Endowments; Education; Schools; Dalton (Mass.); Child Education Foundation (New York, N.Y.); Parkhurst, Helen, 1887-1973
Format
correspondence
Genre
Business correspondence
Date
[between 1901 and 1919?]
Physical Description
microfilm, 16 mm, b&w
Note (Reel no.)
Reel 81
Note
PDF may contain multiple grant documents.
Child Education Foundation and Children's University School, 10 West 72nd Street, New York. Miss Helen Parkhurst, director. Co-educational; Montessori class to college entrance. An organization of parents, several of whom were prominent supporters of the National Montessori Association when that organization was active a few years ago. Now interested in the 'Dalton Laboratory Plan', a method of school organisation developed by Miss Parkhurst and named from the Dalton High School in Pittsfield, Mass., where it was first employed. The Children's University School is the model school of. the organization conducted under Miss Parkhurst's own supervision. Work of the early years is conducted on Montessori lines. Work of the elementary and later grades incorporate many features of the 'Individual instruction plan' devised by Dr. Frederick Burk with whom Miss Parkhurst was formerly associated at the California State Normal School at Berkeley. The Foundation aims to introduce this method into other schools and school systems. Much propaganda has been done in England where it has been well received. See 'The Dalton Laboratory Plan' by Evelyn Dewey, Dutton, 1921,and 'Education on the Dalton Plan' by Helen Parkhurst, Dutton, 1922." [SOURCE: Baldwin, Roger N. and Chase, Stuart. Survey of Enterprises in the Liberal, Labor and Radical Movements in the United States. American Fund for Public Service, Inc., 1924, pp. 30. HathiTrust, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924002357360. Accessed 26 Oct. 2018.] "The Dalton Plan is an educational concept created by Helen Parkhurst. It is inspired by the intellectual ferment at the turn of the 20th century. Educational thinkers such as Maria Montessori and John Dewey influenced Parkhurst while she created the Dalton Plan. Their aim was to achieve a balance between a child's talent and the needs of the community... The American teacher Helen Parkhurst (1886-1973) developed at the beginning of the twentieth century the Dalton Plan to reform the then current pedagogics and the then usual manner of classroom management. She wanted to break the teacher-centered lockstep teaching. During her first experiment, which she implemented in a small elementary school as a young teacher in 1904, she noticed that when students are given freedom for self-direction and self-pacing and to help one another, their motivation increases considerably and they learn a lot more. In a later experiment in 1911 and 1912 Parkhurst re-organized the education in a large school for nine to fourteen year-olds. Instead of each grade, each subject was appointed its own teacher and its own classroom. The subject teachers made assignments: they converted the subject matter for each grade into learning assignments. In this way, learning became the students’ own work; they could carry out their work independently, work at their own pace and plan their work themselves. The classroom turned into a laboratory, a place where students are working, furnished and equipped as work spaces, tailored to meet the requirements of specific subjects. Useful and attractive learning materials, instruments and reference books were put within the students’ reach. The benches were replaced by large tables to facilitate co-operation and group instruction. This second experiment formed the basis for the next experiments, those in Dalton and New York, from 1919 onwards. The only addition was the use of graphs, charts enabling students to keep track of their own progress in each subject. From now on it was called the Dalton Plan." [SOURCE: "Dalton Plan." Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Plan. Accessed 26 Oct. 2018.] "The Dalton School, originally called the Children's University School, was founded by Helen Parkhurst in 1919.... After experimentation in her own one-room school with Maria Montessori, Helen Parkhurst visited other progressive schools in Europe including Bedales School and its founder and headmaster John Haden Badley in England. She developed what she termed the Dalton Plan, which called for teachers and students to work together toward individualized goals. The Laboratory Plan was first put into effect as an experiment in the high school of Dalton, Massachusetts, in 1916. The estate of her benefactor Josephine Porter Boardman, was also near the town of Dalton and from this beginning the Laboratory Plan and school eventually took their names.... In 1919, Helen Parkhurst relocated to New York City, where she opened her first school on West 74th Street. Larger facilities soon became necessary; the Lower School was moved to West 72nd Street, and the High School opened in the autumn of 1929 in the current building at 108 East 89th Street..." [SOURCE: "Dalton School." Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_School. Accessed 26 Oct. 2018.]