The Arthurdale Community School

Education and Reform in Depression Era Appalachia

Sam F. StackJr., Sam F. Stack Jr.

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780813179124, 9780813166889
• eBook ISBN: 9780813166896
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Policy

1

Progressive Education and the Depression

What actually was progressive education? How was it conceived during the 1930s when the Arthurdale School was formed? Subsumed under the larger progressive reform movement during the Theodore Roosevelt, Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson administrations, progressivism implied a sense of optimism that human beings could change or alter their circumstances if they chose to do so. Underlying this assumption was the emancipation of the individual from exploitative and oppressive conditions. Within education, progressivism came to mean an attempt to deal with the effects of industrialization, immigration, and urbanization, being attentive to the social sciences and how they could lead to enhanced learning and a better grasp of the human condition. A French teacher, Mme Necker de Saussure, may have been the first to use the terms education and progressive together. There is little question that the work of Necker de Saussure in 1832 was influenced by Rousseau, Locke, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, who also influenced many American common school reformers such as Horace Mann and Calvin Stowe. It emphasized the child’s freedom to develop naturally in alignment with nature and paid attention to interest as a motivation for “invention and creative activity.” She saw the teacher as a guide rather than an authoritarian figure, designed rather than completed, and attentive to studies of child development, health, and physical growth as well as the need to connect the home and the school. About the time of the Colonel Francis Parker School and the famed Dewey Lab School in Chicago in the mid-1890s, British periodicals were using the term progressive education in describing an education attentive to the growth of the child, widening interests, and self-direction of activity. In the more modern sense, the term progressive was associated with the work of Colonel Francis W. Parker, who from 1875 to 1902 challenged the traditional methods of elementary education. Influenced by Pestalozzi and Froebel, Parker attacked the formalism of subject matter and began to seek “recognition of the child’s own desires, interests, and emotions as basic factors in learning,” and he protested against mechanical drill, memorization, and routine. His methods came to be known as the “new education fad.”¹

The progressive education historian Lawrence Cremin states that “progressive education began as part of a vast humanitarian effort to apply the promise of American life—the ideal of government by, of, and for the people—to the puzzling new urban industrial civilization that came into being during the latter half of the nineteenth century.”² But in its literal meaning progress implies a move forward, in essence a move to improve the quality of life, but it also implies that men created the problems that inquiry and intelligence could resolve if there was enough will. Grounded in a more scientific approach, fully utilizing inquiry and intelligence, was Dewey’s theory of democracy and what he believed could be fostered by the school as the natural extension of the community.³ The school could meet not just the needs of the child but also those of society. This tension between the needs of the child and those of the social order defines the divisive nature of progressive education, so diverse that in reality it was never a united movement. Regardless of that diversity, the progressive education historian William Reese claims that progressive educators held some beliefs in common: “They proclaimed that children were active, not passive, learners; that children were innocent and good, not fallen; that women, not men, best reared and educated the young; that early education, without question, made all the difference; that nature, and not books alone, was perhaps the best teacher; that kindness and benevolence, not stern discipline or harsh rebukes, should reign in the home and classroom; and, finally, that the curriculum needed serious reform, to remove the vestiges of medievalism. All agreed that what usually passed for education was mind-numbing, unnatural, and pernicious, a sin against childhood.”⁴

In 1929, with the onset of the Depression, Harold Alberty attempted to articulate several points he believed were characteristic of progressive schools. The first of the characteristics was the concept that “the child is creative by nature” and that the school should create the climate to nurture that impulse. Second was the interest in “the flowering of personality and a sense of social responsibility,” nurtured by freedom, physical activity, and intelligence. Third was that the “self-initiated activity of the child rather than learning imposed by the teacher must dominate the school’s program.” Progressives tended to see the traditional school as a passive, docile institution that focused on “listening” over critique and reflection, although this perception could vary.⁵

