Mrs. Friedlander's morning kindergarten class, 1963 |
“Kindergarten babies!”
That’s what the teacher said
as she pushed a few naughty boys through the door of our classroom. They must
have been about eight years old and committed some terrible transgression like
throwing spitballs or putting chalk in the erasers.
We looked up to see our own
teacher, Mrs. Friedlander, place them in a corner of the room. What was the
punishment? Who wouldn’t want to be back in kindergarten?
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Martin H. Traphagen School, 1940s (before my time). Kindergarten entrance was around the left side of the building. |
I remember feeling very
pleased that our kindergarten had its own entrance, tucked away on the side of a
monolithic four-story school constructed during the mid-1920s. The door looked
like it had been drawn by Beatrix Potter herself; one almost expected Peter
Rabbit to hop out.
Instead, there stood Mrs.
Friedlander, looking very postwar in a flowered dress and beads. A friendly
woman, she did once scare us by grabbing a classmate and washing his mouth out
with soap. We’d heard about the punishment but never witnessed it. No water
required: take one bar of soap and insert into pupil’s mouth.
In my imagination, washing
out someone’s mouth with soap involved lathering and rinsing and patting dry
with a towel. So this was a revelation.
When I interviewed her years
later, she was 90 years old and laughed uproariously telling stories about the
school’s principal. Evidently he insisted on accounting for all of the red
rubber kickballs we used during recess. If things didn’t add up, he would
insistently knock on each teacher’s door, stating urgently: “I’m missing a
ball, I’m missing a ball.”
Thirty-four years later, I forgave her for the soap incident.
Once you stepped through the
Peter Rabbit door, the kindergarten opened into a double-height space with sunlight
flooding in through a tall, wide bay window. There was a piano, a fireplace,
and a loft, a balcony of sorts where we were allowed to play unsupervised.
Although it may sound strange
to say, this was a room that respected children. In 1997 when I started to
study the history of American education, it came in a flash that our
kindergarten was a perfect example of how the progressive education movement influenced
school architecture.
The basic idea behind progressive education was to free children from recitation and drill –the one-room schoolhouse model that had dominated American education since the early nineteenth century. Colonel Frances W. Parker, a Civil War veteran and teacher, challenged the lockstep archetype as early as 1875 as superintendent of the Quincy, Mass., schools.
The basic idea behind progressive education was to free children from recitation and drill –the one-room schoolhouse model that had dominated American education since the early nineteenth century. Colonel Frances W. Parker, a Civil War veteran and teacher, challenged the lockstep archetype as early as 1875 as superintendent of the Quincy, Mass., schools.
Others followed, including the
famous philosopher John Dewey. Slowly, the ideas caught on and the Progressive
Education Association formed in 1919.
Progressive education reached
the peak of its popularity in the 1920s and ‘30s. Most of the tenets associated
with its philosophy – the teacher is a guide, learning by doing, experience is
education – translated brilliantly into classroom practice although not
everyone got it right, of course.
In the years following World
War II, progressive education was vilified for several reasons. Notably, the
launch of Sputnik led many parents, educators, and government officials to warn
that American students were not competitive academically, especially in math
and science. That started the business of perpetually reinventing the school
curriculum which has brought us to our current predicament.
I’m really
skimming through history here. Suffice it to say that the kindergarten I knew,
with its separate activity areas that encouraged moving around and individual
experimentation, and even a table where we grew plants, was designed for a
child-centered program.
The Peter Rabbit
door, built to the scale of children, intended to make us feel welcome. Inside,
the organization of the room encouraged playing and learning.
A few months ago, while strolling
with a friend, I stepped off the curb and pitched forward, twisting my ankle
and slamming my hand. The last time I fell so hard was during kindergarten.
In 1963, walking home from
school, carefully carrying the top of an onion that had sprouted green leaves,
I saw my mother waiting for me at the next corner, excitedly started to run, and
went sprawling.
The onion flew from my hands
into the future, where I now sit telling this tale.
See posts: May 18, March 16, 2016; December 21, November 23, November 2, 2015
Funny, I was thinking the other day of you being the valedictorian in 6th grade and given the speeck (or invocation?) and I got to "conduct" the choir.
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