John Dewey 1896

Dr. John Dewey, 1896:

"A large part of the educational waste comes from the attempt to build a superstructure of knowledge without a solid foundation in the child’s relation to his social environment. In the language of correlation, it is not science, or history, or geography that is the center, but the group of social activities growing out of the home relations. It is beginning with the motor rather than with the sensory side… It is one of the great mistakes of education to make reading and writing constitute the bulk of the school work the first two years. The true way is to teach them incidentally as the outgrowth of the social activities at this time.”

The following was added by Charles A. Bennett:

"With this new philosophy put into practice, all teachers needed to be taught the arts and crafts, industries and occupations, that were serviceable in the home, school and play environments of children. The teacher-training curriculum therefore, was not organized to produce special teachers of manual-arts subjects. In training the teachers, however, special teachers were employed to teach construction in wood and metals, textiles and paper; also drawing and modeling, and art and design applied in a great variety of materials. In all of these, the ideal was to emphasize natural correlations with science, history, geography, and literature.”

Sound familiar? If you read this blog regularly, you will recognize similarity to the Clear Spring School.