OUR CHILDREN AND OUR SCHOOLS

A report on the progressive trend in education which is based on some 35 years of work in this field by the Bank Street staff, and more specifically and extensively the experience of the Bank Street Workshop in conjunction with the New York City Board of Education as for six years their methods were introduced in several of the New York City public schools. In Part I, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, who is well known as an educator and a writer in the juvenile field, outlines the attitudes inherent in this educational approach- what is a good life for a child, for an adult; the concepts that the child is actively doing, actively thinking, learning through experience and contact and not by rote; the curriculum which is in direct relation to the modern world. The second part, the major body of the book, is a detailed record of the Workshop's contacts with teachers, with children; the introduction of new materials and methods; the way in which creative expression has been developed, the environment explored, the background enriched at the various age levels, so that the school becomes a cultural force in our society... The theory and techniques of this system, in such detail that the book is largely directed at a professional audience to whom this outlook, these methods are still new.