1) Philosophy and Background.

John Dewey is often seen as the proponent of ‘learning by doing’ – rather than ‘learning by passively receiving’. He believed that each child was active, inquisitive and wanted to explore. How to capitalise on these drives? Dewey set up the ‘Laboratory School’ which were allied to the University of Chicago. Children there were encouraged to learn through experience, clarify the key points and apply the lessons to get practical results.

Dewey referred to his philosophy as ‘instrumentalism’, rather than ‘pragmatism’, though the two are related. Instrumentalism sees the value of an value, idea or tool being its use as an instrument for getting results. Bearing this in mind, learning should be relevant and rewarding – rather than only theoretical. Education should also equip students to take a full and active part in shaping their future society. ‘Traditional education’, he believed, saw children as empty, passive receptacles to be filled with ideas. This helped to support the existing order. ‘Progressive education’, for which he – rightly or wrongly – became known, saw school as an opportunity for children to develop as individuals and citizens. They may even be able to find their real vocation. He wrote:

“To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.”

Dewey’s views sparked controversy. Backed by humanists, his writings spread far and wide. He travelled the world, lecturing in places such as Europe, China and Japan. Some ‘progressive educationalists’ interpreted his ideas to children complete license. This provided ammunition for traditionalists and drew criticism from the author himself. John’s views, however, continue to appeal to those who aim to translate philosophy into practice. For example, people who focus on project work, action learning, workshops, simulation and community based learning. Here is how Mark K. Smith has described John’s contribution. Mark’s piece can be found on Infed, an excellent site that provides information about informal education. You can find the original piece at:

Infed

“John Dewey’s significance for informal educators lies in a number of areas. First, his belief that education must engage with and enlarge experience has continued to be a significant strand in informal education practice. Second, and linked to this, Dewey’s exploration of thinking and reflection - and the associated role of educators - has continued to be an inspiration. We can see it at work, for example, in the models developed by writers such as David Boud and Donald Schön. Third, his concern with interaction and environments for learning provide a continuing framework for practice. Last, his passion for democracy, for educating so that all may share in a common life, provides a strong rationale for practice in the associational settings in which informal educators work.”

Dewey’s educational views continue to polarize opinions. Some critics see him as a ‘liberal’ whose ideas subverted schools in America. (Others argue his philosophy was never actually implemented in mainstream education.) John wrote an enormous amount of material on many subjects – such as psychology, philosophy, aesthetics and democracy. This article explores just a few of his concepts concerning education. You can discover more about his total work at The Center For Dewey Studies at the link below. So let’s begin by exploring his life and educational work.

Center for Dewey Studies

Beginnings

John was born in 1859, in Burlington, Vermont. His father was Archibald Sprague Dewey, whose ancestors had lived in New England for over 200 years. Archibald grew up on a farm and went on to own the Burlington general store. He also loved literature. Lucina, John’s mother, grew up in a more middle class background. Her father was the local judge and all her brothers became college graduates. John was the third child in the family and was given the first name of his oldest brother John Archibald, who died in 1859 due to a domestic accident. Lucina had strict religious views and also insisted on her three children - all boys - pursuing their education.

Burlington had a relatively cosmopolitan community and was home to the University of Vermont. Both factors influenced John’s future. He enjoyed learning from the different cultures, whilst also gathering knowledge from his jobs as a newspaper boy and in the local lumberyard. John was an average student at school. Whilst his father wanted him to become an engineer, it may have been the proximity of the university that enabled John to move into academia. Enrolling at the age of 15, he graduated in 1879 with a major in philosophy from the University of Vermont.

Academia

John spent the next few years teaching; first at a high school in Pennsylvania, then at the Lake View Seminary in Charlotte, Virginia. Returning to Burlington, he took up another teaching role. During this time he wrote a paper called The Metaphysical Assumptions of Materialism which was later published in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Enrolling at Johns Hopkins University in 1882, he studied for his doctorate, which he gained in 1884. John spent much of the next 45 years or so in academia, teaching at the University of Michigan, followed by the University of Chicago and finally Columbia University.

John married Alice, his first wife, in 1886. They had six children, with just four surviving into adulthood. The Deweys also adopted a boy, Sabino, who they met in Italy. Alice became Principal of the ‘Laboratory School’ at the University of Chicago, but a dispute about the school led to them leaving Chicago. John went on to Columbia University, where he worked until retiring as a full-time faculty member in 1930. He was then appointed professor emeritus of philosophy in residence at Columbia, however, and held that post until his eightieth birthday. Alice died in 1927 and he married his second wife, Roberta, in 1946. He continued to write, travel and lecture until his death in 1952. The US Postal Service issued a stamp in his honour on the date of his birthday on October 21 1968.

The Laboratory School

Dewey wrote on many topics - such as philosophy, psychology and aesthetics - but the one we will focus on is education. John began by studying philosophy, but soon became interested in psychology. He was particularly drawn to the works of William James, elements of which he merged into his developing views on education.

America was shifting towards a different kind of economy and, John maintained, traditional schooling would not produce active, creative citizens. So how could students develop skills to shape their future lives? He believed education must be linked to the child’s experience. Students were much more likely to embrace mathematics, for example, if they could see how it applied to their daily lives. He wrote in My Pedagogic Creed.

“I believe that the school must represent present life - life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground.”

John was given the opportunity to test his ideas at the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago. Alice, his wife, was the Principal and the curriculum was based around real-life issues. (It’s worth noting that the school was set-up to experiment with various modes of learning – rather than be a prototype for all schools.) Peggy Hickman gives an excellent overview of the approach used at the school in her article on John Dewey. She writes:

“… The teachers were to present real life problems to the children and then guide the students to solve the problem by providing them with a hands-on activity to learn the solution …

“Cooking and sewing was to be taught at school and be a routine. Reading, writing, and math was to be taught in the daily course of these routines. Building, cooking, and sewing had these schooling components in it and these activities also represented everyday life for the students. The students had to measure things and be able to read to do these things. For an example, if a student was not able to read it was here how they would be taught to achieve the ability to read.”

“The child would experience school as being in a community. This would help the child learn how to share and communicate with others. Problems would be presented to the child and by trial and error the child would be able to solve the problem. The teacher’s responsibility was to be aware of where each child was intellectually and provide appropriate problems for the child to solve. Dewey wrote a book about his findings from the Dewey school called The School and Society.”

You can find Peggy’s article at:

Article

What became known as ‘The Dewey School’ came about because the University of Chicago offered John the chairmanship of the department of philosophy, psychology and pedagogy. He set up the school as part of his work and it operated for 7 years. Most children came from the Hyde Park area of Chicago and, at its peak, it had over 100 students. Many were from reasonably well-off families and there were no African American students. Dewey learned a great deal from the school, much of which was translated into his writings. The experiment was ended, however, when Chicago’s president, William Rainey Harper, failed to consult John before merging the school with the university training school for teachers. The transition proved difficult and eventually led to the Deweys leaving. Alice found the experience particularly depressing. James Scott Johnston gives an account of the events at the Laboratory School in his book Inquiry and Education: John Dewey and the Quest for Democracy. You can find an excerpt at the Google Books link below.

Google Books

The Laboratory School survived, however, and lives to this day. You can find a description of its mission and work at the link below. Here is an excerpt.

Laboratory School

“Learning by doing has guided the efforts of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools since Professor Dewey opened its doors over a century ago. Beginning with a handful of primary grade children from Hyde Park and growing to over 1700 students (nursery through grade 12) from throughout the metropolitan Chicago area, the Laboratory Schools have earned a well-deserved international reputation for excellence.”

“Our mission is focused on students. We are more than just test scores and college admissions statistics. We are about learning well and complementing the work of one of the world’s premier institutions of higher learning, the University of Chicago. Our academic program is rigorous, but we are as interested in the development of character as we are in scholastic achievement.”

“Our method - unregimented but demanding - focuses on teaching students to analyze and critically solve problems, rather than simply absorb facts. Our students pursue a rigorous curriculum in reading, writing, mathematics, and science; and they begin in the early grades to study foreign languages, music, and the arts. In the process, they learn to be responsible and independent in their studies, and to work on their own and with others.”

Writings

Combining his views on education with observations at The Laboratory School, John produced a succession of books. These included: My Pedagogic Creed, The Child and the Curriculum and The School and Society. The latter two books were based on his lectures and laid out his educational beliefs. He later expanded on these theories in books such as How We Think and Democracy and Education.

Many years later – in 1938 – he published Experience and Education. Based on a series of lectures, this book revisited and refined his views. Dewey reiterated the link between real-life experience and education. He remained critical of traditional methods that saw children as passive beings, but also criticised some ‘progressive educationalists’. He believed that some of his views had been misinterpreted, applied in a haphazard manner or not subjected to scientific measurement. On the other hand, some would argue, his writing can sometimes be dry and hard to decipher. Dewey’s work remains an inspiration to many, however, so let’s explore the principles behind his views on education.

2) Principles.

Great educators make learning real, relevant and rewarding. This tradition became well-established in Europe by thinkers such as Pestalozzi, Froebel and, later, Montessori. Dewey was one of the first to promote this approach in America, however, and seen as a giant in the field. Here are some – though not all – of the principles that run through his work.

* People can learn by participating in relevant learning experiences.

Great educators ask questions such as: “What does the person want to learn? How can we set clear goals? How can we be clear on their and my responsibilities in reaching the goals? How can I make the learning enjoyable and effective? How can I provide them with practical models, ideas and tools? How can I help them to achieve their picture of success? How can I help the person to fulfil their potential?” Great educators also recognise that people learn in different ways – what today are called ‘multiple intelligences’.

Dewey’s approach embraced many of these themes. He believed that students could learn an enormous amount by participating in relevant experiences. The Education Encyclopedia at Stateuniversity.com gives an excellent overview of John’s philosophy of education. Here is an extract you can find at:

State University

“The starting place in Dewey’s philosophy and educational theory is the world of everyday life … (however) Dewey was careful in his writings to make clear what kinds of experiences were most valuable and useful. Some experiences are merely passive affairs, pleasant or painful but not educative … An educative experience, according to Dewey, is an experience in which we make a connection between what we do to things and what happens to them or us in consequence; the value of an experience lies in the perception of relationships or continuities among events … It is this natural form of learning from experience, by doing and then reflecting on what happened, which Dewey made central in his approach to schooling.”

* People can develop their problem-solving skills, clarify the learning and apply the lessons in their daily lives.

Dewey believed that ‘learning by doing’ enabled students to develop their problem-solving skills. They could then clarify the learning and apply it in their future lives. Today this is considered obvious. You expect fire-fighters, lifeboat crews, paramedic teams and all kinds of apprentices to hone their skills in life-like situations. They don’t spend all day sitting in classrooms listening to abstract theories. Dewey underlined this point by writing: “Only in education, never in the life of farmer, sailor, merchant, physician, or laboratory experimenter, does knowledge mean primarily a store of information aloof from doing.”

He inspired many educators to explore and develop the concept of experiential learning. David Kolb, for example, became known for his ‘experiential learning cycle’.

There are, of course, many variations on Kolb’s cycle, which he published with Roger Fry in 1975. Sometimes it is summarised as: ‘Experience; Reflect; Think; Do.’ Kolb himself saw it as resembling a spiral, with people ascending to next level of development. He also said that a learner could start anywhere in the cycle and the stages are not necessarily sequential. Whilst acknowledging his debt to thinkers such as Jean Piaget and Kurt Lewin, Kolb singled out Dewey as: “one of the most influential educational theorists of the twentieth century.” Let’s move onto another principle in John’s work.

* People can follow their vocation and develop the habit of life-long learning.

A person’s vocation is their calling: it is what they are here to do. They can follow their vocation, express it through various vehicles and do valuable work.

Dewey railed against the concept of ‘vocational training’ being used to serve industry. Students were being prepared for jobs in which they might be trapped for life. He had a very different view of what a vocation entailed – and also believed in life-long learning. Dewey wrote in Democracy and Education:

“Put in concrete terms, there is danger that vocational education will be interpreted in theory and practice as trade education: as a means of securing technical efficiency in specialized future pursuits … It is a conventional and arbitrary view which assumes that discovery of the work to be chosen for adult life is made once and for all at some particular date.”

“The dominant vocation of all human beings at all times is living - intellectual and moral growth … The preparation for vocations (should) be indirect rather than direct; namely, through engaging in those active occupations which are indicated by the needs and interests of the pupil at the time … Only in this way can there be on the part of the educator and of the one educated a genuine discovery of personal aptitudes so that the proper choice of a specialized pursuit in later life may be indicated. Moreover, the discovery of capacity and aptitude will be a constant process as long as growth continues.”

* People can take responsibility, think for themselves and take an active role as citizens.

Dewey declared in My Pedagogic Creed: “I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.” Schools could achieve this in several ways. a) They could encourage students to take charge of their learning and make informed decisions. b) They could enable students to practise some form of democracy within their own institutions. c) They could play a more active part in the wider community. Dewey wanted students to develop critical thinking which, he believed, would provide a fail-safe against forces that might want to impose a dictatorship. He also warned against the pressures stopping people pursuing their vocation. He wrote in Democracy and Education:

“In an autocratically managed society, it is often a conscious object to prevent the development of freedom and responsibility; a few do the planning and ordering, the others follow directions and are deliberately confined to narrow and prescribed channels of endeavor.”

“Education would then become an instrument of perpetuating unchanged the existing industrial order of society, instead of operating as a means of its transformation. The desired transformation is not difficult to define in a formal way. It signifies a society in which every person shall be occupied in something which makes the lives of others better worth living, and which accordingly makes the ties which bind persons together more perceptible - which breaks down the barriers of distance between them.”

“But it does mean that we may produce in schools a projection in type of the society we should like to realize, and by forming minds in accord with it gradually modify the larger and more recalcitrant features of adult society.”

Dewey believed it was vital for schools to encourage students to think for themselves. They would then be more likely to become active citizens who could help to shape a better society.

3) Practice.

So what have been the effects of John Dewey’s work? Peter Senge is the author of The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organisation. A recognised authority on organisational development, he acknowledges the groundbreaking work done by John Dewey. I was at a conference where Senge began his keynote by saying:

“The art of developing a learning organisation goes back to Dewey. He provided the framework that can be summarised as: ‘The learner learns what the learner wants to learn.’ Great organisations encourage people to maintain the learning habit. They focus on learning that enables both the person and the organisation to continue to develop.”

Dewey’s views have had a profound impact on educational systems. They have provided the philosophical basis for learning by doing, project work, simulation and many forms of experiential education. Dewey continually pointed out, however, that some experiences were more valuable than others. Teachers must be able to intellectually justify the educational activities, rather than simply let people do their own thing. Many of his ideas have become an accepted part of educational and training events across the world.

Contribution to the strengths approach

John’s work embodied many elements of the humanistic tradition that has contributed to strengths approach. For example:

a) He believed in enabling people to follow their vocation – their calling – and encouraged the concept of life-long learning.

b) He focused on the student’s real-life experiences and believed in making learning relevant and rewarding.

c) He provided the philosophical foundation for ‘learning by doing’ and experiential education. This enabled people with different learning styles – multiple intelligences – to make use of these strengths when developing. People could then take responsibility for their learning, clarify the lessons and apply these in their future lives.

John Dewey reinforced these themes which are at the heart of the strengths approach. He cared about people and the future of humanity. As we mentioned at the beginning, when considering each person’s potential, he wrote: “To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.” John dedicated his work to enabling many more people to enjoy this opportunity. He remains one of the most influential educational thinkers.

Photo of John Dewey courtesy of Robert Norwood.

1) Philosophy and Background.

George Lyward achieved outstanding results at Finchden Manor, a therapeutic community for disturbed boys. Bus loads of social workers travelled to its location, near Tenterden in Kent, to seek the secret of his success. Walking around the ramshackle huts, they saw boys playing guitars, kicking footballs, tending gardens and, in some cases, engaged in study. Finally the visitors crammed into the large hall and bombarded George with questions. “What therapy do you believe in,” they asked. “What is the staff’s role? They seem to do little except watch the boys.”

“You are right, they watch the boys,” said George. “Watching is one of the hardest things to do in life. Our staff watch the boys painting, mending cars, playing music, helping each other or whatever. They look for when the boy ‘comes alive’. They then nurture the boy’s talent and help them to shape their future life.”

George Lyward’s work reached a wide audience in 1954, with the publication of Michael Burn’s book, Mr Lyward’s Answer. Visitors to Finchden saw the physical chaos, but also something deeper. Some called it ‘poetry’. George – affectionately known to all as the ‘Chief’ – created an environment in which troubled boys were able to heal themselves. Almost 50% of the boys managed to steer clear of future state care. These were excellent results, considering the deep seated nature of some of their problems. So what made his work so remarkable? Here is a summary of the Memorial Address given by John Prickett at St. Martin’s in The Field, in October 1973.

George grew up in London, near Clapham Junction station. His father was an opera singer, but soon left the family home and seldom returned. His mother was a primary school teacher who, to make ends meet, lived with her sisters. George grew up with his mother, two aunts and two sisters. Contracting poliomyelitis early in life, he had a weak leg, which laid him open to bullying. Channelling his energy into studies, he won a scholarship to Emanuel School, a public school in Battersea. Becoming a prefect, he was put in charge of the lower fifth, known as the ‘toughs’. He then became aware of his ability to get on with ‘difficult’ boys.

Leaving Emanuel, George worked in two preparatory schools and then pursued a choral scholarship at Cambridge. He loved his time at the university, taking the lead role in many musical productions. Studying to become a parson, he changed his mind two weeks before his planned ordination. He went on to a series of teaching posts but, in 1928, suffered a serious breakdown following the breaking of an engagement to marry. George then spent some time recovering in a nursing home. John Prickett writes:

“It was while he was recovering at this nursing home that Dr Crichton-Miller (who was treating George) asked him to help some boy patients of his. He was so successful in this that eventually, as the demand for his help increased, he moved, at the suggestion of Dr Rees, to the farm of one of Rees’s old patients known as the Guildables, in Edenbridge, Kent. That was in 1930. By 1935 he had 20 boys there and was looking out for better and bigger accommodation. And so it was that he eventually moved to Finchden Manor, where (including a break for evacuation to the Welsh border during the war) he worked for 38 years.”

“It was in 1931 that he went from the Guildables with a friend for a few days holiday at Cromer. On entering the hotel courtyard he saw a group having tea outdoors, among whom was a girl with wonderful copper coloured hair. He later claimed that as soon as he saw her he said to his friend, ‘There is my wife.’ And so it proved to be. And so when he came to Finchden he had the support of a wife gifted in many remarkable ways whom he has rightly described as being ‘of heroic stature’. Her untimely death, and the tragic illness which led up to it, deprived Finchden of a source of warmth, colour and gaiety for which she will always be remembered with affection.

“Finchden has been described as one of the most important educational experiments of the century and has certainly had a considerable influence upon official policy concerning the treatment of disturbed adolescents, both in this country and abroad. (George Lyward’s work) was recognised by the award of the O.B.E. in 1970 and by the invitation he so much appreciated to ‘preach’ in Westminster Abbey in 1971.”

2) Principles.

George had the ability to immediately reach young people, especially those who were ‘fighting themselves or fighting the world’. Finchden provided a sanctuary where there was little point in fighting anybody. Once the boys experienced this realisation – and the feeling of others caring for them - they could get on with their lives. Let’s explore some of the principles that were followed at Finchden.

* Connecting with troubled boys.

Tom Robinson, the musician and radio presenter, explains his own introduction to Finchden, particularly how George Lyward immediately connected with him.

“One night in the winter of 1966 I swallowed a handful of pills in a boarding school dorm to try and end my life, having fallen hopelessly and unrequitedly in love with another boy. Back then homosexuality was still punishable by four years in prison and at 16, awash with hormones and self-loathing, I’d rather have died than admit to anyone who and what I truly was.”

“My subsequent spell in a clinic with tests, sedatives, antidepressants and psychoanalysis did little to improve my frame of mind. Today my despairing father was driving me through the Weald of Kent towards my last hope - an interview at Finchden Manor. At the very edge of Tenterden a curving gravel drive hedged in with overgrown yew gave suddenly onto the courtyard of a battered Jacobean manor house. Even as we parked, several unshaven faces stared out through dirty leaded windows that had been broken and mended again and again. They were framed with hair like - not Beatles or even Rolling Stones - but like, well, girls. It was January 1967.”

“As George Lyward stepped forward to take my hand in both of his, and hold it for longer than felt comfortable, I became aware of a formidable charisma. ‘Hello,’ he said, looking at me piercingly for a moment over his glasses before adding softly ‘You’re very lonely aren’t you? I practically burst into tears on the spot. After all the drugs and psychiatric nonsense, here at last was someone who understood, saw at once where I was hurting and knew how to make the hurting stop. I instinctively trusted him with my life.”

“That lunchtime we sat jammed rowdily together on wooden benches at trestle tables. Hygiene was basic yet the food was edible, the shouting banter good natured, and the atmosphere vigorously alive. It couldn’t have been more different from the Quaker boarding school I’d just left. At the end of my visit, Mr Lyward told me Finchden was currently full with a long waiting list, and in any case didn’t normally take boys as ‘sick’ as me. Then he asked quite suddenly: ‘Do you want to come?’ I seized the lifeline, and stayed six years.”

* Practicing the art of ‘losing time’, being in the moment and experiencing life.

Time seemed to stand still at Finchden. Certainly there was a schedule: regular meals each day, animals to be fed and, most importantly in the Chief’s eyes, stage plays to be performed - either for others in the community or for the local neighbourhood. Tom Robinson explains that:

“Most of us who came to Finchden had been excluded from school for one reason or another. For some it was an alternative to borstal, mental hospital or - as in my own case - simple extinction. None of us were much interested in each other’s past lives - all that counted was the kind of person you were in the here and now.”

The boys were given ‘a respite’. Nobody was forcing them to do anything – so they could experiment without unreasonable expectations from authorities. But – and it was a big ‘but’ – people quickly understood the consequences of their actions. If a new boy decided to ‘fight’ by throwing bricks through the dorm windows, they and their room mates froze in the wind. If the dishes were not washed up, nobody had hot food. The act of living together – and seeing the effects of one’s actions – was real reality therapy. Cast free from ‘threats’ - past or future, real or imagined – the boys began to develop their own rhythms. They learned to fully experience life in the moment and, as a consequence, follow their true selves. Their future lives may be unpredictable, but this sense of being real provided a good start.

* Providing many different forms of stimulation – including ‘paradoxical interventions’.

Despite its timelessness, Finchden was full of surprises. Tom Robinson explained that there might be breakfast outdoors, strawberries for tea, a trip to the seaside, a formal dance, months of preparation for a Shakespeare play or even double pocket-money one week. One morning, out of the blue, there might be an instruction for a ‘command performance’. The boys were expected to put on a cabaret to be delivered that night.

George Lyward was a master of ‘paradoxical interventions’ – actions that didn’t appear to make sense – but which had a profound effect. When I met him at Finchden, he talked about a boy who consistently turned up late for breakfast. (Despite being tolerant on other issues, George was insistent on meal times being observed properly.) The boy who arrived late was worried about the reaction, only to be met Mr Lyward saying: “Give this boy a hot breakfast.” (A rare treat.) “In fact, give him double bacon and eggs.” The boy was never late again. John Prickett explains why Lyward used such an approach.

“He saw that the loosening up of compulsive patterns and reactions could be helped by paradoxical treatment which surprised, even shocked, and forced the boy to ask himself questions. Whereas on arrival a boy knew what reaction to expect to his own rebellious and antisocial behaviour, he would be startled and bewildered by what some have called ‘paradoxical’ reactions, so unexpected as to disturb quite deeply the fixed patterns formerly ingrained.”

