Original text by Leila V. Stott with an introduction by Amber Strong Makaiau
This blog is the third in a series to disseminate a number of speeches given at the Progressive Education Association (PEA) annual meetings in the late 1930s. The Progressive Education Association 1937 – On Teacher Happiness , Excerpts On Progressive Education from “The Contribution of Education to the Improvement of Human Relations” By Mary Shattuck Fisher 1937, and Will Machines Replace Humans? Why This Question (and Others) Are Not New For Progressive Educators. The PEA was a networked group of individuals who were dedicated to the spread of progressive education in American schools from 1919 to 1955. I recently discovered a stack of booklets at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hamilton Library containing the published lectures and I’ve been eagerly reading them throughout the summer as they prove to be rich in ideas and essential to the organization’s guiding objectives:
To propagate the principles of progressive education by means of:
a. a periodical publication to serve as the official organ of the Association, issued free to all members;
b. newspaper and magazine articles;
c. lectures.
To influence public education toward progressivism by educating the public to demand it.
To be of service to layman and educators through:
a. an exchange bureau;
b. Counseling and cooperating with parents in solving their educational problems;
c. Encouraging the training of teachers in the principles and methods of progressive education;
d. Giving field aid to those who are organizing or developing progressive schools (p. 28).
Each booklet I uncovered included a Hanahau’oli School library stamp on the inside cover, so I can only assume the school was a registered member of the PEA. As a subscribing member of the organization, it is also reasonable to assume the leadership at Hanahau‘oli School was influenced by both the contents of its publications and the PEA’s “Seven Principles of Progressive Education” (Graham 1967):
The aim of Progressive Education is the freest and fullest development of the individual, based upon the scientific study of his physical, mental, spiritual, and social characteristics and needs. Progressive Education as thus understood implies the following conditions, old in theory but rare in application:
Freedom to Develop Naturally.
Interest, the Motive of All Work.
The Teacher a Guide, Not a Task-Master.
Scientific Study of Pupil Development.
Greater Attention to All that Affects the Child’s Physical Development.
Co-operation Between School and Home to Meet the Needs of Child-Life.
The Progressive School a Leader in Educational Movements (pp. 28 - 29)
In this blog, I aim to highlight one of the PEA speeches that gives insight into principle number seven bolded above, which emphasizes the responsibility that lies with progressive schools in leading the education community through mentorship and serivce.
The featured lecture is titled, “The City Goes to the Country.” It was given by Leila V. Stott, who was an educator and administrator at the City and Country School in New York from 1917 to 1945, The purpose of her talk was to describe the ways the City and Country “school has considered its existence as a private experimental school justified only insofar as it could maintain itself as a laboratory for the development of methods and curricula that might eventually be of service in the larger field of public education” (Stott, 1937). It is an excellent example of the ways in which progressive educators of the day fulfilled principle number seven above as leaders in educational change and improvement, and serve as models for today’s progressive education institutions. And on a personal note, as I studied her words seventy years after they were originally penned and imagined my predecessors at Hanahau‘oli–way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and far from the epicenter of the growing progressive education movement–reading the exact same speech that is now memorialized in the booklet, I wondered: Could this particular speech have played a role in planting the seeds for the Hanahau‘oli School Professional Development Center (PDC), which I direct today?
To follow is the complete text of Stott’s talk given at the National Conference of the PEA in St. Louis, February 25-27, 1937. You can access a pdf of the original publication HERE. I share it not only because of its relevance to the work of the Hanahau‘oli School PDC, but also because the contents of her address illustrate the ongoing ways public and private schools can work together to ensure that a progressive philosophy and pedagogy withstands the passage of time. This includes:
Leveraging private philanthropy and resources to support the implementation of progressive education practices in both independent and public school settings;
Continuing the tradition of using private progressive schools (e.g. the University of Chicago Laboratory School, the Francis Parker School, the City and Country School) as sites for innovation, experimentation, creativity, and invention when it becomes difficult to do so in the public school system;
Rethinking the normal duties and responsibilities of teachers so that seasoned and skilled practitioners can be given release time from the classroom to support and mentor emerging progressive educators; and
Creating more “extension services” as Stott calls them or “professional development centers” like the one we have at Hanahau‘oli to ensure educators have access to high-quality progressive education professional development despite changes at the state or national levels (e.g. see this example from the current moment).
“The City Goes to the Country” By Leila V. Stott 1937
It has been a particular satisfaction to the City and Country School that our first opportunities of direct contact with public school situations came to us through parents of the school and have been made financially possible for us by these and other parents. From its beginning, the school has considered its existence as a private experimental school justified only insofar as it could maintain itself as a laboratory for the development of methods and curricula that might eventually be of service in the larger field of public education.
About a year and a half ago came our first concrete opportunity, through a request from one of our parents who had been made president of the Board of Education of a newly consolidated rural township, to help in developing a curriculum which would adapt City and Country School educational philosophy to the needs of this new rural school. As a member of the staff who had been longest in the school and had had the most varied teaching experience in different age levels, I was released from classroom work to act as an educational advisor to this Putnam Valley Central School, concentrating my efforts for the first year on the first four grades. There were two grades to each teacher in the elementary school, so this meant working particularly with two teachers. It was our aim in this first year to establish a genuine play program as the basis of work with the first two grades, and some program of real service to the school as the basis of the third and fourth grade curriculum.
