Helen Parkhurst
Published: 2016-10-08
Total Pages: 0
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This book takes its name from a scheme of teaching in intermediate and secondary schools, which was originated in Dalton, Massachusetts, by the author. The new system soon received so much favor in England that Miss Parkhurst was attracted by an invitation to give personal attention to the establishment of her "plan" in some English secondary schools. The Dalton Plan, or the "Dalton Laboratory Plan" as the author prefers to name it, is based on two principles, (1) "freedom" of the child, and (2) "co-operation, or interaction in group life. The first step taken toward acquiring the first of these is the elimination of the time schedule. The students divide up up their own working day to suit their study requirements. All studying is done on the laboratory plan; each student progresses at his own rate of speed. Consultation with the teacher takes the place of formal group recitations. Assignments are made by the week, and the student may get all of his work in one subject the first day and let one of the studies go until the last day if he chooses. We are told that the Dalton Plan is not a system, or a method, for it bars all suggestions of monotony and uniformity; it is not a curriculum, for a curriculum is merely "the machine by means of which the brand is stamped upon the individuals caught in its meshes." To use the words found in the book, "it is a scheme of educational reorganization which reconciles the twin activities of teaching and learning." The book is unique, in that it presents in detail a workable scheme for teaching in secondary education, a scheme which has in it enough promise to warrant the attention of every educator. -Industrial Education Magazine, Vol. 24