“When a boy had been absent without permission for several days causing many hours of additional work for Lyward and the staff in trying to trace him and to allay the anxiety of parents, not only would he be fetched by car, if necessary from considerable distances, but on arrival would be warmly welcomed back, and opportunities would be sought of giving him permissions or articles of clothing or whatever, for which he had previously been asking without success.”

3) Practice.

Did George Lyward’s methods work? The community achieved a ‘success rate’ of almost 50%, but it also had strong critics. Finchden certainly had an advantage over the state system. It chose boys who had the ability to gain insights into their situations. For almost 40 years, however, it helped such youngsters to develop a more enriching life.

George Lyward’s legacy had a profound effect on other pioneers in education and therapy. The Peper Harow residential community in Godalming, Surrey, for example, adopted many approaches used at Finchden. Led by Melvyn Rose and founded in 1970, it gained an international reputation for outstanding work with disturbed adolescents. For over 20 years, it provided a therapeutic environment for teenagers who had suffered abuse. Melvyn’s book, Transforming Hate to Love, catalogues Peper Harow’s excellent results.

Modern society spends enormous amounts of money caring for the perpetrators and victims of crime and family breakdown. The approaches adopted by Finchden and other communities may have been unorthodox. But they also produced financial benefits; such as society not having to pay for a lifetime of care for some people. Talking about troubled teenagers, Mr Lyward’s view was:

“Let them have their childhoods. Let them do all the things they want to do as children. If they don’t do them now, they’ll do much worse things later.”

Contribution to the strengths approach.

George Lyward contributed to the strengths approach, even though he did not mention it by name. During our conversations, his words were often ‘spiritual’, talking about a person’s essence. Nevertheless, much of his work helped people to find and follow their strengths. For example:

a) He immediately connected with troubled boys and encouraged them to be their true selves.

b) He created a stimulating sanctuary in which the boys could ‘lose time’, explore possibilities and shape their futures.

c) He educated his staff to look for when somebody ‘came alive’. They could then help the boy to develop these talents and gain a sense of success.

The bottom-line was that, for many people, it worked. But joining Finchden was just the start of a long journey. Here is an extract from a conversation between George Lyward and a prospective new boy:

GL: And what can we do for you, my boy?

Boy: Please … I want to come to Finchden.

GL: And what is the matter with you, my boy?

Boy: I’ve got schizophrenia. (Bursts into tears.)

GL: There, there, my boy. (Pats Boy vaguely on head.) You shall come to us.

Boy: Oh, thank you, sir! What shall I bring?

GL: Bring? Bring nothing.

Boy: Nothing, sir?

GL: Well - ah - my boy - bring a toothbrush. And - ah - if you have one, bring a dream.

———————–

You can find out more about George Lyward’s work at:

http://www.finchden.com

1) Philosophy and Background.

Bernie has inspired many people to take more control of their health and lives. During the past 30 years he has promoted the study of exceptional patients; written best selling books, such as Love, Medicine & Miracles and Peace, Love & Healing; and enabled people to develop purposeful attitudes to life. Like all pioneers, he has had his critics, but he has provided a powerful force for good in the world. After years of practicing as a physician and surgeon, he focused on working with cancer patients. Looking at what might be considered ‘success’ in treatment, Bernie has said:

“If you are ill or facing adversity, you can begin to heal yourself by following the paths others have followed. Forgive yourself and others, live with hope, faith and love and watch the results in your life and in the lives you touch. Remember that success and healing refer to what you do with your life, not to how long you avoid death.”

Bernie’s books contain many real-life stories and practical tips. They cover many aspects of living, including some of the following themes.

* People can learn from exceptional patients – those who provide evidence of self-healing. They can also learn from patients who focus on living purposeful lives.

* People can choose their attitude and this can affect their health. They can aim to live fully and purposefully. This can improve their quality of life and also provide a sense of peace.

* People can take more charge of their health. This is especially important when working with professional experts and institutions. People who feel in control are more likely to feel happier and at peace.

Writing in his book Peace, Love & Healing, Bernie describes John, a landscape gardener he met. Here is part of his story.

John completed his preparations for the garden and then returned for his operation. Unfortunately some of the cancer remained. Bernie continues:

“I explained to him that he ought to consider chemotherapy and x-ray therapy to deal with the residual cancer. ‘You forgot something,’ he said. ‘What did I forget this time?’ ‘It’s still spring. I don’t have time for all that.’ He was totally at peace, healed rapidly and was out of the hospital well ahead of schedule. (His granddaughter, and oncology nurse at Yale, was fully aware of the findings and his choice.)”

Four years later Bernie noticed John’s name on the office chart. Because the prognosis had not been hopeful, surely it couldn’t be him. Maybe it was somebody with the same name. Bernie got his answer when John walked into the room. This time he had some questions to ask about his diet, but also wanted to know if he could get his hernia fixed. (Shifting boulders was a strenuous business in the landscape trade.) John died at the age of 94 with no sign of cancer.

John was one of many patients who inspired Bernie. This article gives an introduction to Bernie’s work. You can find much more information, however, at his web site.

Bernie Siegel

Development

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Bernie studied medicine at Cornell University Medical College. He then trained as a surgeon at Yale New Haven Hospital, West Haven Veteran’s Hospital and the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He believes young doctors should be educated to see the patient as a whole human being, rather than simply write prescriptions. Doctors have great expertise and can use it to enable people to be healthy. But this calls for listening, outlining the options and harnessing the person’s strength. Bernie came to a crossroads in his own career during the early 1970s. Looking ahead, he could see several options. These included:

* He could continue in his present role as a surgeon. But the long hours and sense of not treating the whole person were exacting a heavy toll.

* He could totally change career. Setting aside his skills as a surgeon he could, for example, become a psychiatrist or a therapist

* He could build on his hard-earned skills, but reframe the way he worked with people. For example, he could learn from exceptional patients – those who embodied self-healing – and share this knowledge with others who wanted to follow a similar path.

He chose to pursue the latter route. Bernie set-up an event which offered patients the opportunity to learn ways they could prolong their lives and live between office visits. Sending out the invitations, he expected hundreds to attend. Little more than a dozen turned up, but they had a wonderful evening. People told their stories and Bernie explained his approach. This included listening to people, understanding the illness and enabling individuals to pursue their chosen path of treatment.

Bernie noticed something about the people who attended. They had an ‘internal locus of control’. They chose their attitude towards the illness, gathered information and did their best to shape the future. People with an ‘external locus of control’ saw themselves as victims, feeling there was little they could do to shape their futures. Those who attended the meeting – and the subsequent support groups – had an interesting view of ‘success’. Certainly they wanted to live longer – but the keys were to take charge, appreciate life and live fully.

Building on this foundation, Bernie developed new ways of working with patients. Whilst still offering conventional treatment, he also offered people to the opportunity to explore their illnesses. Sometimes there was a strictly physical reason for the malady; other times people found that psychological reasons had contributed to the problems. Bernie enabled people to explore their illness using one-to-ones, group therapy, drawings and guided imagery. People gained from the sessions and Bernie eventually founded ECaP – a group for Exceptional Cancer Patients. Here is the link to their web site.

ECap

The Books

Bernie’s books have had a profound effect on people’s lives – including his own. Published in 1986, Love, Medicine & Miracles reached an audience seeking more positive ways to deal with illness. He followed it with Peace, Love & Healing in 1989. Many saw Bernie’s books as providing the medical case for the ‘mind-body’ connections highlighted by Norman Cousins in Anatomy of an Illness. Cousins overcame a serious illness by taking massive doses of Vitamin C and, amongst other things, watching Candid Camera re-runs. Norman wrote:

“I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anaesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep … When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval.”

Bernie’s books complemented the work of several other pioneers in the field of mind-body connection. These included Carl and Stephanie Simonton, authors of Getting Well Again. There were, of course, doubters, but Bernie provided a framework that people could use to take more control of their treatment. Since then he has produced many other books. These include How To Live Between Office Visits, Prescriptions for Living and 365 Prescriptions For The Soul. He has also written several books for children and parents. These include Smudge Bunny and Love, Magic & Mud Pies. Buddy’s Candle relates to dealing with the loss of a loved one, be it a pet or parent. His next book, Faith, Hope & Healing, focuses on survivor stories and reflections on what they teach us.

Bernie retired from full time surgical work in 1989. Since then he has devoted himself to writing and talking with patients and their care-givers. The key themes he promotes are humanising medical care, empowering patients and teaching survival behaviour to enhance the strengths of the immune system. Together with his wife and co-worker Bobbie, Bernie lives in a suburb of New Haven, Connecticut. As his web site says:

“They have five children and eight grandchildren. Bernie and Bobbie have co-authored their children, books and articles. Their home with its many children, pets and interests resembled a cross between a family art gallery, museum, zoo and automobile repair shop. It still resembles these things, although the children are trying to improve its appearance in order to avoid embarrassment.”

2) Principles.

Let’s explore some of the guidelines that Bernie expresses in his work. When still working as a surgeon, he wrote in Love, Medicine & Miracles:

“My job as a physician is not only to find the right treatment but to help the patient find an inner reason for living, resolve conflicts and free healing energy … My role as a doctor is expressed in the sentence, ‘How may I help you?’ Rather than ‘What’s wrong with you?’”

“That doesn’t mean that I don’t operate on people. I’m very much a traditional doctor. It’s a matter of utilizing all the resources available. In essence I tell my patients, ‘This is what I can do for you as a physician. This is what an operation or pills may do to help you. And then here is where you play a part. This is what can you do. This part is about your life, your work, your relationships, your nutrition, your habits.’”

Bernie tries to help people to find what they have lost; their health. He believes that the whole human system is connected. It is important to study what works and try to do it more - plus also find creative solutions to challenges. What you do in one part of your body, however, can affect the whole system. Building on this approach, Bernie promotes the following principles in his work.

* People can learn from exceptional patients – those who provide evidence of self-healing and those who focus on living purposeful lives.

“What can we learn from success?” asks Bernie. In particular, what can we learn from patients who appear to have what physicians call ‘spontaneous remissions’? Doctors used to overlook such events, as if they were acts of God. Bernie preferred to consider this to be ‘self-induced healing’. What were patients, such as John the landscape-gardener, doing right? Bernie said: “We need to learn from people who recover and people who stay healthy.” As mentioned earlier, such people often pursue some of the following principles.

* They take responsibility for shaping their futures. They gather information about their illness. They explore the possible options – the choices and the consequences. They learn from ‘experts’ – such as doctors – but then decide on their own way going forward.

* They explore if there is any ‘meaning’ in their illness. For example, did something happen in their lives before they contracted the illness? If so, what might it mean? How could they harness their energy in another way to express things healthily – rather than through an illness?

* They appreciate their assets – the healthy parts of their bodies, their relationships, their talents and their goals. They mobilise their energy to live purposefully each day.

Writing in Love, Medicine & Miracles, Bernie explains that:

“Exceptional patients manifest the will to live in its most potent forms. They take charge of their lives even if they were never able to before, and they work hard to achieve health and peace of mind. They do not rely on doctors to take the initiative but rather use them as members of a team, demanding the utmost technique, resourcefulness, concern, and open-mindedness. If they’re not satisfied, they change doctors.”

“Exceptional patients refuse to be victims. They educate themselves and become specialists in their own care. They question the doctor because they want to understand their treatment and participate in it. They demand dignity, personhood, and control, no matter what the course of the disease … Exceptional patients want to know every detail of their x-ray reports. They want to know what every number in their lab test printouts means. A doctor who harnesses that intense self-concern, instead of rejecting it and being ‘too busy,’ dramatically improves the patient’s chances.”

ECaP

Exceptional Cancer Patients was founded by Bernie in 1978. During the next three decades he has worked with support groups where people use discussions, imagery and other vehicles to take more charge of their health. Today ECaP is run by the Mind-Wellness Center under the direction of Barry Bittman and promotes the concept of integrative healing in mind, body and spirit. Below is an excerpt from their mission statement, which you can find at the following site.

ECap Mission

* People can choose their attitude and this affects their health. Sometimes illness provides a wake-up call. It can offer the opportunity to live fully and purposefully.

Bernie has said: “Many joyful people are living inside bodies they can’t control or manage.” Whatever their illness, such people teach you how to live. He talks about a professional partner who says: “True good health is the ability to do without it.” That is probably my definition, says Bernie. In a sense, health has nothing to do with one’s body, but more to do with one’s attitude to life. Whilst it is vital to enable people to be physically healthy, we can learn from those who display psychological health.

Bernie is careful to underline several principles. First, everybody has the right to choose how they live their life. It is not up to him – or any doctor – to persuade or to be judgemental. Second, everybody has the right to choose their attitude. Third, everybody can, if they wish, explore ways to understand and take care of their health.

Bernie sees his role as to love and enable people to shape their futures – not judge or force them to change. He is there to accept people, offer options and let them choose. Based on what he has experienced, however, Bernie has believes it is important for people ‘to have mottoes to live by’. You can’t separate thoughts and beliefs from your body. What you think and what you believe can literally change your body chemistry. It can enable your immune system to become stronger or, if you are down, become more vulnerable to disease. Illness can be frightening, because it seems we are no longer in control. But it can also be a wake up call. Contributing to the book Healers on Healing, Bernie explains why this can be the case.

Each of us seems to be born with a ‘blueprint’, says Bernie. This plays a part in: a) Shaping our physical growth; b) Shaping our psychological, intellectual and spiritual growth. We instinctively recognise when we are following our true path. But there are pressures that mean we may deviate from our true nature. Sometimes it can take a psychological or physical illness to get us back on course. Strange as if may seem, the illness gives us chance to take stock.

Some people respond to this wake-up call by becoming the person they want to be, says Bernie. They refocus on living a purposeful life. In a sense they are born again and thus let their bodies know they love their new life. For example, they change job; change their behaviour; experience joy; express their feelings and give to other people. They feel better psychologically and, in some cases, also physically. “Near death experiences focus the mind,” we are told, but these may not always be necessary. We can find ways to follow our ‘blueprint’ earlier, says Bernie. This relates to another theme in his work.

* People can learn to take more charge of their health. They can be helped to take this step by parents, teachers and many others, such as doctors. People who feel in control are more likely to feel happier and at peace.

People who take this step will have a greater chance of staying physically and psychologically healthy, believes Bernie. He now talks a lot about prevention, rather than simply about cure. The influences around us in childhood, for example, play a big part in shaping our future health. Bernie writes on his web site:

“For the first six years of a child’s life its brain wave pattern resembles that of someone under hypnosis. So the child is being entranced by the words it hears from the authorities in its life. When a child grows up hearing negative messages about how it disappoints and embarrasses its parents, never feels a loving touch and is abused physically and psychologically with indifference and rejection it will choose a path of self destruction, addictions and revenge. When this happens the world and its inhabitants suffer from their actions.”

“Children need to grow up with mottoes to live by. Parents who tell them to do what makes them happy, when they have decisions to make, will put them in touch with their feelings and heart’s wisdom …”

Bernie on childhood

Bernie’s book Love, Magic & Mudpies explores how parents can encourage their children. It covers topics such as: How much time with you do your kids need? How do you teach your children values? When kids misbehave, how do you mix appropriate anger and discipline with love? What are some ways to help children adjust to separation or divorce? Should you get a family pet? The book provides ideas parents can use to enable their children to enjoy a happy and healthy life. You can hear Bernie talk about Love, Magic & Mudpies in the following interview.

Podcast

“Mottoes to live by,” is one of Bernie’s favourite phrases. So what kind of guidelines does he advise following? Here are some that he explores in his work.

* Count your blessings

Writing in 365 Prescriptions for the Soul, Bernie explains: “A gentleman I was talking to on the phone related that his doctor and the EMR team had told him his heart stopped beating and he had died at least five times during surgery. He concluded our conversation by saying, ‘I used to have troubles, but now I have only blessings.’ His outlook clearly had been turned around by this experience.” Health comes from focusing on our assets - and using these well – rather than worrying about what we are lacking.

* Focus on those moments – and activities – when you lose track of time.

Bernie advises exploring more of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called ‘Flow experiences’ – those moments when ‘time goes away’. Writing on his web site, he says: “I know from experience and as a physician that the healthiest state one can be in is when you are doing something which makes you lose track of time. When I am painting a portrait or operating upon someone I have no sense of time or self. I am in a trance state and I believe when we are being creative our physiology gives our body a profound live message.”

* Seize the day.

When being interviewed on radio, Bernie loves it when the host says we are running out of time for the interview. He then explains to listeners that we are all running out of time. Don’t wait until the doctor says you have six months, says Bernie. When people accept their mortality, they may embark on living their true life. So it is important to do soul work. Paint that picture, tend to the garden, forgive yourself and other people. Get on with living and enjoy the benefits – now!

* Create healing environments.

Spend time in your chosen sanctuaries. Reflect on yourself, your hopes and your goals. Harness your positive energy. This is especially important when going into hospital or another institution – so take steps to feel at home. Hospitals are often sterile places, so do whatever you can: a) To feel in control; b) To ‘humanise’ your environment. Remember, it is your body and your life. Do what you can to follow your rhythm, rather than that of the institution. Surround yourself with the people, sights, sounds and other things you love. This will have a beneficial effect on your immune system.

* Mobilise your resources.

Focus on your picture of success. Use positive phrases, such as ‘healing my body’, rather than negative phrases, such as ‘killing cells’. Dare to use imagery and other techniques to channel your resources. Medicine is full of aggressive phrases, says Bernie, such as ‘fighting the war against cancer’. Writing on his web site, he explains that sometimes these phrases can be unhelpful.

“Dave, a Quaker and friend of mine with cancer, went to see his oncologist. His oncologist said to him. ‘I am going to kill your cancer.’ Dave answered, ‘I’m a Quaker. I don’t kill anything.’ And he walked out the door. Dave lived for twelve years doing alternative therapies.”

“I do a lot of work with drawings and imagery and tried to get Dave to think of his immune system as soldiers or police cleaning out the cancer but Dave could not work with those aggressive images. His drawing shows his white cells carrying his cancer cells away. He wouldn’t hurt anything.”

“When we focus on waging a war or fighting a battle versus healing our lives and bodies we are interfering with the healing process. Another patient I know had a large mediastinal tumor and she was told by someone to imagine her white blood cells as dogs eating it up. Nothing happened. One day she shared that she was not comfortable being aggressive and saw her tumor as a block of ice with God’s light melting it and then it literally began to melt away.”

“When our minds and bodies are involved in a battle and a war our response is one of protection. That means we are prepared to run for our lives as our blood is diverted to parts of our brain and bodies which help us to escape. Stress hormone levels are elevated and immune function is suppressed during this time … When we are involved in healing and see life as a labor pain of self birthing then the side effects are diminished and our body is reprogrammed to grow and heal as the stress level is reduced and immune function enhanced.”

People are different. So it is vital for them to do what they believe in. They will then have more energy to mobilise their resources. Bernie explains more about this approach at:

Article

3) Practice.

So what have been the effects of Bernie’s work? He has contributed greatly to the humanising of medicine. Along with people such as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Carl and Stephanie Simonton and places like the Penny Brohn Centre (formerly the Bristol Cancer Help Centre), he has put the patient back at the centre. Certainly there have been critics but, as ever, he has invited people to take the ideas they like and use these in their own way.

Contribution to the strengths approach

Bernie has done profound work in medicine. He has also added to the person-centered approach, which has had a strong influence on the strengths philosophy. For example:

a) He has encouraged people to learn from exceptional patients – those who provide evidence of self-healing and those who live purposeful lives.

b) He has encouraged people to draw on their inner strength, take responsibility for their health and live purposeful lives.

c) He has empowered patients and helped to humanise aspects of the medical profession. People can now get access to medical knowledge, explore their possible treatment options and choose their way forward. This embodies many of the principles of the strengths approach.

“Success and healing refer to what you do with your life, not to how long you avoid death,” says Bernie. His work, books and ideas have inspired many people to take more control of their health and lives. You can discover more about Bernie at:

Bernie’s web site

1) Philosophy and Background.

Try typing the name ‘Henry Pluckrose’ into a search engine. You will find he has published over 300 books which, through a marriage of a simple text and photographs, encourage the development of thinking skills. What the search will not reveal is the profound influence he has had on primary education.

Henry is a remarkable teacher who has inspired thousands of people around the world. Between 1968 and 1984 he was the head teacher of Prior Weston, a state primary school in London’s Barbican. The school encouraged children to be creative. This was done through a curriculum which taught the key areas of literacy and numeracy, weaving them into every aspect of school life. The results were impressive. It attracted a waiting list of students and hundreds of visitors from many countries.

I first heard about Prior Weston on the BBC radio programme The World At One. It was introduced as a school which ‘everybody liked’. Students and parents were so enthusiastic that the presenter pleaded: “Please tell me one thing that is wrong with the school.”

Educating rather than engineering

Prior Weston was successful because the staff believed in the educational - rather than engineering - approach to running a school. Whilst it was important to deliver certain results, these could be achieved by treating students as individuals. For example, parents were asked to bring their child to school at least 12 times before the official starting date. Why? This was the child’s first introduction to an ‘institution’, so it was vital to get it right. By visiting the school – and tasting different lessons at different times of the day – the child was more likely to feel safe, valued and excited about starting. Writing in Open School, Open Society, Henry outlined some of the following principles about learning.

Prior Weston enabled children to master both social and educational skills. (Indeed, the second key statement on the prospectus emphasised the importance of social grace, that awareness and sensitivity for others should permeate school life.) It also encouraged them to express their individuality through the arts – such as poetry, music and acting. Every year students went on scores of visits to local buildings, theatres, museums and work places. Here is a piece written by an eight-year-old after walking along a stormy beach.

A Storm

First it is calm, settled, innocent,
Then it gets unruly, restless, disturbed,
Then it is a monstrous giant, attacking, destroying,
Turning all its anger on the shore.
The waves grow bigger, fierce, more terrible,
Destroying everything in their path.
It is merciless, restless.
Boats overturned, people drowned, houses flooded.
It cares not for people dead,
It cares not for boats capsized.
It cares not for houses flooded.
It cares not.
Yet an hour afterwards, it is peaceful again,
Calm, settled, innocent.

Henry’s approach to education proved successful with students, parents and even governments. After writing Open School, Open Society, for example, he was invited to advise decision makers from many regions of the world. These included from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, from North America to the Far East. Visitors to Prior Weston were limited to 4,000 a year and, on one occasion, included the Queen of Denmark. The school encouraged children to build on their strengths, whilst also developing skills in other areas. He wrote the following piece in his book The Caring Classroom.

Henry called himself a ‘journey-man’ teacher, but others called him a genius. Certainly he was sought out by people who wanted to create enjoyable and effective educational systems. So let’s explore more about his background.

Growing up

Writing in his latest book of verse Word Shaping Tongue and Listening Ear, Henry explains:

“I was born in an impoverished district of South London in the early 1930s, late born of three children. My parents were working class and lived on a meagre weekly income. It must have been very difficult for them to allow my sisters to take the County Scholarships they had been awarded. The small annual sums granted them by the Council enabled them to accept a place in a Grammar School, where the course extended beyond the statutory learning age (14) when it would be usual for children from poorer families to leave school. Despite the pressure that this would have on their finances, the offer of places was accepted … perhaps because my mother resented the fact that her father had refused to allow her to accept a similar offer.”

Growing up in a tiny second floor flat, Henry learned from the homework brought home by his sisters. By the age of three he could recite swathes of poetry – such as passages from Hiawatha, poems by Wordsworth and whole tracts from the Bible. Writing in 2008, he explained:

“I feel certain that all my writing is rooted in the first six years of my life, a time when I enjoyed the status of an only child and the added bonus of having the attention of three ‘mothers’ (his mother and two older sisters). During this time my sisters attended Greycoat Hospital School, Westminster. It must surely have been blessed by teachers who valued English in all its many forms, written and spoken.”