Owing to the diversity of progressive education, Cremin refuses to specifically define it, but, in attempting to make sense of the Arthurdale School, it is necessary to try and understand how the educators at Arthurdale conceived the concept and how they practiced their profession. It is important to try and sort through the general conceptions and themes of progressive education in the late 1920s and the 1930s to understand education at Arthurdale. Regardless of the intellectual diversity, most progressive educators at the time could agree that schools needed to be attentive to the health, vocation, and family life of their students. They believed that the social sciences, mostly psychology and sociology, could provide research to nurture growth through attention to how children actually learned. Because of perceived differences in how children learned, more attention was directed to individualized instruction. The ultimate goal was preparation for participatory democracy, although the means of getting there varied greatly.⁶

Just prior to the Depression, one of the best-known progressive educators and perhaps one of the most influential, William H. Kilpatrick, argued that the school was crucial in the process of learning about democracy, a place for practicing it. Kilpatrick described the typical school of his day as “largely autocratic”: “Our pupils have on the whole practiced not democracy but obedience, not to say subservience to autocracy.” Such docility meant to accept without question what was doled out by the teacher, who had gathered the “fruits from the tree of knowledge,” chewed them, and, according to Kilpatrick, helped the students “swallow easily and readily.” Kilpatrick believed that the school should be a place of experience, where learning was characterized by activity, with a teacher who understood and “sympathize[d] with childhood,” creating conditions conducive to growth. He attempted to nurture experience through what he termed the project method.⁷

From 1924 to 1929 the Progressive Education Association (PEA), initially formed in 1919 as the professional organization of progressive education, listed seven guiding principles. The first principle was the freedom to develop naturally, emphasizing the needs of the community. Freedom did meant not license but opportunity for initiative and self-expression based on interesting subject matter. Second was the principle of interest guiding all work. Interest, a type of emotional attachment, was to be developed through experience and knowledge, seeking correlation of subject matter and a conscious sense of achievement. The third principle emphasized the teacher as a guide and not a taskmaster. Teachers needed to encourage use of the senses, the training of observation, judgment, and reflection, to make sense of acquired information and the drawing of adequate conclusions via logic. Progressives tended to believe that classes functioned best for both teachers and students when they were small. The fourth principle, the scientific study of pupil development, emphasized the use of objective and subjective forms of assessment. This assessment included “those physical, mental, moral, and social characteristics which affect both school and adult life and which can be induced by the school and the home.” Principle 5 stressed the importance of and attention to the child’s physical development, including “much more room in which to move about, better light and air, clean and well-ventilated buildings, easier access to the out-of-doors and greater use of it.” Principle 6 addressed cooperation between the home and the school, guided by the “natural interest and activities of the child . . . especially during the elementary years.” Principle 7 classified the role of the progressive school in education movements as “a laboratory where the ideas, if worthy, need encouragement; where tradition alone does not rule, but the best of the past is leavened with the discoveries of today, and the result is freely added to the sum of educational knowledge.”⁸ As we proceed through the story of the Arthurdale School, it will become clearer how these seven principles affected its theory and practice.

The historian Patricia Graham points out that throughout its history progressive education appealed mostly to the middle and upper middle classes and was conducted in private or university lab schools.⁹ Within this context I address four primary groups of progressive educators active during the Depression era: the social reconstructionists, the administrative progressives, the child-centered progressives, and the community school progressives. It was the latter group that led the school at Arthurdale. Arthur Zilversmit believes that progressive education centered itself on the child: “A progressive school was one that followed a child-centered rather than a subject-centered curriculum, a school which mobilized children’s natural desire to learn.”¹⁰ There was an attempt to meet the emotional and physical needs of the students and to make sure that children had some say in the direction and content of their education. However, Zilversmit appears to be describing the more child-centered camp of progressives, a camp that often seemed to follow Rousseau more than Dewey. Child-centered progressives tended to challenge traditional grading or assessment and stressed physical activity, working in small groups, emphasizing freedom, and placing an emphasis on the interest of the child in guiding the curriculum. They often emphasized the role of the individual over the role of the individual in society. Margaret Naumburg provides an example of the child-centered approach: “Individual children, in all their human variety, must be the learning center of our changing schools, and the crux of the problem of our new education moves from controlling the machinery of organization and the collection of facts to creating a living organism, a new society, within the school itself.” Naumburg lauded Kilpatrick’s project method but was critical of an article by Dewey in the New Republic in which he tied individualism to capitalism.¹¹ Yet in many ways the child-centered progressives were reacting—at times in an extreme fashion—to the drill and recitation of traditional educational practice. They failed in Dewey’s view because they ignored the centrality of experience, misunderstood freedom as an absolute, and could and should have paid more attention to the mastering of subject matter.¹²

