan, seer of potentialities within, visionary of ideals beyond, encourager of excellence in all.” Then,
> over the course of 15 years I trained over 130 teachers from 15 schools in five cities of Colombia in how
> to develop the logical, mathematical, and scientific thinking of children. In 2007, based on this same
> research, I co-founded the Foundation for Multidimensional Education (which has its headquarters in
> Cartagena, Colombia) for the purpose of carrying forward this Piagetian approach to cognitive
> development, an approach that was often referred to in Dr. Jordan’s lectures and television presentations.
> Just two months before his passing, I met with Dr. Jordan in his university office. It was not the usual
> sort of conversation. He spoke of his frequent travels, the risks that such travel entailed, and the
> possibility that at any given moment he might not be with us any longer. He wanted us (he mentioned a
> few names of his staff members) to carry forward the development of the Model. For the first time since I
> associations; their writings; their school systems and communities; their way of thinking, feeling,
> and perceiving reality. . . their very way of living and being. No doubt the near future will see a
> resurgence of interest in his process-based system of education and the distant future, when the
> fruits are in hand, will see Dr. Daniel C. Jordan being given the homage he deserves as one of the
> most outstanding and far-sighted leaders the field of education has ever seen.
> 
> had met him, he told me that there were definite anomalies in the Model and that his commentary on them
> could be found in his notes which he jotted into small notebooks while traveling and which he kept in his
> office at home. (After his death, according to Don Streets, the last of these was confiscated by the police
> for their investigation of his murder and was never returned.) In 2017, I found three others in the Jordan
> Collection at Stanford University Libraries, but they contained no references to anomalies, only
> recommendations for the future development and application of the Model. My own work has been an
> attempt to identify and correct anomalies in the Model in the light of practice and current research and
> developments in education and related fields.
> From 1987 to 1993, I collaborated with Irene and Gordon Hartley in the implementation of Anisa
> principles as we created the Marymount-Barranquilla Model of Education at the Marymount School in
> Barranquilla located on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia. My efforts to carry forward the development of
> the Anisa Model, termed the Wholistic Educational System (WES) for practical and legal reasons, were
> published in Process Papers, No. 4, December 1999 and as “Chapter 2: WES: A Theory and Framework
> for an International Curriculum” in The Internationalization of the Curriculum Studies: Selected
> Proceedings from the LSU Conference 2000, edited by Donna Trueit, William E. Doll, Jr., Hongyu
> Wang, and William F. Pinar, (New York: Peter Lang Publications, 2003). Another Anisa-inspired project
> in which I have engaged is the creation of Life in Dynamic Harmony: a Wholistic Program for Self-
> Transformation (paperback book in the offing) which is based on nine principles and utilizes the Native
> American Indian Medicine Wheel as an archetypal, graphic organizer for harmonizing thirty-six basic life
> processes. Presently, after retiring in 2019 as the principal of a public, K-8, dual immersion, school of
> choice in East Palo Alto, California, I am engaged in expanding my university textbook chapter on the
> Wholistic Educational System into a book with the same title.
>
> — *Who Was Daniel Jordan?: A Tribute (Used by permission of the curator)*