“Each week Diana and Winifred (his sisters), a year apart in school years, were expected to learn by heart as homework, a specific piece of literature or poetry. It might be a psalm or Bible extract, a piece of prose or a poem. This involved much reading and reciting aloud in the only room available … the ‘living room/kitchen’ which all shared, a room featured in so many period novels.”

Learning, teaching and writing

After completing his National Service, Henry gained a teaching qualification from St. Mark and St. John College in Chelsea. From 1954 onwards he taught in several Inner London schools, building a reputation for enabling children to express themselves and develop their abilities. During 1961 he met Frank Waters, editor in chief at Oldbourne Press, who had learned of Henry’s work on creative activities with children. Frank asked him to produce a book on picture making. Published in 1962, this led to Henry creating many series of books for children, teachers and parents.

Books build reputations, which was the case with Henry. His approach was refreshing and produced results. People sought him out to understand the secrets of success. Forever modest, Henry seemed surprised by the attention, but the students kept arriving. Roger Tingle was one of these people. He later wrote in the introduction of The Travels of a Journey-Man Teacher.

“In the spring of 1965, Henry was teaching on the very top floor of the John Ruskin School (in South London) and I joined him there as a student, a humble apprentice to a Master Sorcerer. His classroom was quite unlike anything I had ever visited before and his teaching methods unlike anything I had previously experienced.”

“The teaching space itself resembled an artist’s studio and was buzzing with a level of activity that only 42 lively ten and eleven year olds can generate. Whilst practical art and craft work was most clearly in evidence, it was the Arts in the broadest sense that formed the basis of the curriculum: drama, music, poetry and dance.”

“Particular importance was given to direct, personal experience. In practice, this meant that much of the children’s learning took place in a variety of settings outside the school: in museums, art galleries, churches and other historic buildings as well as the natural environment.”

Henry’s writings resulted in him receiving many invitations to lecture. He believed in course participants being ‘active’, rather than ‘passive’, so such assignments often turned into practical workshops for educators. Rising through the ranks, he served as Deputy Head at the then ‘experimental’ Eveline Lowe School in Bermondsey, before becoming Head of Prior Weston School in 1968.

Open School, Open Society

As mentioned previously, Prior Weston became increasingly well-known. Henry takes up the story in Travels of a Journey-Man Teacher:

“With a team of gifted teachers and supported by parents, we managed to create a school which was more community orientated than most of the schools in the area. So many visitors came to study our approach that after 5 years I felt a book would help clarify my thoughts as well as record something of the achievements of the teaching and support staff.”

He shared his thoughts with Audrey White, an editor he knew well, and it was agreed he should produce a book on ‘open education’. (Henry was not sure such a title would mean much to people.) Evans Brothers published the book, now called Open School, Open Society, in 1975. Henry continues:

“Its theme was uncomplicated, reflecting how schools could become more open to the society they served. It looked at openness through a series of interrelated topics – a freer curriculum, child-centred learning, the role of the parent and teacher, the school as an important focal point in the life of the community. Its tenor was educationally left of centre, but it was liberal in tone and far from revolutionary. There was no reason – in my opinion then, nor in my opinion now – for it to make more than a small ripple in the educational pond. Instead, and to my astonishment, it created a whirlpool.”

Around the same time, a crew from Swedish Television were filming a 45 minute documentary at Prior Weston. So it was decided Open School should be published in that country to support the programme. This led to Henry being invited to run workshops in Sweden and many other countries. He fitted these travels around weekends and holidays. The publication of Open School neatly spans two other books of significance. Both stem from Henry’s fascination with History.

Let’s use the Locality (1971) examines ways in which young people can be shown how to interpret the past through the built environment in which they live. Children learning History (1991) published in English and Spanish, followed upon a research degree (M.Phil. London). This was written after he had left Prior Weston in 1984 to become Head Teacher Fellow at Avery Hill (now the educational wing of the University of Greenwich). During the 1980s Henry served on the Council for National Academic Awards and the Education Committee of The National Trust, The Royal Ballet and the Civic Trust. In 1986 he joined the staff of the Royal Opera House, working part time in the Education Department, until finally retiring in 1999.

Poetry

During recent years he has begun writing poetry. (He wrote his first poem in 2003.) This has been strongly influenced by another occurrence in his life. Henry takes up the story in Word Shaping Tongue and Listening Ear.

“Some eight years ago I was diagnosed as suffering from Parkinson’s disease, a neurological illness for which at present there is no cure. The illness slowly cramps the body, restricting movement making the simplest of tasks (like fastening a button) frustratingly difficult. Life eventually centres upon the support and dedication of those who are prepared to give their time to care.”

“Such restrictions I now suffer have brought with them an unexpected and welcome gain. Like W.H. Davies I have discovered the joy which comes from having time to ‘stand and stare’ … to see for the first time beauty in a magpie’s plumage, note the deft skill of the spider as she weaves her web, watch the colours of the spectrum reveal themselves in floating dust when touched by a beam of sunlight. My attempts to put observations such as those into words (which some people may appreciate is a form of ‘play’) is an exploration of the way words fit together, while enjoying their sound pattern and cadence when spoken, their invasion of our emotions.”

“In a strange way my fascination with words returns me to my Lambeth childhood when I was submerged in literature and poetry … irrespective of its appropriateness to my age or understanding. Like many a working class child I welcomed ‘the hand-me-downs’ of my older siblings. There was one small difference. My sisters did not give me clothes which no longer fitted, their hand-me-downs were more ephemeral and longer lasting, a love of words.”

Here is one of the poems from his book.

When you speak

When you speak, speak gently,
in the gentleness lies healing.

When you speak, speak thoughtfully,
impetuous words bring pain.

When you speak, be restrained.
Self promotion is demeaning.

When you speak, speak truthfully,
lies corrupt present and future.

When you speak tell of what might be,
the past is a graveyard of unfulfilled ambition.

When you speak, speak with love,
love transcends self, blessing giver and receiver.

In the speech let moments of silence dwell.
For in silence there is meaning.

2) Principles.

Henry based his educational approach on certain principles. Let’s explore just three of these that enriched the lives of children, schools and their local communities.

* Schools must be based on how children learn.

Sounds commonsense? Of course, but it is amazing how many nations forego such basic ideas. Writing in Open School, Open Society, Henry explained:

“The school, it has been said, needs to fit the child. By implication this suggests that teachers, students, parents, administrators and members of our education committees have really thought about the nature of the young child. Can it be otherwise? Unfortunately – yes … So let us look briefly at the child from the ages of 5 to 11, for it is upon his particular qualities (physical, emotional, intellectual and social) that the primary school should be built …”

* Children are playful.

Children learn through play. But ‘play’ sometimes gets a bad press, as if it has nothing to do with growth, says Henry. As thinkers such as Pestalozzi, Froebel and Montessori have pointed out, however, ‘there is nothing as serious as play’. Doing the things we find fascinating leads to what today is commonly called a sense of ‘flow’. We flow, focus, finish and, as a result, gain a sense of fulfilment. Peak performers go through this process all the time. Prior Weston enabled children to follow this path and do creative work.

* Children are movers.

Children come to terms with the world through their bodies and senses, says Henry. They explore through sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. Schools should therefore be designed – and a curriculum followed - in ways that enable children to move, explore and make sense of their experience.

* Children are curious

The early years of most children are spent in looking, testing, probing, querying, believes Henry. He says: “The teacher’s task is to take this curiosity and, by creating situations and providing materials which are themselves stimulating, use it to help children towards a better understanding of the world.”

* Children are talkers.

Children love words. They love the sounds words make, says Henry, and the response these evoke from the adults in their world. Henry loved listening his sisters recite poems and hearing words that stretched his imagination. Such words present challenges. The child longs to understand and extend his personal vocabulary. (At five years of age, children assimilate 5 new words a week.)

* Children are enthusiastic.

Children are full of energy. Providing their basic needs are met, life is fun. The world is there to explore and every day is different. Henry says: “What we need to do is harness the children’s own enthusiasms to the subject areas which we might wish them to consider. Once a child is personally involved, learning follows.”

* Children are imaginative.

There is an old story about two candidates being interviewed for the role of leading a start-up business. Person A had a high IQ, having passed many exams; Person B had a relatively low IQ, but he had built his own company. Pointing at a nearby chair, the interviewer asked each person: “How would you use that chair to build a business?” Person A gave a few answers. Person B immediately produced a flow of ideas. Some were mad cap, but some would make money. The interviewer wanted to differentiate between conventional ‘intelligence’ and creative imagination.

Prior Weston employed many vehicles – such as project work, theatre, music, dance, painting and field trips – to stimulate children’s imagination and help them to solve problems. It was important to help children to recognise that throughout their school days, and their adult lives, they will meet problems which they will need to solve.

* Children are responsible.

I visited Prior Weston in the early 1980s. The children hosted visitors, looked after the library, led the daily assembly, helped younger pupils at lunchtime and behaved responsibly. Responding to high expectations, they took a pride in helping to run their school.

* Children are traditionalists.

“Children like to have a routine of living within the school that they can understand, a pattern they can follow,” says Henry. “‘We always …’ does not have to relate to the PE lesson every Tuesday at 10.30. ‘We always …’ should relate to attitudes, the way in which a child relates to child, teacher to child, child to teacher. Consistency of approach, consistency in care, consistency in understanding is what young people demand.”

Great educators provide the security and stimulation that enables students to grow. This leads to another key principle in education.

* School can enable children to develop their abilities and achieve a sense of success.

Let’s return to some of the points Henry made earlier. Learning involves curiosity; learning involves problem solving; learning can lead towards a feeling of accomplishment. How to translate these themes into action? Writing in The Caring Classroom, Henry gives an overview of two approaches.

Prior Weston’s teachers gave children the opportunity to use what today are called ‘multiple intelligences’. They enabled students to build on their strengths; to pursue their chosen learning styles; to delve deeply into a subject; to see connections across topics, such as architecture, maths, language, aspects of daily life; to produce visible products, such as essays, poems, drawings or photographs. These products could then be displayed around the school.

* School can become an integral part of the community.

Henry stressed the need for schools to bring learning to life by going out into the local community. During foreign trips he was frequently reminded that Prior Weston was fortunate to be surrounded by museums and art galleries in Central London. Certainly this was the case but, on the other hand, Henry often ran workshops in towns where there were many learning resources in the local community. These included, for example, factories, mines, ruins, theatres, old people’s homes, canals, graveyards, farms, power stations and other amenities. Children could visit these places, experience the environments and produce creative work.

Writing more than 30 years ago, Henry also envisaged the school becoming more integrated into the community. His ideas included:

* The school as a learning centre.

This included acting as an adult learning centre – possibly where older people could pass on their skills to younger people; a holiday play centre; a meeting place for the local tenants association; a centre for community leisure activities – such as art, photography and dancing; a technological resource, providing computing and other facilities. Many of these ideas have now been translated into action.

* The school as a community support centre.

Henry wrote that many problems were brought to him. These included: a girl in trouble with the police; a mother requesting help in regaining custody of her son; a sudden death of a parent; the side-effects of a complex divorce; a badly beaten child and a family coping with rent-arrears. Whilst not always able to provide ‘expert’ advice, the school staff created support structures for helping parents and children to deal with problems. Henry saw the future school as playing a key role in helping people to deal with such difficulties.

* The school as a pioneering institution.

School could create links across the local community. Certainly it could reach out to other learning centres, social projects and work places: but what about bringing work places into the school? How would forty-five year olds react to experiencing the ways young people learn today? Henry suggests, for example, involving parents in their children’s education. Writing in The Caring Classroom, he explains how this could be translated into action. When working in a Swedish school with a mixed aged group of 7 – 13 year old children, he invited the pupils to provide evidence of the history of themselves and their families. He writes:

“Within 24 hours the classroom was awash with ‘treasures’ … baby clothes and toys, photographs of parents and grandparents, holiday snapshots and a wide range of objects which had particular significance for the family from which they had come. When parents visited the classroom, their display of collective pasts provoked intense and purposeful discussion. ‘Who would have thought’, said one father to another, ‘that we both still own the toy bears we had as toddlers!’ ‘Isn’t it interesting’, was the response, ‘that modern bears don’t look like ours.’ Such a conversation points to something more than nostalgia for a shared past. It indicates a way in which teacher, parent and child can be drawn together through a project and experience shared.”

3) Practice.

So what have been the effects of Henry’s work? During the past 40 years many generations have learned from his books. Thousands of teachers have been inspired to create environments that have enabled children to develop. Many primary schools have integrated his ideas into their daily lives. The ‘educational’ approach he believes in has, of course, often been faced by the ‘engineering’ approach led by administrators. Nevertheless, Henry’s work continues to educate the heart, head and hands.

Contribution to the strengths approach

Henry’s approach embodies many elements of the strengths philosophy. For example:

a) He has shown how to create schools that enable children to find and develop their talents.

b) He has inspired thousands of teachers to help children to ‘learn how to learn’, explore the arts and achieve a sense of success. He has done this through teaching, running workshops and producing books.

c) He has used his own gifts to enrich the lives of children, parents, teachers and local communities.

Writing about The Travels of a Journey-Man Teacher, Roger Tingle says:

“The only argument I have is with the title of this book. Having had the rare privilege of working alongside Henry for so many years, I believe that this teacher will be remembered not as a journey-man but as a genius.”

Looking back at Henry’s work, it is interesting to see what he wrote more than 30 years ago about the future of schools.

Along with giants such as Froebel, Montessori and Dewey, Henry has shown how to translate real education into action. He has enabled many people to live more fulfilling lives.

1) Philosophy and Background.

Abraham Maslow was one of the pioneers of humanistic psychology. His books inspired many people to explore the positive aspects of human potential. He also gave birth to several key themes in modern management. Many people are familiar with some aspects of his work, such as ‘Maslow’s Pyramid’ - the hierarchy of human needs. We will cover this as part of the background, then explore Maslow’s contribution to building on people’s strengths.

Maslow was fascinated by people he called ‘self-actualizers’. Looking back at history, he studied individuals such as Abraham Lincoln, Jane Adams, Albert Einstein and Albert Schweitzer. He also studied living people who were fulfilling their potential. Maslow found that such people were true to themselves. They saw reality clearly and loved using their creativity to solve problems. They had strong ethics combined with a sense of humility and respect. Paradoxically, they could be ruthless to achieve a desired goal. Writing on his web site about Maslow, Dr. George Boeree explained:

“These people tended to have more peak experiences than the average person.  A peak experience is one that takes you out of yourself, that makes you feel very tiny, or very large, to some extent one with life or nature or God. It gives you a feeling of being a part of the infinite and the eternal.  These experiences tend to leave their mark on a person, change them for the better, and many people actively seek them out.  They are also called mystical experiences and are an important part of many religious and philosophical traditions.”

You can read George Boeree’s article at:

George Boeree article

Abraham Maslow is best known for his pyramid of human needs. Perhaps his most pioneering work, however, is encapsulated in the title of one of his books The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. Reports say that, towards the end of his life, he became disillusioned with how some people applied his ideas. Maslow created an outstanding legacy, however, that has made a great contribution to people’s fulfilment.

The beginnings

Abraham was born in 1908 in Brooklyn, New York City, the eldest of seven children born to Russian-Jewish immigrants. He was shy but loved learning. He would later say: “I was isolated and unhappy. I grew up in libraries and among books, without friends.” Abe – as he was called by everybody – became fascinated by how to improve the world. As a 16-year-old he also had something else on his mind. He had fallen in love with his first cousin, Bertha. His parents were shocked and didn’t approve. Interviewed in 1968 by Edward Hoffman for Psychology Today Magazine, it was suggested that all 16-year-olds were in love. Abe replied:

“Mine was different. We’re talking about my wife. I loved Bertha. You know her. Wasn’t I right? I was extremely shy, and I tagged around after her. We were too young to get married. I tried to run away with her. We eventually ran to Cornell for my sophomore year in college, then to Wisconsin. We were married there when I was 20 and Bertha was 19. Life didn’t really start for me until I got married.”

Maslow chose to study psychology at the University of Wisconsin. His professors there believed that ‘behaviourism’ – and the study of animals in laboratories - provided clues to human nature. Explaining his choice to Ed Hoffman, he said:

“I went to Wisconsin because I had just discovered John B. Watson’s work, and I was sold on behaviorism. It was an explosion of excitement for me. Bertha came to pick me up at New York’s 42nd Street library, and I was dancing down Fifth Avenue with exuberance. I embarrassed her, but I was so excited about Watson’s behaviorist program.”

“It was beautiful. I was confident that here was a real road to travel: solving one problem after another and changing the world. I was off to Wisconsin to change the world. I was young Harry Harlow’s first doctoral graduate. And they were angels, my professors. I’ve always had angels around. They helped me when I needed it, even fed me. Bill Sheldon taught me how to buy a suit. I didn’t know anything of amenities. Clark Hull was an angel to me, and later, Edward L. Thorndike.”

Behaviourism and Psychoanalysis were then the predominant psychological models. Maslow would later, of course, help to give birth to the ‘Third Force’ – humanistic psychology. Whilst at Wisconsin, however, his doctorate focused on dominance and sexuality in monkeys. He returned to New York to work with Thorndike at Columbia, doing research on human sexuality, before taking up a faculty post in Brooklyn. Abe was also beginning to move away from behaviourism. Talking with Edward Hoffman, he said:

“Then I fell in love with Alfred North Whitehead and Henri Bergson. Their writings destroyed behaviorism for me without my recognizing it. When my first baby was born, that was the thunderclap that settled things. I looked at this tiny, mysterious thing and felt so stupid. I felt small, weak, and feeble. I’d say that anyone who’s had a baby couldn’t be a behaviorist.”

You can read the full Psychology Today interview at the link below:

Psychology Today

Edward Hoffman also wrote a fine biography of Maslow called The Right to be Human.

During the late 1930s Maslow also met some of the European psychologists who were immigrating to the US. These included people such as Alfred Adler, Erich Fromm and Karen Horney. He also knew anthropologists Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, which led to him studying the Blackfoot Tribe. Researching other cultures taught Maslow that people share similar drives. This realisation eventually gave birth to the ‘hierarchy of needs’. Another key influence was Kurt Goldstein, who wrote a book called The Organism.

Kurt was an esteemed neurologist who maintained it was vital to see the human being as a total organism. His views challenged the prevailing ‘reductionist approach’ of the time. Reductionism insisted on slides fields of knowledge - such as medicine, education, work, etc. - into small pieces. Each piece was then treated separately. Based on his work with brain-damaged soldiers, Goldstein believed in a more ‘holistic approach’. Certainly one must deal with the immediate symptoms, but it was vital to mobilise the forces of the whole system. Kurt was amazed by the human body’s ability to heal itself. He maintained that the ‘mind’ and ‘body’ were connected - and that the organism could adjust and develop in challenging situations. Frequently this called for exploring and putting it all together to create a whole solution. Writing on The Nature Institute’s web site, Craig Hodrege explains:

“Goldstein gives an unexpectedly simple and concrete example: learning to ride a bicycle. The learner at first makes all sorts of movements in the effort to ‘get it right.’ Many of these movements are actually inappropriate for successful riding, although they play an important role in the learning situation. (One of the worst things a person learning a new capacity can do is to try to avoid making mistakes.) After a shorter or longer time, suddenly the moment comes when the child ‘gets it.’ The smile, the coordinated movements and the smoothly propelled bike all reveal the accomplishment … Once we follow a learning process in such a careful way, we can notice this embodiment of wholeness in manifold variations - whether in learning to play an instrument, in understanding a mathematical concept, or in grasping an organism.”

Nature Institute

Maslow also believed that human beings were living systems that strove towards fulfilling their potential. At this time, however, the world was in chaos and America joined World War II. He was too old to join-up, but one incident set the direction for his future life. Abe told Edward Hoffman:

“I felt I must try to save the world, and to prevent the horrible wars and the awful hatred and prejudice. It happened very suddenly. One day just after Pearl Harbor, I was driving home and my car was stopped by a poor, pathetic parade. Boy Scouts and old uniforms and a flag and someone playing a flute off-key. As I watched, the tears began to run down my face. I felt we didn’t understand - not Hitler, nor the Germans, nor Stalin, nor the Communists. We didn’t understand any of them. I felt that if we could understand, then we could make progress. I had a vision of a peace table, with people sitting around it, talking about human nature and hatred, war and peace, and brotherhood.”

“I was too old to go into the army. It was at that moment I realized that the rest of my life must be devoted to discovering a psychology for the peace table. That moment changed my whole life. Since then, I’ve devoted myself to developing a theory of human nature that could be tested by experiment and research. I wanted to prove that humans are capable of something grander than war, prejudice, and hatred. I wanted to make science consider all the people: the best specimen of mankind I could find. I found that many of them reported having something like mystical experiences.”

Publishing his theories

Abe published several articles in the early 1940s which described the hierarchy of human needs – something we will explore later. He believed that, as one set of needs were satisfied, then other ‘higher needs’ appeared. He said: “This is what we mean by saying that basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy.” The articles did not draw a great response, but Abe launched into his next project – researching self-actualising men and women. He believed the key to humanity’s future lay in studying healthy people.

Abe felt enthusiastic about embarking on what would become his life’s work. He was then struck down by fatigue, however, and felt unable to teach. His brothers ran a cooperage – making wine barrels – in Pleasanton, located in the San Francisco Bay area. They offered him the chance to earn some income by becoming a plant manager at their site in rural California. Abe enjoyed working in the Maslow Cooperage and recovered his health. His brothers offered him a permanent role, but he preferred to return to teaching. The experience he gained in the factory, however, would influence some of his later writing on management. Returning to teaching, he took up a post at Brandeis University, near Boston, where he would stay until 1969.

The birth of humanistic psychology

Maslow first published is ground-breaking book Motivation and Personality in 1954. He then revised and reissued it in 1970. The book described the hierarchy of human needs and also outlined his views on human potential. He wrote:

“Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization.”

Motivation and Personality appealed to people who were looking for a more positive view of humanity’s possibilities. Certainly there were doubters, but Maslow’s work went beyond the frameworks offered by psychoanalysis and behaviourism. The Association for Humanistic Psychology web site explains:

“By the late 1950’s a ‘Third Force’ was beginning to form. In 1957 and 1958, at the invitation of Abraham Maslow and Clark Moustakas (another pioneering psychologist) two meetings were held in Detroit among psychologists who were interested in founding a professional association dedicated to a more meaningful, more humanistic vision.

“They discussed several themes - such as self, self-actualization, health, creativity, intrinsic nature, being, becoming, individuality, and meaning - which they believed likely to become central concerns of such an approach to psychology. In 1961, with the sponsorship of Brandeis University, this movement was formally launched as the American Association for Humanistic Psychology.”

“In 1964, at Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the first invitational conference was held, an historic gathering that did much to establish the character of the new movement. Attendees included psychologists, among whom were Gordon Allport, J.F.T. Bugental, Charlotte Buhler, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, Gardner Murphy, Henry Murray and Carl Rogers, as well as humanists from other disciplines, such as Jacques Barzun, Rene Dubos and Floyd Matson.”

You can find more information about the history of humanistic psychology at: Association Humanistic Psychology

Maslow and Rogers remained key figures at the centre of the movement. Rollo May moved on towards helping to found ‘Existential Psychology’. Abe later captured the excitement of the time in his book Towards A Psychology of Being. Writing in the Introduction: Towards A Psychology of Health, he explained:

“There is now emerging over the horizon a new conception of human sickness and of human health, a psychology that I find so thrilling and so full of wonderful possibilities that I yield to the temptation to present it publicly even before it is checked and confirmed, and before it can be called reliable scientific knowledge. The basic assumptions of this point of view are:

1) We have, each of us, an essential biologically based inner nature, which is to some degree ‘natural,’ intrinsic, given, and, in a certain limited sense, unchangeable, or, at least, unchanging.