Centered at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Ohio State University, the social reconstructionists envisioned the school as a tool for social, political, and economic reform. Led by George Counts, Harold Rugg, Boyd Bode, John Childs, Laura Zirbes, and others, they challenged teachers to lead the charge for social, economic, and political reform. Counts heavily criticized the child-centered progressives in his Dare the School Build a New Social Order? (1932) and voiced his concerns about inequity in school. Supporting Dewey, he believed that schools should foster cooperation and community rather than individualism and competition.¹³ This meant involving students in locating and finding solutions for problems in the community and society at large and furthermore challenging “any institutions that distracted the growth of the individual member of society.”¹⁴ While vocal, the social reconstructionists were small in number and had little influence on America’s teachers.

The administrative progressives, in turn, tended to be male and well educated and to have ties to business and capital. They had their greatest impact on school organization and management and often based their principles on the ideology of business. In describing them, David Tyack writes: “Their social perspective tended to be cosmopolitan, but paternalistic, self-consciously modern in its deference to the expert and its quest for rational efficiency, yet at times evangelical in its rhetorical tone.” The administrative progressives favored a top-down model, placing decisions in the hands of the experts, those with the knowledge needed to make decisions. Standardization was their watchword, they prized organization and efficiency, and they taught proper work habits such as punctuality, respect for authority and experts, and time management, including the proper use of recreation.¹⁵

The community school progressives counted among their number Elsie Clapp, who held the title of principal and director of community affairs at Arthurdale. Clapp knew many child-centered educators and had worked with them, spending time with Caroline Pratt at the City and Country School.¹⁶ She was familiar with George Counts, William Kilpatrick, and the social reconstructionists at Teachers College and would argue with Counts over his understanding of education as imposition and the idea that the community school could serve as a force for social reconstruction. While attentive to the needs of the child in terms of cognitive and physical development, Clapp was also concerned about social development and role in the community. Like Dewey, her former mentor, she held strongly to the belief that American industrialization had disrupted community life and that the school could serve as a tool giving students a clearer sense of identity, of their role in democratic society. She felt that the school should serve the community by constituting an “embryonic” society, making use of interest, but coupling it with knowledge of subject matter. Teachers played a crucial role by being attentive to the life and culture of the community, helping create a common or public spirit. They were to be a visible and integral part of the community.¹⁷ The school was for the community-centered progressives an extension of the community where the child became self-fulfilled, but within the context of a shared existence, nurturing a spirit of service, part of the democratic ethic. Through the school the community-centered progressives attempted to create solidarity and cohesiveness characterized more by Gemeinschaft than by Gesellschaft.¹⁸ Of these four groups identified above, the community school educators seem to be the least studied.

These various progressive groups sought to “make children competent members of society,” as Alan Ryan puts it, but they differed greatly on what constituted competence and the role of the individual in society. For the child-centered progressives competence was the activation of interest, for the administrative progressives it was institutional efficiency and preparation for work, for the social reconstructionists it was the integration of knowledge with social and political action, and for the community-centered progressives it was a greater understanding of identity and place within a common culture.¹⁹ Dewey viewed competence—and essentially education—as the process by which individuals gain “sound” and “discriminating” judgment. Education was meant to cultivate the “habit of suspended judgment, of skepticism, of desire for evidence, of appeal to observation rather than sentiment, discussion rather than bias, inquiry rather than conventional idealization.”²⁰ These are clearly characteristics of participatory democracy. From these brief descriptions, it is clear progressive education was characterized by diversity. Regardless of its diversity, progressive education shared, according to Patricia Graham, five central principles: “commitment to child centeredness in education; belief in the responsibi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Progressive Education and the Depression
• 2. Back to the Land and the Arthurdale School
• 3. Elsie Ripley Clapp and the Community School
• 4. Beginning a Community School
• 5. The Struggle to Survive
• 6. From Community School to Traditional
• 7. The End of a Dream?
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index