Both teachers with whom I worked most closely at the start were carried over from the one-room schools that preceded the consolidation. The principal was most cooperative in consulting me about placing all three of the teachers who had been carried over in this way from the old schools, and the teachers themselves were also most cooperative and interested in planning the work. One teacher, who was placed in charge of the third and fourth grades, was a college graduate, had also taken summer work at Teachers College and had worked in summer camps. She had a good foundation for the kind of curriculum we wanted to develop and was, from the start, enthusiastic about the opportunity. The teacher in charge of the first and second grades had taught for nearly thirty years in the one-room school and was beloved by the whole community. She asked particularly to have the youngest children as it had always been her ambition to teach kindergarten and she welcomed the idea of a play program. Feeling her inexperience in this kind of work, however, she was anxious to see something of the kind in action, so we arranged for her to take a six weeks’ course at the Vassar Summer School with special provision for her to act as assistant in the model school conducted there by Miss Rhoda Harris of the Little Red School House.
Parents and graduates of the City and Country School contributed enough blocks to equip the playroom for the first two grades. The regular school bus drivers gave their services without extra charge for trips. Two different mothers at various times during the year helped regularly on trips and in the classrooms and I spent an average of one or two days a week at the school, helping the teachers in the classrooms, advising them on subject matter, helping plan trips and discussions, and stories to read aloud, and generally consulting with these teachers about current problems.
In planning for the third and fourth grades, we found that the school’s most immediate need was for some way to supplement the childrens’ sandwich lunches with at least one hot dish daily. The school was equipped with a cafeteria, but the Home Economics teacher was carrying a full teaching schedule and could not herself undertake alone to prepare and serve even a simple dish for the whole school. Accordingly we suggested to the third and fourth grades that they undertake this responsibility with the help of their own grade teacher and the Home Economics teacher, using the daily period assigned for work with the latter for this purpose. They were enthusiastic over the idea and carried it out successfully all through the year.
By the end of the first year, the work was sufficiently well launched in these first four grades to make it seem practical for me to undertake the same kind of assistance to the fifth and sixth grades. The children who were entering fifth grade after the year’s experience in the cafeteria were eager to continue a practical job of some kind and we had no difficulty finding one to offer them. The library had just been finished and there was a good supply of books piled in the storeroom closets waiting to be catalogued and generally taken care of. The teachers of the fifth and sixth grades were willing to undertake the responsibility of helping their children in this service, so before school closed last June we started on the cataloguing, with the children’s help. A librarian from the City and Country School, who fortunately spent her summers in this locality, volunteered her services during June and with other volunteer assistance from local friends, we were able to finish the job during the summer and turn the library over to the fifth and sixth grades, ready to open at the beginning of the fall term. Meanwhile the teacher and I had planned together to base the content of her curriculum on a study of the development of books. Another City and Country School teacher, who had taught a similar program, gave us an outline with full bibliography and many suggestions, and we had similar help from the science and music teachers. It has been an interesting experience of close cooperation between the whole staff of the two schools.
Meanwhile interest in our type of curriculum has spread to the Junior High School. The teachers are organizing trips, a different kind of dramatics, and are planning to introduce next year at least one practical service to the school as a definite part of the curriculum for which the group assumes voluntary responsibility. The children coming through the lower groups are asking for this opportunity to continue their practical jobs.
After the start of this rural school experiment, a request came to us from another City and Country School parent to assume direction of the so-called activity program in one of the recreation centers being opened in New York City Schools through the cooperation of the Board of Education and the W.P.A. This parent had long been interested in the movement for recreation centers and feared the whole activity program idea was in danger of being misrepresented through lack of experienced direction. She offered to finance the work, if the City and Country School would release a teacher for halftime to take charge of a center for the rest of the school term. Miss Franklin, who had had a good deal of experience in summer play schools in the city, was accordingly released to undertake this new work. In spite of many handicaps she was able to bring sufficient success out of the venture to convince the Board of Education authorities of its value and was asked to assume complete direction of all the recreation work this current year in another more promising situation. Six schools were offered for her to choose from and the final selection was influenced largely by the fact that the school chosen was in charge of a principal who is very sympathetic to progressive education and anxious to have the work in the recreation center carry over into the regular procedure of the classrooms. The W.P.A. workers engaged for this center were chosen with Miss Franklin’s cooperation and have all been taken into the City and Country School as students to spend their mornings in actual classroom observation. Conferences with Miss Pratt and with individual teachers, as well as regular conferences with Miss Franklin, are providing most valuable in adjusting these teachers to a new point of view and giving them confidence and enthusiasm in their work.
So many opportunities are opening up to enlarge the scope of this public school work, both in the city and rural districts, that a group of our parents is now engaged in forming a separate corporation to be known as the City and Country School Extension Service to take over the financing and directing of this work and put it on a more stable and permanent foundation.
Works Cited:
What Schools Are Doing. Progressive Education Booklet No. 2. Proceedings of the 1937 National Conference of THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION. United States Section of the New Education Fellowship. AMERICAN EDUCATION PRESS, Inc. 400 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. Amber Strong Makaiau is a Specialist at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Director of Curriculum and Research at the Uehiro Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education, Director of the Hanahau‘oli School Professional Development Center, and Co-Director of the Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy MEd Interdisciplinary Education, Curriculum Studies program. A former Hawai‘i State Department of Education high school social studies teacher, her work in education is focused around promoting a more just and equitable democracy for today’s children. Dr. Makaiau lives in Honolulu where she enjoys spending time in the ocean with her husband and two children.