2) Each person’s inner nature is in part unique to himself and in part species-wide.

3) It is possible to study this inner nature scientifically and to discover what it is like - (not invent - discover).

4) This inner nature, as much as we know of it so far, seems not to be intrinsically or primarily or necessarily evil. The basic needs (for life, for safety and security, for belonging and affection, for respect and self-respect, and for self-actualization), the basic human emotions and the basic human capacities are on their face either neutral, pre-moral or positively ‘good.’

5) Since this inner nature is good or neutral rather than bad, it is best to bring it out and to encourage it rather than to suppress it. If it is permitted to guide our life, we grow healthy, fruitful, and happy.

6) If this essential core of the person is denied or suppressed, he gets sick sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes immediately, sometimes later.

7) This inner nature is not strong and overpowering and unmistakable like the instincts of animals. It is weak and delicate and subtle and easily overcome by habit, cultural pressure, and wrong attitudes toward it.

8) Even though weak, it rarely disappears in the normal person ~ perhaps not even in the sick person. Even though denied, it persists underground forever pressing for actualization.”

Humanistic psychology goes to work

 

Maslow’s views attracted attention in fields beyond psychology. Advocates of humanistic approaches to education embraced the philosophy and, more surprisingly, interest was shown by some people in business. During the 1950s the approach to running organisations was one of ‘command and control’. The common assumption was that people were lazy and must be supervised in their work. Maslow’s books introduced a different approach. He suggested that people really wanted to do meaningful work. Providing this approach was implemented properly, it might increase motivation, job satisfaction and productivity.

Frederick Herzberg’s book The Motivation to Work was published in 1959. Seen as complementing Maslow’s approach, it highlighted the importance of what Herzberg called ‘hygiene’ and ‘motivational’ factors. The hygiene factors included, for example: salary, work conditions and the relationship with the manager. The motivational factors included: responsibility, recognition, meaningful work and a sense of achievement. Hertzberg’s book gained wide recognition. The acknowledged ‘companion volume’ to Maslow’s books on work, however, is considered to be Douglas McGregor’s The Human Side of Enterprise.

McGregor was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ‘Enterprise’, published in 1960, was seen as an endorsement of Maslow’s work. There is some question, however, about whether this was the case. McGregor was influenced by Maslow: but some argue that he simply wanted leaders to explore the belief systems they used to manage people. Ground-breaking at the time, his views on Theory X and Theory Y are now taught on basic management courses. Theory X assumed that people were lazy and avoided work. People should therefore be supervised to ensure they achieved their objectives. Theory Y assumed that people wanted to take responsibility and do satisfying work. Provided with the right environment, people would use their talents to achieve the organisational aims.

(Theory Z - a term coined by William Ouchi in later years – outlined another approach. This aimed to combine elements of Japanese and US led management theories. Theory Z was based on certain assumptions about employees. For example:

* They want to build co-operative relationships with their employers and colleagues. This also includes the need to, when appropriate, arrive at decisions by consensus.

* They require high degrees of support in terms of secure employment, working conditions and development. As part of the package, they accept the process of steady career progression.

* They value their personal and social life as much as material success. Leaders need to recognise this factor and, as a consequence, take an interest in the employees as a whole people. In return, the employees will remain loyal to the organisation.)

McGregor’s book The Human Side of Enterprise was taken to heart by many people – as was Maslow’s view of human nature. Abe was also invited to visit a company that was following Theory Y principles. This was Non-Linear Systems, a high-tech company in California. Andy Kay, the owner, was encouraging people to be more self-directing, co-operative and creative. Line-workers, for example, were encouraged to set their daily schedules. The results seemed to be promising. Productivity and profits improved, whilst labour turnover and absenteeism was reduced. Maslow should perhaps have been delighted, but he remained wary. Concerned that his ideas were being implemented without any scientific measurement, he later wrote:

“They’re being taken as gospel truth, without any real examination of their reliability, validity. The carryover from clinic to industry is really a huge and shaky step, but they’re going ahead enthusiastically and optimistically.”

Maslow the ‘scientist’ wanted people to test the validity of his ideas; but Maslow the ‘visionary’ wanted to go further with his own thinking. Reflecting on his experience at NLS, he began to create his view of ‘enlightened management’. Recalling the work of Ruth Benedict, he returned to the theme of ‘synergy’. Maslow showed how this could apply in the work place. People could, he believed, combine their talents to produce synergy - more than the sum of their parts - and achieve their personal and organisational goals. He published these views under the title Eupsychian Management. Maslow’s book was well received by many experts in management. Peter Drucker, for example, wrote to him in 1966:

“This letter is about seven years late. For the past seven years or so I have always been on the point of writing you to tell you how very much I have learned from you and how grateful I am.”

Drucker went on to express his admiration of Eupsychian Management – though he had reservations about the title. Whilst not agreeing with everything in the book, he loved the stimulation it provided. Drucker would later say:

“Maslow had a lasting impact on me. I became an immediate convert. Maslow’s evidence is overwhelming. But to date very few people have paid much attention.”

——————–

Abe spent the rest of his life developing his philosophy and researching how to put this into practice. He gained international recognition – being seen as providing a positive view of human possibilities. Encouraged that his ideas were being adopted, he nevertheless had some reservations. He was particularly concerned, for example, about aspects of the ‘human potential movement’. Some proponents saw ‘self-actualisation’ as a license to simply pursue their own needs. Others recognised Maslow’s views that ‘being truly human’ meant being generous. It called for enabling as many people as possible to fulfil their potential. He believed this was the only want to create a ‘synergistic society’.

Abe began to suffer from deteriorating health. He and Bertha spent his remaining years in Menlo Park, California. Abe died there from heart failure in June 1970. He was aged 62.

2) Principles.

Abe was one of the founding fathers of humanistic psychology. As such, he laid the groundwork for focusing on people’s possibilities. His pioneering work on studying ‘healthy’ people blazed a trail that was later followed by others. Maslow’s ideas have now become accepted in many fields – so let’s explore some of the key principles.

* People can grow in the right environment.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is his best known concept. Put concisely, this says that people have an ascending set of needs. Individuals have an inbuilt drive to climb this hierarchy. Once they are satisfied on one level, they are then more likely to move onto the next level. These drives start with the physiological needs, then climb onwards towards self-actualisation. Maslow believed that people are more likely to fulfil their potential if they are able to live, learn and work in an environment that enables them to satisfy their needs.

Abe originally outlined 5 levels of needs. He later described several further dimensions relating to the highest need - ‘self-actualisation’. These included the drive to make sense of experience – cognitive needs; to find or create beauty – aesthetic needs; and to have peak experiences – self-actualisation needs. There are differing views as to whether he meant these to be extra levels or contained within the level of the self-actualisation.

These needs are:

* Physiological needs. These include the needs for food, air, water, rest and all the needs concerned with one’s body.

* Safety needs. These include the needs for security, shelter and stability.

* Love and Belonging needs. These include the needs for love, good relationships and, in the broadest sense, being part of a ‘community’. The latter could, for example, mean being part of a gang, an institution or having kindred spirits. This reinforces the sense of identity.

* Esteem needs. These include the needs for respect, recognition and confidence.

Maslow called these four levels ‘deficit needs’. He believed that if you don’t get satisfied on a certain level, you feel a ‘deficit’. He sees these as ‘survival needs’. You feel fine, but you need something more to thrive and be ‘fully human’ – the person you can become. The final set of needs were:

* Self-actualisation needs. These include the needs for making sense of experience, finding or creating beauty, and having peak experiences.

Reservations

Maslow’s views on creating the right climate for growth have spread to many fields. Few would deny that they have a profound impact. But there are, of course, some reservations. As George Boeree points out in his article on Maslow, some individuals thrive in terrible conditions. He writes:

“We also have the example of a number of people who were creative in some fashion even while in concentration camps. Trachtenberg, for example, developed a new way of doing arithmetic in a camp.  Viktor Frankl developed his approach to therapy while in a camp.”

Certainly there are many people who have grown despite – or even because of – tough circumstances. This point was developed by thinkers such as Frankl and Rollo May, who founded the existential psychology movement. Maslow certainly questioned his own views: but it now accepted that people are more likely to develop in an encouraging environment.

* People can explore the further reaches of human nature.

Abe was fascinated by ‘self-actualisers’ who used their talents to help other people. (There are obviously – and unfortunately - some people who get their ‘highs’ by hurting others.) Maslow studied people who, in the broadest sense, were committed to ‘doing good’. These included, for example, Abraham Lincoln, Jane Adams and Eleanor Roosevelt. So how did such people achieve peak experiences? George Boeree outlines these in his excellent overview at:

George Boeree

Self-actualisers demonstrated
some of the following characteristics

* They followed their values. They were ‘real’ – being true to themselves rather than ‘fake’. They had a strong sense of autonomy and resisted pressure to conform.

* They found solutions – treating life’s-problems as challenges to be solved. They frequently saw the ‘means’ – the journey - as being as important as the ‘ends’.

* They enjoyed solitude and preferred to have deep relationships with a few people. They also had a positive sense of humour, rather than laughing at others misfortunes.

* They accepted themselves and, within limits, other people. At the same time, they wanted to improve themselves if they saw the benefits.

* They had a strong sense of respect towards others. Maslow called this quality ‘human kinship’. They believed in certain values – and were prepared to ‘fight’ for them – but also appreciated and enjoyed differences in others. They were prepared to draw the line, however, if people did not show respect to others or certain values.

* They had strong ethics. These were often ‘spiritual’ in nature, rather than ‘religious’.

* They had the ability to be creative, imaginative and original. They had a sense of wonder - a ‘freshness of appreciation’ - which stretched to seeing the extraordinary in ordinary things.

* They had more peak experiences than most people. Such experiences sometimes gave them a sense of transcendence.

George Boeree added:

“Maslow doesn’t think that self-actualizers are perfect, of course.  There were several flaws or imperfections he discovered along the way as well:  First, they often suffered considerable anxiety and guilt - but realistic anxiety and guilt, rather than misplaced or neurotic versions.  Some of them were absentminded and overly kind.  And finally, some of them had unexpected moments of ruthlessness, surgical coldness, and loss of humor.”

“Two other points he makes about these self-actualizers:  Their values were ‘natural’ and seemed to flow effortlessly from their personalities.  And they appeared to transcend many of the dichotomies others accept as being undeniable, such as the differences between the spiritual and the physical, the selfish and the unselfish, and the masculine and the feminine.

Boeree explains that Maslow believed self-actualisers needed certain qualities in their lives to be happy. These included: truth, honesty, beauty, unity, aliveness, uniqueness, perfection, completion, justice, simplicity, playfulness, self-sufficiency and meaningfulness. Boeree says that Maslow recognised that everybody might crave for these needs. He points out, however, that if a person does not have enough to eat or has nowhere to live, those needs take precedence. Self-actualisers were in the more fortunate position of being able to focus on their higher needs. They were able to explore the further reaches of human nature.

* People can work well together to create synergy.

‘Synergy’ was a term coined by the anthropologist Ruth Benedict. She used it to describe the way that people co-operated in certain tribes. People worked well together and combined their talents to achieve common goals. This enabled them to develop a peaceful, satisfying and sustainable life-style. Maslow liked the term. He used it to describe to organisations where:

a) People worked in an environment where they were able to satisfy their hierarchy of needs – this included doing meaningful work and gaining a sense of achievement.

b) People aligned their goals with those of the organisation;

c) People combined their talents to produce synergy, ‘produce more than the sum of the parts’ and achieve their personal and organisational goals.

Maslow saw some of these ideas put into practice at Non-Linear Systems in California. Andy Kay, the owner, found that the most productive workers were those at the end of the line. This was probably because they assembled the final product and achieved a sense of satisfaction. Aiming to reproduce similar conditions elsewhere, he organised people into teams, each responsible for a complete product. As mentioned earlier in the article, Maslow initially had mixed feelings when visiting the plant, but he became more enthusiastic when seeing it in operation. Edward Hoffman describes how Maslow began making notes and putting together a manuscript. Hoffman writes:

“Benedict’s notion (of synergy) was almost unknown except to Maslow, Margaret Mead and a few others who had known her personally. Now Maslow saw synergy as an underlying principle of management and human relationships in organizations. NLS was demonstrating that the company’s and the employees’ interests could converge through what Maslow called ‘enlightened management.’

Abe put together his theories and, in 1965, published them in a book called Eupsychian Management. Warren Bennis, a leading authority on management, said: “It was very radical for the time.” Despite some initial enthusiasm, however, it did not catch on. Bennis and Drucker believe part of the reason was the title. As Edward Hoffman points out, the main ideas that have endured are ‘enlightened management’ and ‘synergy’. Maslow believed people could combine their talents in a way that benefited themselves, their colleagues, their organisation and, in some cases, their society. Everybody would win.

There are several books about Maslow. Edward Hoffman wrote a biography The Right To Be Human. Whilst Frank Goble wrote an excellent portrayal of Maslow’s influence called The Third Force. You can get an preview of Goble’s book on Google Book Search at:

The Third Force

3) Practice.

So what has been the effect of Abraham Maslow’s work? He is considered one of the greatest figures in humanistic psychology. His hierarchy of human needs has influenced education, work, organisations and many other fields in society. His positive view of human possibilities inspired many people and encouraged them to encourage others. Today’s textbooks on psychology, education and management acknowledge his valuable contribution.

(I still remember the day in 1970 when I found Towards a Psychology of Being in a bookshop near London. Taking it down from the shelf, I opened the pages and read the Introduction. Suddenly ‘the doors of perception’ opened and I felt an even greater enthusiasm for my work in the therapeutic community. His use of a visual model – the pyramid of needs – also taught me how I learn, by seeing or creating visual models. Maslow helped me to make sense of experience.)

Contribution to the strengths approach

Abe seldom – if ever - referred to people’s ‘strengths’. But he laid the groundwork for the strengths philosophy. For example:

a) He pioneered the strategy of studying health – rather than sickness – and identified the principles people followed to become psychologically healthy. This approach was pursued later by many people in the strengths movement.

b) He showed that people are more likely to grow if they are provided with an encouraging environment in the family, school, work and society. This approach was followed by educators, leaders and many others. They aimed to provide the climate in which people could find their strengths and fulfil their potential.

c) He described how people could combine their strengths to produce synergy. This is demonstrated in super teams where people set common goals, perform superb work and achieve their picture of success.

Abe Maslow was one of the giants of positive psychology. His ideas made a remarkable contribution to human development. He remains an inspiration to many people.

1) Philosophy and Background.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss educator and social reformer who had a profound effect on education. He created several educational communities and wrote best-selling books, such as How Gertrude Teaches Her Children. His ideas spread across the world, influencing people such as Friedrich Froebel, the inventor of the Kindergarten. Heinrich – as he was known - believed the purpose of education was to help people to fulfil their potential and reach what he called their ‘moral state’. They would then be more able to help others and give their best to the world.

Pestalozzi produced many books and letters. Different people take different things from his work. Some know his views on human development: that people go through certain stages in life - the natural, social and moral stages. Some know his views on learning: that people first learn through their senses: ‘first the experience, then the word’. Some know his views on social reform: that people must be given the opportunity to use their talents. Some know his views on educators: that teachers must embody love in order to enable their students to learn. Some know his views that real learning only comes through action. For example, if you want to learn about generosity, you can only do it by actually practicing generosity.

Heinrich wrote on many topics. But in this article we will focus on those themes that relate to people and their strengths. These include:

* People go through three states to fulfil their potential. They develop through the natural state, social state and moral state.

* People have inner powers that can develop by learning through the heart, head and hands.

* People learn best if their teachers embody love. They are then more likely to develop in a state of composure.

* People learn through the senses: first the experience, then the word.

* People can only develop their inner powers by action. They are then more likely to reach the moral state.

You can discover much more about Heinrich’s work at several web sites. These include:

* The Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus

Founded in 1874 by Henriette Schrader-Breymann, a student of Friedrich Froebel, this has a long tradition of educating teachers. You can find it at:

Pestalozzi-Froebel House

* Pestalozzi World.

Backed by, amongst others, The Dalai Lama, this organisation employs the Pestalozzi approach to help children across the world. You can find it at:

Pestalozzi World

* Heinrich Pestalozzi

Perhaps the most comprehensive site, however, is run by Professor Dr. Gerhard Kuhlemann and Dr. Arthur Brühlmeier. This provides a massive resource of background and ideas relating to Pestalozzi. Dr Brühlmeier also has a separate site that offers more information. Both are well-worth visiting. You can find these sites at:

Heinrich Pestalozzi

Bruehlmeier.info

Pestalozzi had a great influence on education, but for many people he remains an unknown figure. So let’s explore his life and work.

Beginnings

Heinrich was born in Zurich in January 1746. His parents experienced many swings of fortune during their lives together. For example, during the first 8 years of their marriage they had seven children, but only three survived. Heinrich’s father, Johann Baptist Pestalozzi, found it hard to provide for the family, whose circumstances deteriorated further when he died in 1751. On his death bed, however, he implored the family’s servant, Babeli, to care for his wife. She stayed with the family, often without pay, for many years. (Despite extensive research, finding the name of Heinrich’s mother has proved extremely elusive. This is interesting, especially as he later wrote much about the importance of a mother in child development.)

Heinrich received lots of love from his mother and Babeli, but he led a somewhat sheltered life. He also remembered being criticised for his clumsiness, writing:

“I totally lacked the ordinary and everyday experiences by which most of the children – by tackling and solving thousands of tasks – can be taught and prepared for usual skills of life, almost without them knowing or wanting it. In my nursery there was almost nothing to keep me busy in an instructive and reasonable way and I, being very lively, usually ended up with destroying everything I got hold of, without wanting to, so one thought it best to give me as little as possible to occupy myself with, so that I would only destroy as little as possible.

“‘Can’t you sit still at all? Can’t you keep your hands still at all?’ These were the words I had to hear permanently. I was not a person to sit still, I could not keep my hands still and the more I should do so the less I could. If I did not find anything else I took a cord and twisted it until it did not look like a cord any longer. Every leaf, every flower that I happened to get hold of had the same fate. Imagine a mechanism and its motive force which someone tries to stop violently. This force of the wheels turning against the hindrance is just the picture of the influences of my conditions on the direction of my forces striving for development and occupation. The more they were checked the more confused and violent they got whenever they wanted or were able to show.”

Influences

Heinrich was teased at school – partly because of his appearance, partly because of his clumsiness. He was determined to learn, however, and attended virtually every school in Zurich. This thirst for knowledge increased as he got older. Writing about Pestalozzi’s education, Arthur Brühlmeier explains:

“The schools that he attended included the minster’s ‘Schola Carolina’ and the ‘Collegium Carolinum’. The latter school was similar to a college, and it was the teachers here who suggested that Zurich (or Switzerland) was undergoing an ‘Age of Enlightenment’ – a time of learning, exploration and change. Pestalozzi initially wanted to become a pastor like his grandfather. However, for unknown reasons he studied law instead. His favourite teacher was Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698-1783); a teacher who was well-known even outside Zurich and Switzerland, and who always had a large following of talented students.”

“Johann Jakob Bodmer and his students formed a group called ‘Helvetische Gesellschaft zur Gerwe’ or ‘Patrioten’ for short. They met in a room owned by the guild of the tanners, and discussed the thoughts of ancient and modern philosophers. They also published their own magazine called ‘Erinnerer’. Philosophers that were discussed included Plato, Titus, Livius, Sallust, Cicero, Comenius, Machiavelli, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, Sulzer, Hume, Shaftesbury and Lessing. However, above all, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the main philosopher of interest.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Through their weekly meetings, the ‘Patrioten’ spoke out against the powerful ruling class and the government reacted nervously … (Pestalozzi) believed in righteous morals and pushed strongly for law reform within the state. He wanted to see the replacement of an unjust government, characterised by a separation of power, with one that believed in equality. He was also passionate about ending the obvious exploitation of the landscape and its inhabitants. Unfortunately, Pestalozzi became notorious within the town and this destroyed his prospects of a public position, when in principle, this should have been available for him as a town citizen.”

Rousseau’s books, such as Emile, had a strong influence on Pestalozzi, who later put such philosophies into practice, often with mixed results.

Emile is described as a work of ‘semi-fiction’ and outlines Rousseau’s philosophy of education. The narrator is the tutor, who describes the education of his student, Emile. Rousseau believed that human beings were naturally good, whilst many institutions were corrupt. It was therefore good to educate the child away from bad influences in society. The ideal place would be in the country, where they could also learn from nature. Emile explores how Rousseau’s themes applied to education. These included:

* Children should be encouraged to follow their natural curiosity. The teacher should be a guide or facilitator. They should enable – rather than interfere with – the child’s natural growth.

* Human beings go through different stages in their lives. Children should be encouraged to enjoy their childhood, rather than expected to be little adults. It is important to cultivate these childhood experiences.

* Education should be connected to real life. It should be based on the child’s daily experiences, take place in the real world and also involve the parents.

* Education should also help children to learn morality. They must be encouraged to follow their own nature, but also respect other people. This is vital in order to enable them to develop and live a righteous life.

Heinrich admired Rousseau, but he had difficulty reconciling enabling children to be free with the need to create social order. Later we will explore how he tried to translate these ideals into practice. Before then, however, let’s consider other aspects of his personal life.

Marriage

Heinrich was 21 when he fell in love with Anna Schulthess, who was then 29 years old. They met in 1767 at the funeral of a mutual friend. Feeling consumed by love, he expressed these feelings in one of his first letters to her. He wrote:

“Mademoiselle! In vain I am searching my calmness again … I dared to look at you in astonishment, to talk to you, to write to you, to think, to feel, to tell you your own personal feelings. I should have known my heart’s weakness and evade such dangers where all hopes are vanishing. What shall I do now, shall I be silent and be consumed with silent grief, not speak and expect no hope and relief from my misery? No! I do not want to be silent … The whole day I am only thinking of you, of every word you said, of every place where I saw you … My high respect for you turned into a huge passion of love. Every day, every hour, every moment it is increasing … “

You can find much more about Anna and Heinrich’s relationship at the Heinrich Pestalozzi site. Here is the link:

Heinrich Pestalozzi

Heinrich and Anna were quite different. Physically he was considered ‘plain’; whilst she was seen as a beauty. He was relatively poor; she came from a prosperous family. He was an idealist, with a burning desire to improve the world: she was more grounded. He expressed his feelings for her immediately; she was cool at first, warming to him later. Anna’s parents disapproved of the match, so the couple met secretly, before eventually marrying in 1769. They had a son, Jean Jacques, who Heinrich tried to raise following Rousseau’s principles. Unfortunately Jean Jacques suffered from epilepsy and several ailments. These contributed to him failing to fulfil his father’s hopes and he died aged 31. Anna supported Heinrich throughout his various ventures. Her relatives actually provided money to care for the family after some projects collapsed.

Discovering his vocation – educating the poor

Heinrich longed to live ‘the natural life’ in the country, so his first venture was as a farmer at Neuhof. He began by experimenting with conventional farming, cotton weaving and other activities. Despite seeing himself as an entrepreneur, Pestalozzi had little practical business sense or, for that matter, feeling for agriculture. According to the Heinrich Pestalozzi site, however, this helped to give birth to his true vocation – educating the poor. The site says:

“Although Pestalozzi’s cotton business was not at all successful it initiated the change of the Neuhof estate into a house for the poor. Pestalozzi saw hundreds of children that lived in misery, were neglected and forced to beg and he realized that he was only able to help them, when they learned to work, when they were educated and when they learned spinning, weaving or intensive agriculture during the social situation at that time …”

“So he started to bring poor children to his house about the year 1773. He fed them, he gave clothes to them, showed them how to work, taught and educated them. And so during the year 1774 his farm changed step by step into a house for the poor. He wanted to create a practical environment in connecting agriculture and developing industrial work to prepare poor children for a life, where they were able to overcome their poverty by their own forces.”

“In 1776 twenty-two children lived in Pestalozzi’s house, two years later there were already 37. He built two new buildings - a factory room and a children’s house - and employed learned weavers, spinners and farm lasses for the work in the fields who should supervise the children during their work. While the children were working at the spinning-wheel or at the loom Pestalozzi taught them reading or arithmetic. The whole life at the Neuhof was filled by Pestalozzi’s intention to warm the children’s hearts for a decent life in truth and love.”

The Neuhof experiment ended in financial failure, but Heinrich’s work caught the eye of Isaak Iselin, an official in Basel, who encouraged him to write about his philosophy and practice.

Writings

Pestalozzi’s first best-seller was Leonard and Gertrude. Written in the form of a novel, it begins by describing how Leonard’s drinking and debts bring difficulties to the family. Gertrude, his wife, then translates her love into action and, in the process, transforms her family and the local community. The Pestalozzi World site provides an excellent summary of the books, some of which is included below. You can find the complete piece at:

Pestalozzi World

“His book Leonard and Gertrude achieved such a success that his old supporters came to appreciate his qualities again. The Agricultural Society of Bern gave him a gold medal, which he sold almost immediately.”

“The success of the book depended on factors which were much less evident in later works of the same kind - the interest and humanity of the story, the drama, the humour and the character drawing. The moralising and the propaganda on behalf of education were but incidental and subsidiary, though nevertheless extremely impressive and significant because the presentation was so skilful.”

“Gertrude’s efforts on behalf of her weak-willed husband, her influence in village life, her careful training of her children - all these threads of the story contributed towards the educative element in an entertaining novel. In addition, however, they offered to the discerning reader a complete picture of the writer’s concept of the true function of education.”

“The author was saying, in effect, that ordinary life can be used to educate - that a school should provide the same companionship and duties as a good working-class home. He was emphasising that the development of the individual and that of the group are bound up together - that the individual can grow in mind and spirit only within a social setting, that a child needs help and guidance in obtaining the fullest intellectual and spiritual benefits from experience.”

“He depicted Gertrude as the perfect working-class housewife, fulfilling her natural function as the first teacher of her children, training them through their senses, guiding their observations of nature and drawing them into work-activities contributing to the family’s welfare. Through her example, the leader of the village came to realise that the proper education of the child was the only way of bringing about reform and improvement, and a village school was set up on lines in harmony with home education.”

“Pestalozzi aimed to show how education should be an integral part of community life, and also how both Church and government should co-operate in the forwarding of this major social service.”

Leonard and Gertrude was translated into many languages and made Pestalozzi’s reputation. You can read an excerpt from Google Books at the link below.

Google Books

Heinrich followed up with several other papers and books, before publishing another best-seller How Gertrude Teaches Her Children. This was actually an outline of Pestalozzi’s views on education, rather than a continuation of the Gertrude story. Written in the form of letters, he explained that schools should provide a secure environment. They should help children to learn through the senses and enable them to find useful vocations. The book also describes the concept of Anschauung, for which there is no direct translation of this word into English. But it involves learning through sense impressions: first the experience, then the word. Pestalozzi’s books spread his reputation and helped him to secure future work.

Recognition

Heinrich spent the rest of his life translating his ideas into action. The first opportunity came at Stans. After French troops invaded the Swiss confederation 1798, Pestalozzi offered to care for children in an orphanage. His work was curtailed in 1799, however, when the French military re-commandeered the building and turned it into a hospital. Despite this setback, the experience proved invaluable. The Heinrich Pestalozzi site explains:

“The stay in Stans leads to the decisive change in Pestalozzi’s life. From now on he wants to become a teacher and soon he gets this possibility in Burgdorf. A short time afterwards he is able to realise his idea of an approved school connected with an institute for in-service training of teachers. He gains the support of the Helvetic Government, is able to engage several competent colleagues and wants to develop his new kind of giving lessons. The fundamental writing for that ‘Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt’ makes Pestalozzi famous as a great educator and renewer of the ‘Volksschule’ and his visitors come from all over Europe to Burgdorf.”

“Pestalozzi gave all his energy into finding a method to teach the pupils in a natural, more spiritual way. He put away all school- books and let the children experience their physical surroundings with all their senses. Learning, he believed, is predominantly about thinking first, then reading. After eight months his pupils took an examination and the success rate was so high that he was entrusted with one of the higher boys school in town.”

Explaining that Pestalozzi was then able to create a teaching centre at Yverdon, the site continues:

“Pestalozzi’s institute in Yverdon quickly gets famous and his pedagogical impulse dwells on all over Europe but above all on Germany and especially on Prussia. Numerous visitors come to Yverdon to visit the institute. The actual hey-day were the few years from 1807 till 1809, perhaps the years till 1815. Economical difficulties and bitter arguments lasting for years between the employees finally ruin the institute, which Pestalozzi is forced to close down in 1825.”

The final years

Heinrich kept returning to his vocation. At the peak of his fame at Yverdon, he wrote to a colleague: “What I have here is not what I want: I was looking for a home for poor children and am still looking for it, and to that end only my heart is bent.” In 1818 he was offered the possibility of earning money from the edited collection of his works. Heinrich immediately donated 35,000 francs to create a house for the poor, even though he had not yet received any of the money.

During his final years he returned to Neuhof. Despite being in his late 70s, he wanted to create another place for poverty stricken people. It was during this time that he wrote Swansong, which again described his philosophy of education. Heinrich died at the age of 80 and is buried in Birr, next to the school building at Neuhof.

2) Principles.

Pestalozzi wrote on many subjects related to education – particularly social reform – but here we will mainly focus on some of his educational principles. Let’s start with his view of human development.

* People can develop through the natural state, social state and moral state.

Heinrich believed that people went through three stages in their lives.

* The natural state.

Pestalozzi saw children as divine, but he had reservations about Rousseau’s views on simply encouraging them to follow their nature. He felt that, because of corrupting influences, their ego may take over and they would submit to animal nature. For example, they may become greedy, eat more than they need and selfishly exclude other people. The Heinrich Pestalozzi site explains:

“In the natural state animal nature dominates; higher nature is dormant, like a seed. Curiosity, for example, is part of animal nature, but in higher nature it can develop into a genuine interest in truth. Indolence originates in the tendency to avoid discomfort, but at the same time it is the natural basis for impartiality.”

“Theoretically there are two natural states – the unspoiled natural state and the spoiled natural state. One has to distinguish between these two: The unspoiled natural state can only be imagined. It is the state when we live completely in the moment and there is a perfect balance between everybody’s needs and the fulfilment of everybody’s needs. As in the Garden of Eden before the Fall.”

“Only the spoiled natural state can really be experienced. When a human takes action to fulfil the needs he experiences in the unspoiled natural state, he cannot help being selfish, and in taking action spoils the unspoiled state. Sometimes a human does more than what is needed to satisfy his needs, for example, by becoming greedy and eating more than he needs.”

* The social state.

At a certain point, human beings progress to the social state. Building a society enables them to live and work together. This produces great benefits – such as certain rights - but it also brings responsibilities. This balance of rights and responsibilities is embodied in laws and established institutions, such as financial, social and other agreements. The Heinrich Pestalozzi site says:

“Entry into society does not prevent the natural egoism of the individual; society only restricts it and thus protects people from its negative effects … Out of egoism or selfishness people desire all those advantages, which can only be attained through society. Out of the same selfishness people want to avoid or sometimes refuse all the restrictions and burdens of society, which exist to make social advantages possible …”

“Being part of society does not bring about inner harmony for the individual. As the need to be part of society is a selfish need, one remains selfish by continuing to be part of society … Thus, society as such can never guarantee the individual real fulfilment, but can always only set up a framework in which the individual can gain self-realisation.”

“The individual will remain in contradiction with himself and will suffer from the contradictions that lie in the nature of society. This will go on until the individual realises that real fulfilment can be attained only by voluntarily giving up egotistic or selfish claims. In this way suffering the burdens of social life can make people realise the importance of living as moral individuals.”

* The moral state.

“Higher nature is what lifts humans to a level above animals,” says the Heinrich Pestalozzi site. “This higher nature consists of the ability to perceive truth, to show love, to believe in God, to listen to one’s own conscience, to do justice, to develop a sense of beauty, to see and realise higher values, to be creative, to act in freedom, to bear responsibility, to overcome one’s own egoism, to build a social life, to act with common sense, to strive for self-perfection … Pestalozzi often calls this higher nature the ‘inner’, ‘spiritual’, ‘moral’ or ‘divine’ nature.”

“A moral person realises that he has to fulfil a life-task – attaining his own perfection. This can only be achieved by the renunciation of selfishness and by the development of the moral powers or the powers of the heart - love, trust, gratitude, public-spiritedness, an eye for beauty, responsibility, creativity, religiousness, doing good of one’s own free will. Through the realisation of morality we transform ourselves into a better form of ourselves and therefore become truly ‘free’. The contradictions which are felt in the spoilt natural state and in the social state can only be solved by the attainment of individual morality.”

Pestalozzi believed the goal of education was to enable people to achieve what he called their ‘moral state’. Let’s explore a second principle at the heart of his work.

* People have inner powers that can develop by learning through the heart, head and hands.

Heinrich believed that every child had inner powers – certain unique strengths. Like many great educators, he felt the first step was to engage a person’s heart. He felt this was relatively simple, however, providing you followed the child’s interests – what they wanted to reach out and learn. The key was to follow their aspirations and help them to master certain skills. He wrote in Swansong:

“Man is also driven by the nature of each of these powers within himself, to use them. The eye wants to see, they ear wants to hear, the foot wants to walk and the hand wants to seize. But in the same way, the heart wants to believe and love. The mind wants to think. In every gift of human nature lies an urge to rise from the state of inactivity and lack of dexterity to that of a trained force which, if left untrained, lies within us like a seed of strength and not as strength itself.”

The educator can enable a person learn through:

* The heart - to explore what they want to learn and also develop their moral qualities, such as helping other people.

* The head – to intellectually understand objects, concepts and experiences.

* The hand – to learn the craft of doing good work and also develop their physical skills.

The Heinrich Pestalozzi site explains:

“Nature has given each child particular natural powers and faculties which help lead it towards moral conduct. They make it tend to overcome its selfishness and turn towards its fellow human beings. Pestalozzi calls this natural social instinct ‘goodwill’ … Out of this will gradually develop – if the formative education is good – the basic moral emotions of love, trust and gratitude, on which all further moral-religious powers are based.”

“In addition to these ‘powers of the heart’, intellectual and manual skills must also be developed. However heart, head and hand must each develop according to their own natural laws. The educator must get to know these laws and educate according to them. ‘Conformity with nature’ is Pestalozzi’s supreme demand on education. Only education which follows the laws of nature can truly be called ‘education’. Any influence on a human which is not in accordance with nature is not fit to be called education.”

* People learn best if their teachers embody love. They are then more likely to develop in a state of composure.

Children learn best from good models. They need educators who embody love for the child and their potential. Such educators create an environment in which learners feel respected and able to explore. The children then feel at ease and grow in an atmosphere of ‘composure’ – which Pestalozzi believed was essential for true development. The Heinrich Pestalozzi site says:

“The powers of the heart can never be activated by pressure, coercion or compulsion, but only by the emotional, mental or spiritual life of the educator … Love in the child can only be evoked by love for the child. Trust only develops if the educator shows trust in the child. Respect for life, religious faith, affection towards all creatures – all can only be brought about in the child if it feels these attitudes in the adult. For this reason the inner life of the educator is fateful for the moral development of the child.”

“According to Pestalozzi, a human develops his humaneness only face to face, only heart to heart – for example only through the experience of being loved can a child learn to love. For Pestalozzi formative education is always a personal process and it is the most important skill of the teacher to be able to be aware of each child’s individuality and to respond to its emotions lovingly.”

For Pestalozzi formative education is always a personal process and it is the most important skill of the teacher to be able to be aware of each child’s individuality and to respond to its emotions lovingly.”

“Pestalozzi believes that the moral development of the child is only possible in the basic mood of composure. This state of inner composure develops in the child on the one hand through the above-mentioned satisfaction of its needs (but not the fulfilment of its wishes) and on the other hand if the teachers radiate loving calmness … In this atmosphere of composure and of acceptance by fellow human beings, a ‘moral mood of temper’ develops in the soul of the child. The child is willing to share with others, to help others and to do them favours. Thus the powers of the heart develop.”

* People learn through the senses: first the experience, then the word.

Pestalozzi believed that sense perception was the basis of all real education. After all, that is the way that human beings learn. He rebelled against the prevailing approach of the time that forced children to learn by rote and recite facts which had little relevance to their lives. Learning should be real, relevant and rewarding. It should go from the concrete to the concept, not the other way round. There is an excellent explanation of Heinrich’s views on the State University web site, which says:

“Pestalozzi believed that education should encourage people to follow the natural way that human beings learn. The method rested on two major premises: (1) children need an emotionally secure environment as the setting for successful learning; and (2) instruction should follow the generalized process of human conceptualization that begins with sensation.”

“Emphasizing sensory learning, the special method used the Anschauung principle, a process that involved forming clear concepts from sense impressions. Pestalozzi designed object lessons in which children, guided by teachers, examined the form (shape), number (quantity and weight) of objects, and named them after direct experience with them. Object teaching was the most popular and widely adopted element of Pestalozzianism.”

“Pestalozzi’s object lessons and emphasis on sense experience encouraged the entry of natural science and geography, two hitherto neglected areas, into the elementary school curriculum. On guided field trips, children explored the surrounding countryside, observing the local natural environment, topography, and economy.”

Heinrich’s approach strongly influenced many educators who later focused on ‘learning by doing’. You can find the complete State University article at:

State University

* People can only develop their inner powers by action. They are then more likely to reach the moral state.

Pestalozzi’s view is simple: you learn things by doing them. You pick something you want to learn - then develop by continual practice. Certainly this is obvious if you want to learn a skill in art, language or mathematics. Maria Montessori, for example, pointed out that children love to repeat things until they have satisfied their inner goal. Repetition is the key to achieving personal mastery.

Heinrich encouraged people to follow this approach towards achieving the moral state. If you want to learn generosity, for example, you do it by being generous. You develop moral qualities by actually living them - rather than simply talking. Looking at each person’s strengths and potential moral qualities, he wrote: “Essentially each of these individual powers develops naturally only by the simple means of using it.” The Heinrich Pestalozzi site explains this in more detail by saying:

“Only by actually thinking, (can) the power of thought is developed, and only by actually imagining, the powers of imagination get developed. The same applies to the powers of art; only by using it does the hand become skilled, only by strenuous effort does the body get stronger. And finally the same applies to moral powers; love only develops by the act of loving and not by talking about love …”

“Naturally the simple question arises: how does real ability come about? The answer is just as simple: solely through persistent practice, which means through fresh repetition that is varied and imaginative, until proficiency (the ability) is acquired. The success of a lesson depends – viewed as a whole – on two didactic measures: on the one hand material must be gone through in a manner that makes it clear for the children and is deliberately experience-oriented; on the other hand all skills must be persistently practised in a way that is suitable for children.”

3) Practice.

So what have been the effects of Pestalozzi’s work? He inspired many future educators, such as Friedrich Froebel and Maria Montessori. Building on his ideas about learning through the senses, both designed special materials for helping children to learn. Pestalozzi’s philosophy is also believed to have strongly influenced John Dewey, who is seen as the founder of ‘learning by doing’. But it was actually William MacLure, a philanthropist and social innovator, and Henry Barnard, the first U.S. Commissioner of Education, who introduced the ideas into America in the early 1800s. These were later put into practice on a grander scale by Edward Austin Sheldon at the Oswego School in New York.

Sheldon was a pioneer in his own right, constantly seeking to bring learning to life. Visiting a school in Toronto, he was impressed by how the children played an active role in their own learning. The State University site says:

“There, teachers based lessons not on recitation and memorization, but on pictures, charts, and other objects, a teaching technique credited to Swiss educator, Johann Pestalozzi. Many people saw shades of Pestalozzi himself in Sheldon’s life and work - both loved children, worked for the benefit of the poor, and maintained the courage of their convictions in reforming education … Pestalozzi developed object training out of necessity; he used field trips and actual objects as teaching tools because his students were poor and his school was inadequately funded. This active learning style was child-centered and engaged total sensory learning. Pestalozzi’s belief in nurturing the natural and orderly development of the mind struck Sheldon so strongly that ‘he became a Pestalozzian overnight’.”

Sheldon promptly introduced the approach at the Oswego School in New York. In particular, he focused on the ‘object approach’, enabling children to learn through their senses. This proved successful and became known as the ‘Oswego Method’.

“The impact of the Oswego (Normal) Training School cannot be overstated,” says the State University site. “Teachers trained at Oswego fanned out across the country, beginning a revolution in classroom instruction. The majority of Oswego’s early graduates taught in elementary and even normal schools outside of the state of New York, often in the growing pioneer West. An Oswego graduate, Sheldon’s daughter Mary followed in her father’s footsteps; she became a professor of history at Stanford University and was well-known for her work in developing historical teaching methods.”

“Mary and other Oswego-trained teachers helped to transform not only the subject matter and the methods of formal education, but also the spirit of education. Sheldon’s graduates took his object-training vision across the country and around the world. Oswego State Normal and Training School became synonymous with object training; many normal schools taught the Oswego method for years to come.”

You can read the complete piece at:

State University

Heinrich’s influence continues to be felt in many countries across the globe. The Pestalozzi World site, for example, shows how these ideas are used poorer countries. You can find the information here:

Pestalozzi World

Contribution to the strengths approach

Pestalozzi’s ideas can be seen in many elements of the strengths approach. For example:

a) He encouraged people to develop their inner powers – their unique strengths.

b) He enabled people to learn through all their senses and develop their hearts, heads and hands. He encouraged people to develop their skills and moral qualities by translating these into action.

c) He encouraged people to develop towards the ‘moral state’ – a state where they also helped others to fulfil their potential. This holistic approach is a key part of the strengths philosophy.

Heinrich believed that each of us act as models. Children learn from what we do, rather than what we say. He believed in the concept of resonance. The feelings that live in our hearts are transmitted to others. Parents and teachers who embody love will enable children to develop their inner powers and fulfil their potential. He said:

“What lives in the souls of parents and teachers sets vibrating a corresponding chord in the child’s soul.”

You can find out much more about Heinrich’s work at the following site:

Heinrich Pestalozzi

1) Philosophy and Background.

Rabindranath Tagore is best known as a writer and poet, but he was also an educational pioneer. Concerned about the over-industrialisation of education, he founded a school at Santiniketan. This was dedicated to encouraging children to develop as whole human beings. He wrote:

“But for us to maintain the self-respect which we owe to ourselves and to our creator, we must make the purpose of education nothing short of the highest purpose of man, the fullest growth and freedom of soul.”

Tagore never wrote down his complete philosophy of education. He provided glimpses, however, in a lecture he gave in America called My School. You can find the full text at:

My School

Rabindranath also wrote a biting satire on conventional schooling called The Parrot’s Tale. This showed how a parrot was to be ‘educated’. He was locked in a cage, denied food and water and had theories written on paper rammed down its throat. Tagore had different views of education. For example, he believed that:

* People learn best when they experience real life – such as being connected to nature.

* People often learn on a subconscious level when surrounded by stimulating influences. They learn from interesting people, art, music, dance, creativity, ideas and the humanities.

* People gather strength from understanding their own heritage. They also learn, however, from exploring and appreciating the best in other cultures.

* People learn by creating and doing – rather than being force-fed abstract concepts. By expressing themselves they develop their own aesthetic, intellectual and other qualities.

Tagore’s views on education were strongly influenced by his own background. So let’s explore the influences that shaped his philosophy.

(Please note. The school he founded at Santiniketan is sometimes spelt as Shantiniketen in various documents from different sources. When quoting the documents, I will use the spelling that is used by the respective authors.)

Beginnings

Tagore as a student in London

Rabindranath was born on May 1861 into a notable Brahmin family in Calcutta. His parents were Debendranath and Sarada Devi – and he was the ninth son of 14 children. The family had a strong pioneering and cultural history. Rabindranath’s ancestors included people who had, for example, taught law in London; introduced orchestral music to India; been patrons of European art; mastered many languages; studied at the Royal Academy; founded universities and theatres; been wealthy landowners; acted as presidents of the British India Association and created their own forms of spiritual pursuits. Some family members played a strong part in the Nationalist Movement and fought for the rights of people in Bengal.

(The family name ‘Tagore’ is an Anglo version of ‘Thakur’. This is derived from ‘Thakurmashai’ – or ‘holy sir’ – a name given out of respect to a Brahmin family.)

Rabindranath – whose nickname was Rabi - grew up surrounded by artists, music, drama and people from different cultures. Perhaps this explains the beliefs he espoused later about the importance of subconscious learning. Many of his siblings went on to perform outstanding work in the arts, mathematics and other fields. He initially attended the Oriental Seminary School, but found this limiting, so studied at home with private teachers. The Bharat Image web site continues the story, explaining:

Bharat Image

“After undergoing his upanayan (coming-of-age) rite at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta on February 14, 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father’s Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There, Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kalidasa … Tagore began writing poems at the age of eight; he published his first substantial poetry in 1877 and wrote his first short stories and dramas at age sixteen.”

Tagore studied at other schools, but he remained wary of conventional education. He much preferred the joy of pursuing artistic work in a stimulating environment – something he was able to create in the school he later founded.

Creative work

Rabi’s father wanted him to become a barrister. Travelling to England, he studied at a school in Brighton, before going on to University College, London. Recalled for an arranged marriage, he never finished his degree. Tagore married Bhabatarini Devi in 1883. (Her name was later changed to Mrinalini Devi.) He was twenty-two, she was just 10-years-old. They had five children, only one of whom survived into adulthood. Mrinalini died in 1902. He composed a collection of poems called Smaran (In Memoriam) which were dedicated to her.

Rabi and Mrinalini began managing his family’s estates in Shelidah, which is now part of Bangladesh. He then moved to Santiniketan in West Bengal, where his father had founded an Ashram – a spiritual sanctuary. This also became the location for his school. Rabi received income from his inheritance, sales of property and some royalties.

Over the next 40 years Tagore produced a remarkable body of creative work. This included poems, plays, music, paintings and social experiments. He also wrote the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh. During this time he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and a Knighthood from Britain. (He tried to revoke the Knighthood after the massacre at Amritsar. A great traveller, he visited over 30 countries on five continents. This enabled him to meet people such as Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells.

Tagore and Einstein

Towards the end of his life he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Oxford University, the ceremony being held at Santiniketan. Here is an overview of his creative work written by Kanad Malik.

Rabindranath Tagore

Kanad Malik

“Tagore was a prolific writer and composed about seven thousand poems, songs, short stories, novels, dramas, musicals letters and essays in all. These are very widely read, and the songs he composed reverberate around the eastern part of India and throughout Bangladesh. In his late years, Tagore started painting also and initiated a new style of the art. Tagore won the Nobel Prize Literature in 1913 for the English version of his collection of Bengali poems, Geetanjali (an offering in songs). His citation read that he was being awarded the prize: ‘because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West’.”

“He is remembered for expressing and analyzing through his extensive literature all possible tenets of human characters and emotions. This is why his work is and will continue to remain relevant to us for times to come. Tagore’s philosophy and writings were extremely important elements in the renaissance of Bengal and India at large in the early twentieth century and shaped the Bengali literature and culture in a modern, progressive mould.”

“Most of Tagore’s work was written at Santiniketan the small town that grew around the school he founded, and he not only conceived there an imaginative and innovative system of education, but through his writings and his influence on students and teachers, he was able to use the school as a base from which he could take a major part in India’s social, political, and cultural movements.”

“The profoundly original writer, whose elegant prose and magical poetry Bengali readers know well, is not the sermonizing spiritual guru. Tagore was not only an immensely versatile philosopher-poet; he was also a great short story writer, novelist, playwright, essayist, and composer of songs, as well as a talented painter whose pictures, with their mixture of representation and abstraction, are only now beginning to receive the acclaim that they have long deserved. His essays, moreover, ranged over literature, politics, culture, social change, religious beliefs, philosophical analysis, international relations and above all, humanism.”

You can read the full piece at:

Kanad Malik on Tagore

Rabindranath continued to travel the world and meet leading figures. Some who had hailed his first work began to criticise him, but he remained revered in many quarters. He suffered several severe illnesses during the last years of his life, losing consciousness for long periods of time. Rabi died in August 1941 at his home in Calcutta – the house where he was born in 1861. He is remembered for many creative works, such as his poetry, stories and paintings. But let’s take a closer look at his educational work at Santiniketan – the ‘abode of peace’.

Santiniketan

Rabi aimed to create a stimulating sanctuary. He wanted a place where children were connected to nature – yet also able to experience the best from their own and other cultures. Looking around the family estate, he chose to base the school at Santiniketan. He later wrote:

“I selected a beautiful place, far away from the contamination of town life … I knew that the mind had its hunger for the ministrations of nature, mother-nature, and so I selected this spot where the sky is unobstructed to the verge of the horizon. There the mind could have its fearless freedom to create its own dreams and the seasons could come with all their colours and movements and beauty into the very heart of the human dwelling.”

You can find more information about the environment at Santiniketan – and the present day university there - at:

Visva-Bharati

Rabi believed in holding open-air classes. Children could learn from being connected to the rhythms of nature, rather than being separated from these life-forces. It was vital to be aware of Mother Earth – the giver of life - otherwise numbness could come to the soul. Recalling his own childhood, Rabi was anxious to expose children to a rich tapestry of ideas, people, music, art, dance and other stimulation. They should also be able to express themselves, rather than be seen as empty vessels to be stuffed with facts.

Gandhi and Tagore at Santiniketan in 1940

Satyajit Ray, the great Indian film-maker, began studying at the school in 1940. Reluctant to attend at first, he later wrote:

“I consider the three years I spent in Shantiniketan as the most fruitful of my life … Shantiniketan opened my eyes for the first time to the splendours of Indian and Far Eastern art. Until then I was completely under the sway of Western art, music and literature. Shantiniketan made me the combined product of East and West that I am.”

Amartya Sen, who won a Nobel Memorial Prize ‘for his contributions to welfare economics’, was actually born on the campus at Santiniketan. His maternal grandfather taught there, whilst both his mother and he studied at the school. He later wrote:

“I am partial to seeing Tagore as an educator, having myself been educated at Shantiniketan. The school was unusual in many different ways, such as the oddity that classes, excepting those requiring a laboratory, were held outdoors (whenever the weather permitted). No matter what we thought of Rabindranath’s belief that one gains from being in a natural setting while learning (some of us argued about this theory), we typically found the experience of outdoor schooling extremely attractive and pleasant.”

“Academically, our school was not particularly exacting (often we did not have any examinations at all), and it could not, by the usual academic standards, compete with some of the better schools in Calcutta. But there was something remarkable about the ease with which class discussions could move from Indian traditional literature to contemporary as well as classical Western thought, and then to the culture of China or Japan or elsewhere. The school’s celebration of variety was also in sharp contrast with the cultural conservatism and separatism that has tended to grip India from time to time.”

The school at Santiniketan evolved into a wider campus, which eventually became the Visva-Bharati University. Tagore envisaged it as a national centre for the arts, whilst also providing a home for speakers, artists, dancers and people from many nations. The mission he remains to this day. You can find it at:

Visva-Bharati

“Visva-Bharati represents India where she has her wealth of mind which is for all. Visva-Bharati acknowledges India’s obligation to offer to others the hospitality of her best culture and India’s right to accept from others their best.”

Tagore continued to experiment, co-operating with Leonard Elmhirst to set up an Institute of Rural Reconstruction. Elmhirst, who travelled with Rabi for several years, became the project’s first director. He also cited Tagore as his inspiration for, together with his wife Dorothy, founding the community at Dartington Hall, Devon, in 1925. (See link below.)

Dartington Archives

Tagore continues to be revered for his contribution to Asian culture: but let’s take a closer look at the educational principles he followed to encourage people to develop their talents.

2) Principles.

Tagore’s believed that it was vital to recognise and follow the eternal rhythms in the world. Writing in A Poet’s School, he explained:

“We have come to this world to accept it, not merely to know it.  We may become powerful by knowledge, but we attain fullness by sympathy.  The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”

“But we find that this education of sympathy is not only systematically ignored in schools, but it is severely repressed. From our very childhood habits are formed and knowledge is imparted in such a manner that our life is weaned away from nature and our mind and the world are set in opposition from the beginning of our days. Thus the greatest of educations for which we came prepared is neglected, and we are made to lose our world to find a bagful of information instead.”

“We rob the child of his earth to teach him geography, of language to teach him grammar.  His hunger is for the Epic, but he is supplied with chronicles of facts and dates … Child-nature protests against such calamity with all its power of suffering, subdued at last into silence by punishment.”

Google Books

People learn best when they experience real life, felt Rabi, particularly when connected with nature. Building on this base, he pursued the following principles to help people express their talents.

* People learn on a subconscious level when surrounded by stimulating influences. They learn from interesting people, art, music, dance, creativity, ideas and the humanities.

We all learn from our environment – particularly the feelings, sights, sounds and impressions we absorb in our family and school. The best learning places provide stimulation; the worst deaden the soul.

Looking back at his own family, Tagore realised how much he had learned from being exposed to art, music and other influences. So he invited artists, dancers and many different speakers to share their work at Santiniketan. This created a rich community. Students were bound to learn – even if it was on a subconscious level. They would then carry these impressions with them into the future.

* People gain strength from exploring and expressing their own heritage. They also learn from understanding and appreciating the best in other cultures.

Tagore believed it was vital for people to begin learning in their own language, such as Bengali rather than English. They could also draw strength from taking pride in their own heritage. At the same time, however, there was much to learn from other cultures. Perhaps this again reflected his upbringing. Rabi described his own Bengali family as the product of: ‘a confluence of three cultures: Hindu, Mohammedan, and British’. Kathleen M. O’Connell explains how these themes ran through his work. She writes:

“The meeting-ground of cultures, as Rabindranath envisioned it at Visva-Bharati, should be a learning centre where conflicting interests are minimized, where individuals  work together in a common pursuit of truth and realise ‘that artists in all parts of the world have created forms of beauty, scientists discovered secrets of the universe, philosophers solved the problems of existence, saints made the truth of the spiritual world organic in their own lives, not merely for some particular race to which they belonged, but for all mankind.’”

“Rather than studying national cultures for the wars won and cultural dominance imposed, he advocated a teaching system that analysed history and culture for the progress that had been made in breaking down social and religious barriers. Such an approach emphasized the innovations that had been made in integrating individuals of diverse backgrounds into a larger framework, and in devising the economic policies which emphasized social justice and narrowed the gap between rich and poor.  Art would be studied for its role in furthering the aesthetic imagination and expressing universal themes.”

You can read Kathleen’s excellent article at:

Kathleen M. O’Connell Article

* People learn by creating and doing – rather than being force-fed abstract concepts. They then develop their own aesthetic, intellectual and other qualities.

“Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man,” wrote Tagore. He also wrote: “Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.” Education could enable people to express their true selves, providing they were enabled to create. Students at Santiniketan were encouraged to write, act, dance, paint and find other ways to express themselves.

Tagore warned against the industrialisation of education – an approach adopted by many governments. He channelled this concern into a short story called The Parrot’s Tale. This explained how a king’s servants attempted to educate a parrot. Locking it in a cage, they denied it food and water. Writing knowledge on sheaves of paper, they shoved these down its throat. Here is an extract from the story. You can find the original at:

Parabaas

The bird died - no one knew when.

The King called the nephew and asked: “Dear nephew, what is this that I hear?”

The nephew said: “Your Majesty, the bird’s education is now complete.”

The King asked: “Does it still jump?”

The nephew said: “God forbid.”

“Does it still fly?”

“No.”

“Does it sing any more?”

“No.”

“Does it scream if it doesn’t get food?”

“No.”

The King said: “Bring the bird in. I would like to see it.”

The bird was brought in. With it came the administrator, the guards, the horsemen. The King felt the bird. It didn’t open its mouth and didn’t utter a word. Only the pages of books, stuffed inside its stomach, raised a ruffling sound.

Tagore believed education could enable people to learn from different cultures and express their talents. They would then be more ready to choose their route in life. He wrote:

“Man’s abiding happiness is not in getting anything but in giving himself up to what is greater than himself, to ideas which are larger than his individual self, the idea of his country, of humanity, of God.”

3) Practice.

So what have been the effects of Tagore’s educational work? Many see him as contributing to the spirit embodied by pioneers such as Pestalozzi, Froebel, Dewey and Montessori. Some of his views were later incorporated into learning communities such as Dartington Hall. The Visva-Bharati University continues to flourish, as do many of his ideas. Rabi selected as its motto the Sanskrit verse, Yatra visvam bhavatieka nidam. This means: “Where the whole world meets in a single nest.”

Kathleen M. O’Connell also emphasises the value of his contribution. She writes:

“Tagore’s educational efforts were ground-breaking in many areas.  He was one of the first in India to argue for a humane educational system that was in touch with the environment and aimed at overall development of the personality. Santiniketan became a model for vernacular instruction and the development of Bengali textbooks; as well, it offered one of the earliest coeducational programs in South Asia. The establishment of Visva-Bharati and Sriniketan led to pioneering efforts in many directions, including models for distinctively Indian higher education and mass education, as well as pan-Asian and global cultural exchange.”

“One characteristic that sets Rabindranath’s educational theory apart is his approach to education as a poet.  At Santiniketan, he stated, his goal was to create a poem ‘in a medium other than words.’   It was this poetic vision that enabled him to fashion a scheme of education which was all inclusive, and to devise a unique program for education in nature and creative self-expression in a learning climate congenial to global cultural exchange.”

Contribution to the strengths approach

Tagore’s made an enormous contribution to the humanistic tradition, which has had a strong influence on the strengths approach. For example:

a) He created a pioneering school that encouraged many people to develop a more holistic approach to education.

b) He enabled people to learn on a subconscious level in a stimulating environment. People were also able: a) To gather strength from their own heritage; b) To learn from other cultures. They were then more able to learn from all humanity.

c) He encouraged people to explore, create and express their talents. People would then be more likely to shape their own futures and give what they could to the world.

“Don’t limit a child to your own learning,” said Tagore, “for he was born in another time.” He also said: “We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.” Rabi’s work has enabled many people to appreciate life, be more humble and give their best to the world.

1) Philosophy and Background.

The Self Help Movement is expressed in many forms. It can include, for example, recovering alcoholics, former drug addicts, victims of abuse, returning war veterans and people suffering illnesses. This article focuses on how the approach helps people to build on their strengths. Let’s start with a few definitions.

The term ‘self help movement’ actually refers to people who help themselves by getting support from ‘peers’, rather than by relying solely on ‘professionals’. These peers have often been through – or are going through – similar experiences to themselves. Such people often participate in ‘self help groups’. This process is sometimes complemented by specific help from professionals.

So what is the difference between ‘self help’ and ‘self improvement’? There are, of course, similarities. In this article, however, I am focusing on people who get support by working with peers to tackle a particular life challenge. Certainly this may result in some personal growth. There is, of course, a whole ‘self improvement’ industry. This ranges from topics such as how to improve your memory to how to achieve peak performance. Being such a wide industry, it contains both real wisdom and off-the-shelf recipes for success.

This article focuses on self help where people are tackling an issue relating to their physical or psychological health. There are, of course, many other such groups in business, education and other activities. The American Self Help Clearing house, for example, defines such groups in the following way.

Mental Help Net

Beginnings

So when did the self help movement begin? Many people will point to the birth of Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1930s. AA has certainly made a massive impact, something we will explore later, but other people look back even further to trace the origins of the movement. They cite the early advocacy movements – such as people fighting for the rights of those with physical or other difficulties. Those movements were frequently led by strong individuals, however, rather than being groups of people who met to provide mutual support. Looking at the concept of mental health, for example, some people point to the pioneering role played by Elizabeth Packard in the 1860s.

Elizabeth Packard

Elizabeth founded the Anti-Insane Asylum Society. She also published a series of books and pamphlets that provided support for women wrongly committed to mental hospital. Elizabeth was married to the Reverend Theophilus Packard Jr. The family lived in Illinois and appeared to have a good marriage, which produced 6 children. Theophilus had strong beliefs, however, and became upset by his wife having different opinions on religion, raising their children and slavery. Deciding that Elizabeth was ‘slightly insane’, he chose to take a particular course of action. The Law Buzz web site continues the story.

“Illinois law, at the time, required evidence of insanity - in all cases - before a person could be committed to a mental institution. In all cases, that is, except when a man wanted to send his wife to an insane asylum. Unbelievably, the same law existed in many other states. Elizabeth spent three years in the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane based solely on her husband’s assertion.

“When she was set free, her husband thought she was still insane. Taking matters into his own hands, he locked his wife in the nursery and nailed all the windows shut. This time, however, he had gone too far. Illinois law did not allow a husband to ‘put away’ his wife in her own home. Elizabeth managed to slip a note outside the nursery window. Her friend found the note and appealed to a judge for help. The judge issued a writ of habeas corpus (bring forth the body.) A jury would decide her sanity.

“At the trial, Rev. Theophilus Packard Jr. used other people to help him try to prove his wife was insane. Since Elizabeth’s religious views differed from those of her minister husband, religious issues were at the top of his evidence list. Here is a summary of some of the testimony:

* Elizabeth (who wanted to leave her husband’s church) would not leave the church unless she was insane.

* Elizabeth accused her husband of not allowing her to think for herself on matters of religion.

* Elizabeth was angry at her husband when he would not help her weed the flower beds.

“Elizabeth also had witnesses who testified on her behalf. One witness, who was both a physician and a theologian, said he and Elizabeth differed on points of discussion, but she was not insane. It took just seven minutes for the jury to agree. Elizabeth Packard was a free, sane woman. Although Elizabeth didn’t have the right to vote, she had been personally penalized by an unjust law. She spent the rest of her life trying to convince lawmakers … to change the laws on mental confinement and women’s property rights. By the time she died, she had been successful in four states.”

Law Buzz

Elizabeth’s work can, on one level, be seen as advocacy. Her support of other women, however, enabled them to believe in their feelings and take charge of shaping their futures. These are often characteristics of self help groups that focus on ‘taboo’ subjects. Survivors of incest, abuse and other crimes may have been told that their feelings are ‘wrong’. Meeting people who have gone through similar experiences helps them to restore their sense of sanity. Recognising they are not alone helps them to feel stronger and more authentic. We will explore this theme later when considering other self help groups in the field of mental health. For the moment, however, let’s consider another person whose ideas had an impact on the self help movement.

James Allen – ‘As A Man Thinketh’

James was born in Leicester, England in 1864. Working for much of his life in the manufacturing industries, he moved to Ilfracombe, Devon, around 1902. He then devoted the rest of his life to writing. James believed at: a) We could control our thoughts; b) We could therefore take more control of our circumstances; c) We could spread goodness by having good thoughts and translating these into action. This would help to build a better world. Devoting the rest of his life to writing, he produced phrases such as:

“A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life … All that you accomplish or fail to accomplish with your life is the direct result of your thoughts … Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit … No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks … Our life is what our thoughts make it. A man will find that as he alters his thoughts toward things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him … The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny … The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom … Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts inevitably bring about right results.”

People familiar with self-help groups that stress the importance of ‘choosing your attitude’ will recognise these themes. More surprising is that such ideas were published four decades before Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. James also highlighted another theme explore in such groups – that of focusing on one’s purpose. Below is an extract from As A Man Thinketh. The complete book is available as a free download at:

Google Books

Thought and Purpose

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time being; but whichever it is, he should steadily focus his thought-forces upon the object, which he has set before him.

He should make this purpose his supreme duty, and should devote himself to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies, longings, and imaginings. This is the royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought. Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome), the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting-point for future power and triumph.

Those who are not prepared for the apprehension of a great purpose should fix the thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty, no matter how insignificant their task may appear. Only in this way can the thoughts be gathered and focused, and resolution and energy be developed, which being done, there is nothing which may not be accomplished.

James’ writing again shows the overlap between the fields of ‘self help’ and ‘self improvement’. The reason for mentioning him, however, is to highlight the history of self help themes such as: ‘choose your attitude, follow your purpose and care for other people.’ You can discover more about his life and work at:

Sun Books

Let’s move onto another key theme in some self help groups.

The Twelve Step Programmes

Alcoholics Anonymous created the first twelve step programme. Founded by Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob Smith in 1935, it provided the inspiration for organisations such as Gamblers Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. People are familiar with the popular notion of an AA meeting, with a person saying things like:

“My name is _____ and I am an alcoholic … I believe alcoholism is an illness … It is an illness that I will have for the rest of my life … I will never stop being an alcoholic, because I cannot control the drinking … I can, however, aim to be a sober alcoholic … I can work at doing this one day at a time … I can get help by regularly attending AA meetings, not only during crises … I can stay sober by following the twelve step programme … This will help me to live as a recovering alcoholic.”

AA literature explains that the organisation is: “… a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.” You can find the official guide to its approach – including the twelve steps – at:

AA

AA has made an enormous impact, helping many people to stay sober. One aspect that surprises some people who look at the twelve steps the first time is the emphasis on religion. At least half of the steps focus on the person’s relationship with God. Step 3, for example, invites alcoholics to turn their lives over to the care of God, as they understand him. (AA is naturally wary of its work being misinterpreted, so protects much of it with copyright. Hence it is best to go to the organisation’s official publications – such as in the link above – to get the complete picture.)

The origins of AA – and the twelve steps – stem from the ideas of Reverend Sam Shoemaker, an Episcopal priest, and Frank Buchman, a missionary, both key members of what became known as the Oxford Group. One story says that Bill Wilson, one of the co-founders of AA, asked Sam to write his famous book Alcoholics Anonymous, but he refused. Sam maintained the book should be written by an alcoholic, such as Bill himself, who had seen his promising Wall Street career ruined by drink. Wilson continued to acknowledge his debt to Shoemaker, however, saying at the 1955 International AA Convention:

“It was from Sam Shoemaker, that we absorbed most of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, steps that express the heart of AA’s way of life. Sam Shoemaker had given us the concrete knowledge of what we could do about it, he passed on the spiritual keys by which we were liberated. The early AA got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgment of character defects, restitution for harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Group and directly from Sam Shoemaker.”

You can find out more about Sam Shoemaker at the link below.

AA

The Oxford Group attracted both passionate followers and great controversy. Founded by Frank Buchman, its US headquarters were based in Sam Shoemaker’s Calvary Church in New York City. Buchman had strong Christian beliefs. These revolved around acknowledging the reality of sin, living a pure life and surrendering to the will of God. His own behaviour attracted controversy, however, particularly with what some people saw as his dalliance with the Nazi regime. You can discover more about his work – both with the Oxford Group and founding the movement for Moral Re-Armament – at the following link.

AA

Sam Shoemaker and Bill Wilson took part in some activities with the Oxford Group, but it wasn’t until Bill’s famous awakening in Akron, Ohio, that AA was born. Gripped by an overwhelming desire to drink, he sought to meet another alcoholic who could help him stay sober. Eventually he met up with Doctor Bob Smith and together they founded AA. Within two years they had over 100 members and Bill Wilson published Alcoholics Anonymous – what became known as The Big Book - in 1939. This outlined the Twelve Steps and was translated into many languages around the world. You can find the whole book online at:

The Big Book

AA also developed the concept of The Twelve Traditions. These traditions focus on the way the organisation should work and include, for example:

“The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.”

“Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.”

“Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.”

“Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.”

“Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.”

You can find out more about the traditions at:

The Twelve Traditions

AA has a strict policy on ‘sponsorship’. Each alcoholic who wants to join is encouraged to find an experienced alcoholic who will help them to follow the programme. The new member may be going through a difficult time, however, and open to exploitation. So AA has strict guidelines about the role and character of such a sponsor. For example, it ensures the new person is not in danger of sexual exploitation.

AA has two kinds of meetings – ‘open’ and ‘closed’. The former are open to anyone, the latter are for those who want to stop drinking. Meetings often start by the chair person leading a short prayer or meditation. ‘Beginners’’ meetings may include a recovering alcoholic describing their own continuing journey to stay sober. Other meetings may comprise of studying a specific topic or particular section of The Big Book. Frequently the meeting ends with either The Lord’s Prayer or an adaptation of The Serenity Prayer, the original version of which was thought to be written by Reinhold Niebuhr. The AA version is:

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I Cannot change…
Courage to change the things I can
And Wisdom to know the difference…

No ‘Cross Talk’

AA meetings give people the opportunity to talk about their own struggles on the road to staying sober. It is therefore important to create an encouraging atmosphere in which they can reveal their vulnerabilities. One concept that applies in some meetings is that of no ‘cross talk’. ‘Cross talk’ can be either: a) interrupting a person when they are speaking; b) passing judgement on their behaviour; c) giving advice or lecturing them about their actions. Certainly it is important for people to share their own experiences to help others. In many self-help groups, however, it is important for individuals not to be perceived as trying to ‘do therapy’ to others. (This is a point we will explore later in the article.) Whilst AA does not actively forbid cross talk, many of its groups have a tradition of creating an atmosphere where people can talk without fear of judgement.

AA continues to help people and, at the turn of the Millennium, was said to have around 2 million members. During its history it has, like most organisations, had internal arguments and people moving on to found their own groups. Some have adapted or invented their own versions of the twelve step programmes. Let’s consider some of those self help groups.

Other Twelve Step Programmes

Narcotics Anonymous was founded in 1953. Given permission by AA to use The Twelve Steps and The Twelve Traditions, its web site says:

“These principles are the core of the Narcotics Anonymous recovery program. Principles incorporated within the steps include:

* admitting there is a problem;

* seeking help;

* engaging in a thorough self-examination;

* confidential self-disclosure;

* making amends for harm done; and

* helping other drug addicts who want to recover.

“Central to the Narcotics Anonymous program is its emphasis on practicing spiritual principles. Narcotics Anonymous itself is non-religious, and each member is encouraged to cultivate an individual understanding - religious or not - of this ‘spiritual awakening.’”

You can find out more about Narcotics Anonymous, and its history, at:

Narcotics Anonymous

Nowadays there are many ‘Anonymous’ groups – such as Gamblers Anonymous, Survivors of Incest Anonymous and Spenders Anonymous. They range from the spiritual to the secular. Some follow the original Twelve Steps; others produce their own versions. Some people find such groups helpful: others are wary. They believe such programmes replace one addiction with another – becoming dependent on the group for support. Other critics see Twelve Step programmes as cult-like or vehicles for religious conversion. On the other hand, AA has helped to give birth to famous clinics, such as Hazelden.

Hazelden

Later we will explore other recovery programmes that incorporated various ‘steps’ into their work. For the moment, however, let’s consider another development in the field of self help.

The ‘self-help’ therapeutic communities

The therapeutic community movement has a long history. It includes a wide range of establishments - such as The Camphill Communities, Homer Lane’s ‘Little Commonwealth’, Finchden Manor, Peper Harow, Fountain House, The Cassel Hospital, The Henderson Hospital, Dingleton, The Richmond Fellowship, Daytop and many others. Virtually all these were geared to the person helping themselves. Here we will focus on some that adopted the ‘peer help’ approach - rather than opted for the ‘professional intervention’ model. (Some communities also evolved from one approach to another.) Looking back at Elizabeth Packard’s work, she wrote the following piece that inspired patients to take care of themselves.

Psychiatric care improved immeasurably during the 20^th Century, but many patients were still kept in institutions. During the 1940s a group of patients in America formed an organisation called ‘We Are Not Alone’. This eventually evolved into Fountain House and the ‘Clubhouse’ movement. Here are excerpts from Stephen B. Anderson’s history of the organisation which can be found at:

Stephen Anderson

Fountain House and the Development of Clubhouse Culture
Stephen B. Anderson

The notion of self-help came first. In the early 1940s, a psychiatrist at Rockland State Hospital, about twenty miles from New York City, conceived the idea that self-help, as practiced by Alcoholic Anonymous, could be applied to mental patients. The psychiatrist, Dr. Hiram Johnson, activated the idea by forming a small self-help group among patients at Rockland. Self-help correlated with the notion of membership. Though meetings were held in the hospital, the participants considered themselves members in respect to the self-help group.

Dr. Johnson brought into the group a woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Schermerhorn, who had taken a job as an aide at Rockland. Mrs. Schermerhorn had developed an innovative understanding about mental illness, not through education in the helping professions, but rather by undergoing Jungian analysis and by studies with a Harvard sociologist. She, too, saw people with mental illness as related to, rather than differentiated from, the rest of humanity.

Mrs. Schermerhorn became physically ill late in 1943 and left the hospital job, thinking the self-help group a failure. The enduring historical significance of the group, however, stemmed from its effect upon one member, Michael Obolensky, who was discharged to live in New York City during l943. He had found the group helpful enough that he wrote to Mrs. Schermerhorn and proposed starting a similar group of former hospital patients living in New York City. Through the organizing efforts of Michael Obolensky and Elizabeth Schermerhorn, ‘We Are Not Alone’ (WANA) was formed early in 1944.

WANA carried over from the hospital group the idea of self-help operating through membership in a club. With WANA not affiliated with a mental hospital, or any other larger organization, the entire operation of WANA was run by the former hospital patients themselves. At first, members took turns acting as presiding officers at meetings. But shortly, a president and other officers were elected.”

WANA saw itself not merely as a self-help group for its members, but also as having a mission of service to people still hospitalized. WANA members visited patients at Rockland and other hospitals, printed bulletins and distributed them to the patients, and collaborated with hospital officials in finding housing and jobs for people ready to be discharged. While starting with ten members in 1944, an article in a national magazine on WANA in September 1946 reported a total of about 100 members.

As the numbers increased, however, so did the problems. Factions and dissension developed within the membership. A hope of acquiring a building which would serve as a WANA clubhouse never came to fruition. Sometimes the meeting room at the YMCA was not available, and WANA was forced to gather on the steps of the 42^nd Street public library in Manhattan or around tables in a cafeteria.

During 1947, or early in 1948, some of the members of WANA, along with Mrs. Schermerhorn, started planning for a new organization which would rectify these problems. The plans included two primary goals: the acquisition of a clubhouse building, and the formation of a Board of Directors with responsibility for owning the building and raising funds. These plans were realized in June l948 with the discovery and purchase of a house on West 47^th Street in Manhattan. With a fountain in a back, outdoor patio inspiring the name, a Board of Directors was incorporated as the Fountain House Foundation.

John H. Beard, Fountain House and the Clubhouse Model

Mrs. Schermerhorn acted as president of the organisation for several years, but eventually came to believe it had lost its way. Meeting John Beard in 1955, she immediately saw him as somebody who could revitalise Fountain House’s sense of purpose. John was in his early 30s at the time. Employed as a social worker with chronically ill patients on a back ward in a custodial institution in Michigan, he was producing remarkable results. His approach was to focus on the ‘healthy’ part of the person and build on their strengths. Stephen Anderson writes:

“John Beard had developed a type of ‘therapy,’ based on the conviction that mental illness was not the whole of a person … His therapy consisted of developing relationships responsive to expressions of health, rather than symptoms of illness. With a patient who mostly muttered about persecution by government agencies but indicated an interest in algebra, John Beard, as the therapist, developed a relationship based on working algebra problems together.

“He involved small groups of patients in normal types of social activities, taking them away from the hospital to attend baseball games or to eat together at a restaurant in downtown Detroit. Finally, he convinced several employers to hire patients at part-time jobs, with John himself training the patients, working with them some of the time, and taking responsibility for meeting performance standards.”

Mrs. Schermerhorn persuaded John to move to New York and he became Executive Director of Fountain House. He stayed there until his death in 1982. During this time John revitalised the organisation and spread the Clubhouse Culture. For example, he had high expectations of the former patients and built on their strengths. Asked about his approach to one specific member, he said:

“I had no interest in why he was sick. That was not my job … I wasn’t interested in trying to review his psychopathology. I had no interest in that at all. I was terribly interested in how normal we might get him to function.”

You can find this quote – plus a picture of John – in the book Psychiatric Rehabilitation. An excerpt can be found on Google Books via the following link.

Google Books

John provided outstanding leadership and, in 1982, received an award for Extraordinary Commitment and Dedication in Serving the Mentally Ill of New York. The citation read:

His leadership has provided:

Dignity where there was shame

Belonging where there was alienation,

Empowerment where there was helplessness.

Self-respect where there was self-denigration.

Hope and opportunity where once there was only despair.

Following John’s death, the Clubhouse movement that grew out of Fountain House went through several stages of development. Some establishments in the US and other countries used the Clubhouse name but operated quite differently. During the 1980s and 90s the movement held several conferences, finally settling on the agreed key principles. This resulted in a continuing development of the Clubhouse culture. Here are some of the guidelines that the organisation follows.

The self help approach to mental health became more widespread. Established organisations often struggled to implement the principles, so this left a space for pioneers to fill the vacuum. Some of the later ventures were quite extreme – such as Ronald Laing’s work with the Philadelphia Association at Kingsley Hall in London. Other projects were equally daring, but perceived as being enough on the ‘safe side’ to attract government funding. Let’s explore one of these ventures.

The Richmond Fellowship

Elly Jansen founded The Richmond Fellowship in 1959. Thirty-years-old at the time, she had grown up in Amsterdam and had just finished theological studies in London. The Mental Health Act of 1959 made some provision for patients leaving psychiatric hospitals, saying:

“Under this section it is the duty of the local health authority and the local social services authority to provide after-care services for you. This should be done in cooperation relevant voluntary agencies. These services have to be provided until the health authority and social services are satisfied that you are no longer in need of them.”

Unfortunately there was little provision for patients being discharged from the older style asylums that dominated skylines around the country. Elly decided to fill this need. Buying a house in Richmond, Surrey, she invited several discharged psychiatric patients to live with her in what became known as a ‘half way house’. Some local authorities had misgivings about the approach, but others became firm supporters. Elly, like many pioneers, was sometimes controversial, but The Richmond Fellowship went from strength to strength. Nowadays it has over 100 specialist services and is represented around the globe. You can get more information on the official site.

Richmond Fellowship

Elly’s original idea called for the ‘residents’ – as they were known – living and working together in the half way house. At first there were few staff members, which increased people’s need to become more self-reliant. The Fellowship’s success led to more houses being purchased and developing specific kinds of therapeutic communities. (For example, I ran a RF community dedicated to caring for young people.) Throughout its history, however, the Fellowship placed an enormous emphasis on self help.

Sometimes this produced difficult dilemmas. For example: How do you: a) provide sufficient ‘professional staff care’ to satisfy the paying local authorities, whilst at the same: b) providing enough challenge to ensure the residents take responsibility? This called for making crystal-clear contracts at the outset with both the residents and the local authorities. The Richmond Fellowship frequently managed this balance successfully. Other communities took a more direct approach to what they called ‘self help’.

The ‘confrontational’ therapeutic communities

Alcoholics Anonymous influenced many people to set up other recovery programmes. These included treatment programmes such as Daytop and, more controversially, Synanon.

Daytop was founded in 1957 by Father William B. O’Brien, who worked at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. Appalled by street crime and the tragedies it caused, he found the main cause revolved around drugs. Most ‘conventional’ treatment of addicts seemed to fail, so he began exploring other approaches. Coincidentally, several key figures in Brooklyn had been charged with finding more effective ways to treat addicts. One of these people, Dr. Dan Casriel, visited Synanon, an experimental community for addicts, on the same day as Father O’Brien. Synanon, and its founder, were later to be discredited, but the two visitors were impressed by aspects of what they saw. They went on to start Daytop, which continue to do outstanding work to this day. You can learn more about the community’s approach at:

Daytop

One element of Synanon’s work that was adapted at Daytop was the concept of ‘The Game’. This was a group therapy session where addicts confronted each other about their behaviour. At a given point, everybody in the group would focus on one person. They would then outline – in great detail – how that person behaved irresponsibly. The theory behind the need to confront the addict is outlined below.

Such sessions could be brutal. The group members all turned as one and, for around 15 minutes, pointed out how the selected person avoided taking responsibility. The effect of 10 people, for example, pointing out a person’s shortcomings could be extremely powerful. There was little defence. Then, as if a tap had been turned, the group members switched their attention to confronting another person. Such communities maintained this was the only way to get through an addict’s defences. They also argued that the person was in a caring environment where, after being broken down, they would be built up again.

(During my training for working with addicts, I was actually on the receiving end of ‘The Game’ for around 15 minutes. It was an illuminating experience, but not one to repeat too often.)

Confrontational approaches became more common in therapeutic communities and other aspects of psychotherapy. Whilst useful – even vital – in some cases, the approach could also overstep the mark. Much depended on the initial ‘contract’ between: a) the person seeking help, and: b) the group providing support. If the person wanted to be confronted, that was fine, but sometimes this was not the case. Some people were therefore attracted to gentler methods of self help.

Counselling as an aid to self help

Carl Rogers is a name known to everybody who has done a counselling course. Today it is hard to realise how revolutionary his ideas were in the 1930s and 40s. In those days the medical profession treated people with psychiatric difficulties as ‘patients’. The doctor saw the patient, made a diagnosis and prescribed a ‘treatment’. Few sat down with a troubled person to encourage them to clarify their feelings, set goals and take responsibility for shaping their future. Psychoanalysis was an option for the rich, but few people had the opportunity of basic ‘counselling’. Carl Rogers changed all that and, during the 1950s and 60s, many people became familiar with his work. They adopted his approach as a framework for counselling. This became a vehicle for enabling self help.

Carl believed in creating a sanctuary where a person felt valued and free from judgement. They were then able to be their real self, express their feelings and develop their inner strength. He wrote in his 1942 book Counselling and Psychotherapy:

“Therapy is not a matter of doing something to the individual, or of inducing him to do something about himself. It is instead a matter of freeing him for normal growth and development.”

Carl believed the key was to provide the right environment. People could then find and follow ` their chosen path. Counselling was one vehicle for enabling people to become what they wanted to become. Carl outlined what he saw as the ‘core conditions’ for building a good therapeutic relationship. He saw the helper’s role as:

* To be ‘congruent’: to be genuine and honest with the client;

* To show ‘empathy’: to understand and experience the world from the client’s point of view;

* To have ‘unconditional positive regard’: to show respect and accept the person as they are, rather than be judgemental.

This may sound basic: but it was radical for an era in which the doctor, psychiatrist or other expert was expected to stay aloof. You can discover more about Carl’s work on strengths at the following link.

Carl Rogers’ Work On Strengths

Other people were also discovering the value of providing an encouraging environment in which people could talk, make sense of their experience and move on. One of these was Chad Varah.

Chad Varah and the Samaritans

Chad was an Anglican clergyman who founded the Samaritans in 1953. Suicide was illegal at the time and he felt something could be done to help people in distress. The official Samaritans site explains:

“The first funeral Chad Varah took as a curate prompted his lifelong commitment to suicide prevention and education. The funeral was for a 13-year-old girl who had taken her own life because she feared she was seriously ill; in fact she had started to menstruate … Chad vowed at her graveside to devote himself to helping other people overcome the sort of ignorance and isolation that had ultimately caused the young girl’s death.”

Chad was born in Lincolnshire and studied at Oxford before attending Lincoln Theological College. He was ordained in 1936, then worked as curate in various parts of the UK before serving much of his working life in London. Always daring to be different, he supplemented his early income by working as a children’s comic scriptwriter. He helped to create Dan Dare, the spaceman, for The Eagle comic. The official Samaritans site continues:

“An early proponent of sex education, Chad Varah alerted society to the approach of the permissive society, usually associated with the 1960s, with an article in the Picture Post in 1952. Far more important to him than the outraged responses of conservative society were the 235 people who wrote in afterwards to bare their souls, 14 of whom showed signs of considering suicide.

“The opportunity to act on his earlier promise to help people in emotional need came in 1953 when Chad was appointed Rector at the Church of St Stephen Walbrook in the City of London. In the early 1950s, three suicides a day were officially recorded in Greater London; suicide was still an illegal act and sex education hardly existed. Chad advertised in the press for people to help – not as trained counsellors, but as ordinary human beings offering a listening ear and emotional support.”

“Inundated with offers of help, he opened the first drop-in centre where emotionally isolated and distressed people could go to find a sympathetic ear – and Samaritans was born. Chad continued to run Samaritans until 1987, thereafter remaining an active member of the organisation and retaining a watchful eye over it even after his retirement. The movement now has 202 branches in UK and Ireland, with 15,500 volunteers providing emotional support around the clock. Its international arm, Befrienders Worldwide, works in more than 40 countries.”

Samaritans found that ‘providing a listening ear’ could enable people to take more charge of their lives. Certainly some might use it as a constant emotional crutch, but it was still worth it, even if it helped only one person to live longer. Chad pioneering work created a caring framework. This enabled many people to help themselves and live more fulfilling lives. You can discover more about the Samaritans at:

Samaritans

The reaction against institutions
– taking charge of your own life

Counselling, group work and other movements gave people an opportunity to take stock. During the 60s, 70s and 80s there appeared another phenomenon that encouraged people to take responsibility for helping themselves. People began questioning the role of ‘experts’ in education, medicine and other institutions. As a result, people took several steps. These included:

a) They believed more in their own experience, rather than simply relying on experts. (This often had a positive effect, but in some case it led to actually ignoring good expert advice.)

b) They took more charge of helping themselves – their bodies, well-being and futures.

c) They took a more proactive and informed role in clarifying what they could and could not get from institutions. They then took more charge of their relationships with those institutions.

Many writers and practitioners contributed to this shift. So let’s explore just a few.

* Ivan Illich

Illich was a Catholic thinker who became famous for books such as Deschooling Society and Medical Nemesis. His maintained that institutions were often set-up: a) To maintain the power of the ‘professionals’ who ran them, and: b) To depower – rather than empower – the people they were meant to serve. Illich believed that self-development, autonomy and dignity for all were the highest good. Modern institutions, however, seemed to be going in the opposite direction.

Schools resembled factories, maintained Illich. Education should enable children to develop their talents and take charge of their ongoing development. Instead, schools divided knowledge into specialisms, removed connections between the different fields and turned children into passive consumers. They then graded children on their ability to repeat information. He wrote: “Together we have come to realize that for most men the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school.”

Illich was equally damning of modern medicine. He wrote: “Effective health care depends on self-care; this fact is currently heralded as if it were a discovery … Healthy people are those who live in healthy homes on a healthy diet; in an environment equally fit for birth, growth, work, healing, and dying … Healthy people need no bureaucratic interference to mate, give birth, share the human condition and die … Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn’t organized to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.”

You may or may not agree with Illich, but his analysis certainly had an impact. Many people felt that education, medicine and other fields had become over-industrialised. Students, patients and other users felt ignored as human beings. They wanted to take charge of their health and lives. Let’s look at another writer who railed against institutions.

* Thomas Szasz

Thomas Szasz is famous for his book The Myth of Mental Illness and perhaps his best known saying: “If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.” He argued that psychiatry defined many people as ‘mentally ill’, when they may simply be experiencing problems of living. Life can be challenging, maintained Szasz. You either develop the skills to manage it or you don’t. People should be encouraged and enabled to shape their futures, rather than labelled and lulled into questionable treatments. You can read more about his views at:

Szasz.com

Szasz believed that ‘the person who does the defining’ is the one who exerts the power. For example, imagine you are facing a difficult challenge in life. If you define yourself as a person with talents who is will overcome the challenges, you feel stronger. If an outside institution or expert defines you as a ‘problem’ - or suffering from an ‘illness’ – and treats you as if you are helpless, then you will feel less powerful. It will be hard to break out of the role. Szasz also wrote:

“Inasmuch as we have words to describe medicine as a healing art,
but have none to describe it as a method of social control or political rule,
we must first give it a name. I propose that we call it pharmacracy, from the Greek roots pharmakon, for ‘medicine’ or ‘drug,’ and kratein, for ‘to rule’ or ‘to control.’ … As theocracy is rule by God or priests, and democracy is rule by the people or the majority, so pharmacracy is rule by medicine or physicians.”

As with Illich, you may or may not agree with Szasz’s views, but he got many people thinking. Below is a link to a book about his ideas and those of his critics. Let’s consider one more person who encouraged people to take more charge of their lives.

Views on Szasz

* Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Elisabeth is best known for enabling people to talk about what was then still a taboo subject – death. Published in 1969, her book On Death and Dying touched a nerve. Sometimes it seemed as if terminally-ill patients were more prepared to talk about their forthcoming death than some of those in the medical profession. Elisabeth also introduced a model to explain the five stages of grief people may go through when faced with death. These are:

1) Denial: “I feel fine … This can’t be happening … Not to me!”

2) Anger: “Why me? It’s not fair.”

3) Bargaining: “Just let me live to see my children graduate … I’ll do anything, can’t you stretch it out? … A few more years.”

4) Depression: “I’m so sad, why bother with anything? … I’m going to die … What’s the point?”

5) Acceptance: “It’s going to be OK … I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”

Elisabeth explained that the phases were not necessarily sequential and people might go through some, but not all, of the stages. Nevertheless, the model provided a framework people could use to make sense of their experience. This was in itself liberating. Like many epiphanies, it started with the person realising: “Ah, now I can see what is happening. It isn’t only me who feels this way.” Each person would negotiate the stages in their own way. You can learn more about Elisabeth’s life and work at:

Elisabeth Kubler Ross

The rise of self help groups

During the 1970s, 80s and 90s more people began to realise: “We are not alone.” Many different groups of people decided to take charge of their lives. They chose to meet with kindred spirits, provide support and work together to achieve their goals. These groups included, for example:

* Survivors of sexual abuse – such as those who had suffered in their families or been abused by members of the church.

* Medical patients – such as those working through cancer treatment, living with HIV and experiencing other illnesses.

* People experiencing a loss – such as those who had suffered a bereavement.

In the medical field, for example, people gained strength from each other at places such as The Bristol Cancer Help Centre – now the Penny Brohn Centre – and many other treatment centres. Doctors and nurses saw such groups as an aid to medical treatment, rather than a hindrance. For example, the former US Surgeon General, Charles Everett Koop, said:

“My years as a medical practitioner, as well as my own first-hand experience, has taught me how important self-help groups are in assisting their members in dealing with problems, stress, hardship and pain … Today, the benefits of mutual aid experienced by millions of people who turn to others with a similar problem to attempt to deal with their isolation, powerlessness, alienation, and the awful feeling that nobody understands.”

Bearing this in mind, let’s consider some of the principles such groups follow to be effective.

2) Principles.

Self help groups bring together many of the strands already mentioned in this article. Elizabeth Packard enabled women to believe in their own sanity, rather than be defined by other people. James Beard encouraged people to build on their strengths. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross provided models that people could use to make sense of their experiences. These are just three of the many people who have contributed to the development of the self help movement. So let’s consider some of the key principles that underpin this approach.

* People can share their feelings and get support from others who have been through similar experiences. This support can be from individuals, a network or a group.

This is often the first step. Imagine you have been abused. The pain is awful, but it is compounded if, when you voice your feelings, the abuser says: “That is wrong. You can’t feel that way. And if you tell anybody, I will say you are lying.” For years you have been told that your feelings are wrong. Even when you express them, you are the person who seems to be on trial. Failing to see a way out, you doubt your own sanity. Sounds far-fetched? Perhaps, but this is the bind experienced by many sufferers. This first steps for such people are:

* To be able to express their feelings openly in a supportive environment.

* To have their feelings acknowledged as real – they are not mad.

* To learn how other people have found ways to manage similar experiences successfully.

“My first reaction was one of relief,” said one person. “For years I felt there must be something wrong with me. Then others in the group began to explain their experiences. Suddenly I did not feel alone. It was okay to accept my feelings, even though it took months to express them properly. Then, one day, somebody in the group told about the time they had decided to ditch their anger and move on. I’d heard the words before, but this time it made sense. That was when I decided to get on with my life.”

Sometimes it is relatively ‘easy’ to create an environment in which people feel able to talk. The group members can make a new person feel welcome, provide encouragement and, if appropriate, share their own experiences. Sometimes it can be more harrowing – such as when a person has suffered abuse or other pain.

Al Siebert, author of The Survivor Personality, provides guidelines for enabling people to talk through difficult experiences. For example, below are some principles he gives for listening to war veterans. The key, however, is that the person must really want to talk about their experiences. Here are the overall guidelines. You can find the complete article at:

Survivor Guidelines

* People can take responsibility, set goals and - where appropriate - follow a specific model to reach their goals.

People in self help groups often go through a catharsis. Then, at a certain point, they choose to move on. They choose to take responsibility and ‘control the controllables’. When facing a difficult illness, for example, they may enjoy appreciating their assets – such as their relationships – whilst also pursuing their chosen form of medical care. Going beyond denial, they choose to set personal goals.

People sometimes find it useful to understand and follow a particular framework, such as Elisabeth’s five stages of dealing with grief. This is not to say the model is ‘perfect’, but it provides a vehicle for making sense of their experience. In the therapeutic community I ran, for example, we used a model that encouraged people to acknowledge the past, but also use it to shape their future. Sue Carter was one person who went through the community. Below are extracts from her story that illustrate some of the stages that people often go through in self help groups.

* People can get ongoing support to reach their goals. They can also give support to other people in the group.

People can become addicted to self help groups. Is that a bad thing? It depends on the relationship they have with the group. After all, they may have shared more with those people – who they now consider kindred spirits – than with many others they know. The key is the role people play in the groups or with their new friends. Do they take responsibility and help others – or do they become a drain on people?

Looking at the self help groups I have known, several patterns emerge. Many individuals give and get what they can from other people. They then spend increasing amounts of time with a few people who become friends. Frequently they talk about many topics other than the challenge that brought them together. Some individuals rely on the support group for a long time. Others revisit the group until they get tired of it – or it gets tired of them!

Self help groups have their critics. Steve Salerno, for example, wrote the book SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless. He is particularly critical of how some approaches encourage people to see themselves as victims. Whilst the book has many valid points, it tends to cover the overlapping fields between self help and self improvement. You can discover more about Steve’s views at the link below. Micki McGee focuses on the wider forces driving people in Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life. She explains that ‘constant self-improvement’ is seen by some people as the only way to stay employable. This has led to people become ‘belaboured’ as they strive to become all they can be. She writes a blog that you find at the link below.

Sham Blogspot

Selfhelp Inc

3) Practice.

Today there are self help groups in virtually every field. These bring enormous pluses, but there are also some minuses. Let’s begin by considering the pluses. First, people have taken more responsibility for shaping their future lives – their health, well-being and work. Second, they have received enormous help from others who have been through similar experiences. Third, they have learned to get a better balance between developing their own personal self help and seeking the necessary professional help.

The minuses include the following. First, some people have become addicted to self help groups. Such a habit may, of course, be less harmful than their previous addictions. Second, some people have used the groups as places to continue talking - rather than changing their behaviour. Third, some people have taken the ‘mind over matter’ approach too far, rejecting useful professional help. That is their human right. But there are times when expert help can be useful, particularly in the field of health.

Contribution to the strengths approach

The self help movement has made a big contribution to the strengths approach. For example:

a) It has enabled people to share their feelings, get support and develop their inner strength.

b) It has enabled people to take responsibility, set goals and manage challenges successfully.

c) It has enabled people to take more responsibility for shaping their lives - their health, well-being and work. This has provided the foundation for building on their strengths and achieving their picture of success.

The self help movement is with us to stay. It has, by and large, been a major force for good. People have been able to take the tools they like and use them to live fulfilling lives.

1) Philosophy and Background.

Richard Bolles has helped millions of people to find fulfilling work with his ground-breaking book What Color Is Your Parachute? First published in 1970, it pioneered the way for many books on job search. Parachute is more than a book for many people: it is a way of life. Dick invited readers to ‘start from within’ to clarify what they could offer to an employer. He helped people define their skills – in the broadest terms – and follow their vocation. They could then find the right vehicle and do valuable work. Parachute continues to be revised every year. Packed with practical tips, exercises and cartoons, it encourages people to give their best to the world. Dick has used his talents to help many others to live fulfilling lives. That is a remarkable legacy. The best place to learn about his work is the web-site ‘The Job-Hunters Bible’. Here is the link:

http://www.jobhuntersbible.com

“Parachute: Where did you get that name?”

Parachute has a fascinating history. So how did it start? Dick grew up in New Jersey and served in the US Navy before graduating from Harvard with a degree in Physics. Deciding to join the ministry, he was ordained in the Episcopal Church, serving in New Jersey and then as Canon Pastor of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. By the late 1960s the funding for clergy was being reduced, leaving Dick and many colleagues searching for employment. He managed to get another job supervising campus ministers from various dominations in Western States. The clergy he met were worried by lack of funding, however, with many fearing losing their jobs. Few looked to the future with hope.

Dick resolved to help. People needed more than encouraging words, however, they needed practical tools that worked. Based on his own experience, he knew some things to offer, but he wanted more concrete information about finding meaningful work. So he travelled the country asking people two questions. “If traditional job search methods don’t work for you, what is your ‘plan B’? How do you change careers without going back to school?” During that time he also met John Crystal, who had done considerable research on effective job search methods. Pulling all the information together, Dick began writing what he believed would be a 32 page pamphlet, but it turned into a 128 page booklet. How did he settle on the title? The worried people he met talked about ‘bailing out’. So Dick jokingly asked: “What colour is your parachute?” The name stuck.

Dick typed up the manuscript. He then did something he did for every subsequent edition. Pasting up each page, he added drawings and cartoons to bring the book to life. In those days he took it to the local copy shop. They printed around 100 copies a time and bound it with spiral binding. Dick sold the book from his office, but mail orders meant he often struggled down to the post office carrying loads of packages. He charged $6.95 for each copy, which covered his costs, plus a small mark-up. The book was aimed at ministers who faced being laid off. But he soon started getting orders from other occupations and from organisations. The self-published version sold 2000 copies and attracted the attention of Ten Speed Press, an ‘alternative publisher’ from Berkeley. By 2008, Parachute had sold over 9 million copies.

Dick was once asked at a ‘personal branding summit’ about how he developed his ‘brand’. You can hear his answers on the link below. He starts talking about 5 minutes into the Podcast.

Parachute ‘Brand’ Interview

Parachute meets different needs for different people

Parachute spoke to different needs in different people. Some were simply hungry to find a job. Addressing this need, the book was packed with practical advice on how to conduct a successful job search. Some people were looking for something more. They loved the book’s emphasis on clarifying their inner drivers – rather than fitting into an outer ‘box’ – and expressing these in their chosen field.

Dick encouraged people to start from within. They revisited their best experiences – such as their previous successful projects – and identified their ‘transferable skills’. For many this brought epiphanies. Everybody is skilled; everybody has something to offer to employers; everybody has something to give to the world. Parachute combined this inner searching with real-life ‘savvy’. It provided practical tools a person could use to find their preferred ‘field’, research the possibilities and conduct interviews with potential employers. Testaments to the book’s success arrived at Dick’s door, together with suggestions for future editions.

Dick supplemented the books with keynote speeches and, for 25 years, ran an annual two-week workshop for ‘parachutists’. He also produced other books, such as The Three Boxes of Life - and how to get out of them. The ‘boxes’ were education, work and retirement, which were seen to correlate to childhood, adulthood and older age. Dick believed it was possible to enjoy learning and play throughout life, for example, rather than only in the designated ‘box’. He also published How Find Your Mission In Life - an expanded version of an appendix to some editions of Parachute. Continuing his tireless mission, Dick said he never wanted to stop working. His unique contribution has enabled many more people to live fulfilling lives.

2) Principles.

“Define yourself by who you are, rather than who you are not.” This is clear message of Parachute. Dick found that people who do meaningful work take some of the following steps.

* They clarify: a) their favourite transferable skills; b) their favourite field; c) their offering to an employer.

* They clarify and pursue many creative strategies for finding potential employers.

* They clarify how they can translate career planning into life planning and give what they can to the world.

One quality is required above all, however, if people want to follow these steps successfully. They must be prepared to do the work. Dick found that this was often the key differentiator. Successful job seekers were prepared to take the time to discover what they wanted to do. Sometimes this was reflected by readers of Parachute. Those who worked through the exercises reaped the reward. Those who didn’t were less likely to achieve the desired result.

“The secret of a successful job hunt starts with knowing yourself,” is one of the premises of the book. Parachute is packed with exercises for clarifying your values and vision: who you are, what you believe in and your ideal life. So let’s explore some of these principles, starting with clarifying – in the broadest terms – your ‘skills’.

* People can clarify the skills they can offer to employers.

Dick railed against newspaper articles that stated: “American people need to upgrade their skills.” His view was that people already had masses of skills. The keys were for people: a) To clarify their favourite skills; b) To clarify their favourite field for applying these skills. Let’s explore these two areas.

* Clarifying your skills.

Everybody has ‘skills’: the question is: “How can you uncover their skills, talents, strengths, knowledge, aptitudes, etc.?” Dick used many exercises to uncover these qualities. Some of these invite you to take the following steps.

- Clarifying your success stories.

You are invited to write up to seven short stories, each one about something you have accomplished in your life. Each story must start with a goal, something you wanted to achieve. It can also include an obstacle you had to overcome. You then write a step-by-step narrative of how you proceeded, followed by a description of the specific result. You can do this alone or, if you are on a workshop, you can write the stories, then read these to others in the group.

- Clarifying your favourite transferable skills.

Looking at the stories, analyse each one for transferable skills. Dick provides several frameworks for categorising these skills. One is to list them under the areas of working with ‘People’, ‘Data/Information’ and ‘Things’. Another is to categorise them as ‘Physical’, ‘Mental’ and ‘Interpersonal’. Dick also talks about them as falling under the categories of ‘Verbs’, ‘Nouns’ and ‘Adjectives’. In his book What Color Is Your Parachute? For Teens, co-authored with Carol Christen, he cleverly rearranged some of his earliest categories to produce the acronym TIPS. This covered:

Working with Things (Physical).

Assembling; repairing; designing; operating; maintaining; constructing; gardening; building, sketching; trouble-shooting; etc.

Working with Information (Mental).

Imagining; inventing; researching; testing; measuring; seeing patterns; dissecting; calculating; accounting; computing; filing; sorting; analysing; editing; etc.

Working with People (Interpersonal).

Encouraging; caring, nurturing; developing; helping; inspiring; leading; managing; coaching; mentoring; organising; educating; advising; negotiating; entertaining; etc.

“Surely some of the activities overlap the different areas,” somebody may say. Yes, they do, and mapping these can be part of the fun, because it helps to provide unique combinations. Parachute provides many examples that bring these ideas to life.

Let’s assume you have identified some of your talents. You can now ask yourself: “What are my favourite skills? If I could only use 2 or 3 skills for the rest of my life, what would they be?” Settle on these skills - then move on to the next stage.

- Clarifying your favourite field.

Where would you like to use these skills? What would be your favourite field? Would it be educating, coaching sports, computing, nursing, caring for animals, engineering, cooking, trading or whatever? Parachute advises asking certain types of questions to establish the field. For example:

“What do you find fascinating? What do you enjoy exploring? What activities give you positive energy? What kinds of problems do you like solving? What do you like to learn about? What kinds of knowledge do you like to share with other people? What kinds of magazines or books do you like to read? If you could write a book – which wasn’t about yourself – what kind of book would you write?”

Imagine you have settled on a field. Return to your favourite transferable skills for a moment. Then ask yourself: “How could I apply my skills in this field?” Be creative and develop lots of ideas. (This is where a group brainstorm can also help.)

The key is to be imaginative. One slight danger is that sometimes people ‘brainstorm’ only within the framework of ‘existing jobs’. In the old days, for example, if a person loved caring for people, the brainstorm might produce suggestions such as: “Be a nurse, doctor or physiotherapist.” Nowadays it might produce: “Be a personal trainer, coach or whatever.” Dare to ‘invent’ potential professions. Imagine you have found ways to apply your favourite skills in your favourite field. Then comes a crucial step.

Dick advocates doing a ‘Practical Field Survey’. Start by identifying people who are performing something like your desired role. Ask if you can sit at their feet and ask a few questions. (Only a few people may be willing, but they are worth their weight in gold.) List your questions ahead of time. Make sure these will uncover the real truth, but in a positive way. So you may ask the person:

“What got you interested in this kind of job? How did you set-out to develop your skills? Who did you talk with and learn from? Did you have any models? How did you take steps to actually start doing the work? What is the job really like? What does your day look like? What are the parts you love? What are the parts that are more boring? How do you manage to build on your strengths and compensate for any weaknesses? What are the 3 questions you would advise somebody to ask themselves if they were considering coming into this profession?”

Parachute underlines the importance of gathering such information. You may, for example, have heard a person say something like: “My dream is to run a restaurant.” Sounds great, but have they done the research? Do they know what it is really like? Dick advises doing whatever you can to discover the truth, warts and all.

Let’s assume that: a) You know your favourite skills; b) You know your favourite field: c) You know how to apply your skills in this field. Having clarified your ‘perfect role’, the next step is to find such a position. (Let’s assume that you are aiming to work within an organisation, rather than set-up your own business.) You are now ready to follow another key principle outlined in Parachute.

* People can pursue the most successful methods for job search.

Parachute outlined extremely practical methods for increasing the chances of gaining a job. In the process it tackled many myths. During the early 1970s many people followed ‘conventional’ method for finding work. (Many still do.) The book described: ‘The five best ways to find a job,’ and: ‘The five worst ways to find a job’. Each route was accompanied by the percentage chances of success. Dick outlined the most successful method, which had an 85%+ chance of gaining meaningful work. This included:

- Being prepared to do lots of homework on yourself;

- Knowing your favourite skills and favourite field;

- Knowing how to apply your skills in that field;

- Talking to people and doing research in that field;

- Choosing places you want to work, rather than just those places advertising jobs;

- Researching those organisations thoroughly before approaching them;

- Identifying the actual person – or people – who have the power to hire you for the job you want to do;

- Showing them how you can help the organisation to tackle its challenges or achieve its picture of success;

- Developing skills for conducting interviews in a way that demonstrates your qualities as both a person and a professional.

Do these methods still apply? Do they work, even in the days of the Internet? Dick maintains they do, perhaps even more so. The eternal principles are to: define what your offer; build and maintain your network; and show how you can help employers to achieve success. Sounds common sense, but it also calls for sweat. It calls for ‘making getting a job a full-time job’. This means working at least 40 hours a week following these principles – rather than sending out some letters and hoping things will happen.

* People can follow their mission in life.

Dick believes the principles that people follow for career planning can lead to life planning. A person may express these in different ways at different stages of their life. For example:

- During the first third, they may ask:

“How can I earn enough money to support my life-style?”

- During the middle third they may ask:

“How can I support my loved one, yet also do more fulfilling work

- During the latter third they may ask:

“How can I find and follow my mission in life? How can I give my best to other people? How can I help to build a better world?”

(These stages obviously differ from person to person. Frequently we ask the ‘mission’ questions during young adulthood. Some people pursue these themes at that stage and translate them into meaningful work. Other people put the questions on the ‘back burner’. They may then revisit the mission themes after hitting a crisis, for example, that gets them to take stock of their lives.)

Dick has strong Christian beliefs. Yet he also recognises that others may have a ‘secular’ mission or vocation. Parachute includes many exercises that encourage readers to explore the key themes – the red threads – in their lives. The beauty of these exercises are that they enable you to follow your mission whilst also, if appropriate, paying the mortgage.

3) Practice.

So what have been the effects of Dick’s work? Writing for the magazine Fast Company, Daniel Pink started his article about Dick by explaining the effect of Parachute:

“In 1991, the Library of Congress surveyed more than 2,000 readers and crafted a list that it grandly called ‘25 books that have shaped readers’ lives.’ The list included many of the usual suspects: The Bible, of course, Don Quixote, The Catcher in the Rye. But there at the bottom, lodged alphabetically between War and Peace and The Wizard of Oz, was a business book - the only such book on the list, and the only volume, fiction or nonfiction, whose title poses a question: What Color Is Your Parachute?”

Dick’s approach to job search has given birth to hundreds of books on finding meaningful work. Many of the concepts have also become part of career development programmes for organisations and government agencies. (Whether these are used in the spirit Dick intended is perhaps a more debatable issue.) Millions of people have benefited from reading Parachute, however, and put the ideas into practice.

Contribution to the strengths approach.

Dick has made an enormous contribution to the strengths philosophy. For example:

a) He has helped people to define their strengths through revisiting their successes, finding their transferable skills and applying these in their favourite ‘fields’.

b) He has helped several generations of people to find meaningful work.

c) He provided a pioneering model – through his ground-breaking books and workshops – that many others have followed in their own ways to help people to build on their strengths.

Dick provided the paradigm and showed what was possible. “I’m a switchboard. I stay accessible and people tell me what works well and what doesn’t.” Some switchboard: he has helped many people to follow their life mission. Below is a link to an interview he gave on this topic. (He was interviewed along with Richard Leider, author of The Power of Purpose.) Dick has created a remarkable legacy. He has helped many people to live more meaningful lives.

YouTube Interview

1) Philosophy and Background.

Many people have enjoyed learning in Montessori schools. Some of the famous names include: Anne Frank, the diarist; Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the novelist; Katherine Graham, the former owner-editor of The Washington Post; Lea Salonga, the actress; George Clooney, the actor; Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon; Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the co-founders of Google and Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Many others have supported or taught at such schools. These include: Helen Keller, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Buckminster Fuller, Jean Piaget, the Dalai Lama, Erik Erikson, John Holt and Nigel Kennedy. Many people say that Montessori education enabled them to be self-starters, think for themselves and continue to develop in their chosen fields. Explaining the principles behind the Montessori schools, Maria once wrote:

“There is a part of a child’s soul that has always been unknown but which must be known.  With a spirit of sacrifice and enthusiasm we must go in search, like those who travel to foreign lands and tear up mountains in their search for hidden gold.”

Maria was an educational pioneer whose belief in children – and child-centered education – spread around the world. There was a time – during the early part of the 20^th Century – when it seemed her approach would be adopted throughout education. Her ideas made a profound impact, but some fell victim to other philosophies and mass schooling. During the past half century, however, there has been an appreciation of the Montessori approach and what it can do for children. Certainly there have been critics, but the overwhelming reaction has been positive. (One contributing factor to the criticism has been that there is no protection of the name. Anybody can set-up a school and call it ‘Montessori’.) You can discover more about her heritage on the web site of the Association Montessori Internationale. This can be found at:

http://www.montessori-ami.org

Maria was responsible for developing many concepts now associated with child-centered education. So let’s start by considering her achievements and some aspects of her approach.

* She became one of the first women in Italy to qualify and practise as a doctor.

* She then switched to education and spent years observing how children developed. She formulated her ideas, put these into practice and achieved outstanding results with children previously considered ‘idiots’.

* She created pioneering schools. She developed unique learning materials that enabled children to learn by using all their senses. She was the first to introduce school furniture made for children, rather than for adults.

* She believed children wanted to learn – seeing play as ‘the work of the child’. She encouraged children to learn by pursuing their interests. She created the ‘3 hour cycle’ in which children could concentrate on their work for 3 hours.

* She believed children had ‘absorbent minds’ that were open to learning specific things at certain stages. She called these stages ‘planes of development’. She developed strategies for enabling children to master specific skills during these sensitive times.

* She saw the educator’s role as encouraging the child to pursue their interests and develop their abilities. She trained educators to provide an attractive ‘prepared environment’ and enable the child to capitalise on their development at each stage.

* She found that pursuing this approach produced excellent results. Children frequently became more self-managing, responsible and committed to lifelong learning.

Philippe Tremblay, an expert on education, described the Montessori approach in the following way.

“Montessori education is a flow experience; it builds on the continuing self-construction of the child - daily, weekly, yearly - for the duration of the programme. Montessori schools are divided into multi-age classrooms: parent infant (ages 0 to 3); preschool (ages 3 to 6); lower and upper elementary (ages 6 to 9 and 9 to 12): middle school (ages 12 to 14).The prepared environments introduce an uninterrupted series of learning passages, a continuum. The ‘prepared environment’ is Maria Montessori’s concept that the environment can be designed to facilitate maximum independent learning and exploration by the child.” (Italics mine.)

You can find Philippe’s original presentation of this – and other approaches to education – at:

Presentation

Starting out

Maria was born in Chiaravalle, Ancona, in 1870. Her father, Alessandro, was a civil servant, whilst her mother, Renilde Stoppani, was relatively well-educated and loved reading. The family moved to Rome in 1875 and Maria showed a great hunger to learn. Rumour suggests that her parents sometimes disagreed about her future, but Renilde was ambitious for her daughter, who showed a great capacity for learning and passing exams. Maria also emerged as a leader amongst her peers. Ready to break barriers, she enrolled at the Regio Istituto Tecnico Leonardo da Vinci, intending to become an engineer. Moving on, however, she decided to enter medical school and become a doctor. The Association Montessori Internationale web site set up to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the first Montessori School says:

“Upon graduation Montessori’s parents encouraged her to take up a career in teaching, one of the few occupations open to women at the time, but she was determined to enter medical school and become a doctor. Her father opposed this course – medical school was then an all male preserve - and initially Maria was refused entry by the head of school. Montessori was undeterred, apparently ending the unsuccessful interview with the professor saying: ‘I know I shall become a doctor.’”

“Eventually it seems that Pope Leo XIII interceded on her behalf and in 1890 Montessori enrolled at the University of Rome to study physics, maths and natural sciences, receiving her diploma two years later. This was her passport to the Faculty of Medicine and she became one of the first women to enter medical school in Italy. Montessori stood out not just because of her gender, but because she was actually intent on mastering the subject matter. She won a series of scholarships at medical school which, together with the money she earned through private tuition, enabled her to pay for most of her medical education.”

“Her time at medical school was not easy. She faced prejudice from her male colleagues and had to work alone on dissections since these were not allowed to be done in mixed classes. But she was a dedicated student and on July 10th 1896 she qualified as a doctor. Being one of the first women in Italy to achieve this, she became known across the country … She was immediately employed in the San Giovanni Hospital attached to the University.”

Maria also became a surgical assistant and did research work at a psychiatric clinic attached to the University of Rome. There she met a doctor, Giusseppe Montesano, with whom she would later have a romance. Maria gave birth to their son, Mario, in 1898, but the couple never married. Mario was cared for by a family in the countryside near Rome and, though Maria visited him regularly, it was many years before he knew their true relationship. Mario later collaborated with Maria and continued his mother’s work after her death.

You can find Maria’s complete biography at:

Biography

Influences

Maria began taking a strong interest in working with children in Rome’s asylums. During this time she read everything possible on working with ‘mentally retarded children’. Two key influences were Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard - famous for working with the ‘wild boy of Aveyron’ - and one of his students, Edouard Seguin. Both believed in showing respect to each individual – whatever their condition – and also helping people to learn through the senses. Friedrich Froebel, the inventor of the kindergarten, was another key influence. He encouraged children to learn through play and by using attractive learning materials.

Developing her own approach

Reading through the material and working with the ‘retarded children’, Maria came to her own revelation. She later wrote in The Montessori Method: “I felt that mental deficiency presented chiefly a pedagogical, rather than mainly a medical, problem.” Putting her ideas into practice, she began experimenting with learning materials that stimulated the senses. The results were startling. The so-called ‘feeble-minded’ children achieved exam results equivalent to those considered ‘normal’. Maria was beginning to develop her own philosophy. This would be expressed later in the following quotations:

“Our aim is not only to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core.”

“We must not dwell on his limitations but focus on his possibilities.”

“The teacher’s task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.”

“The essential thing is for the task to arouse such an interest that it engages the child’s whole personality.”

“Follow the child … These words reveal the child’s inner needs: ‘Help me to do it alone.’”

“The child is much more spiritually elevated than is usually supposed.  He often suffers, not from too much work, but from work that is unworthy of him.”

“It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience.”

“The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy.”

“The first dawning of real discipline comes through work. Every action of the teacher can become a call and an invitation to the children.”

“The more the capacity to concentrate is developed, the more often the profound tranquillity in work is achieved, then the clearer will be the manifestation of discipline within the child.”

“Childhood passes from conquest to conquest in a rhythm that constitutes its joy and happiness.”

“The word education must not be understood in the sense of teaching but of assisting the psychological development of the child.”

(One key point: the educator in the Montessori approach is known as the ‘Directress/Director’, rather than ‘teacher’.)

Casa dei Bambini

Maria’s work with the ‘idiots’ built her reputation. She was invited to several countries to lecture on issues involving education and social reform. Then, in 1907, she established the first Children’s House – the Casa dei Bambini. Maria was responding to a call for help.

The Montessori Centenary web site explains that Rome was expanding at the time, but some construction firms were going bankrupt. This left unfinished buildings that were quickly occupied by squatters. A group of wealthy bankers decided to rescue one development in the San Lorenzo district, however, and re-housed poor working families. This solved several problems, but created another challenge. Without parental supervision during the day, children roamed the building sites, often causing damage. The developers approached Maria, inviting her to do something with the children. The Centenary site says:

“Montessori grasped the opportunity of working with normal children and, bringing some of the educational materials she had developed … A small opening ceremony was organised but few had any expectations for the project. Montessori felt differently:

‘I had a strange feeling which made me announce emphatically that here was the opening of an undertaking of which the whole world would one day speak.’

“She put many different activities and other materials into the children’s environment but kept only those that engaged them. What Montessori came to realise was that children who were placed in an environment where activities were designed to support their natural development had the power to educate themselves.”

Here is a letter written by Maria when opening the school. It says:

“I started my work like a peasant who had put aside good seeds of wheat, and to whom a fertile piece of land had been offered so he could sow it according to his wish. But it was not to be. As soon as I moved the sods of that earth, I found gold, rather than wheat. The sods were hiding a precious treasure.”

Spreading the philosophy

Montessori’s work at the Children’s House proved successful and, in 1908, a third school was opened in Milan, run by Anna Maria Maccheroni. One year later Maria ran her first training course in the ‘method’ in Citta di Castella. She also wrote her first book – known in English as The Montessori Method - which was eventually translated into 20 languages. By 1911 her approach had been implemented in countries such as Switzerland, France, England, Argentina and the USA. One year later The Montessori Method was published in America – the first edition of 5,000 selling out in a few days.

Maria ran the First International Training course in 1913. Held in Rome, it was attended by students from Europe, Asia, Australia, South Africa and the USA. In December of that year she made her first trip to America and the Montessori Educational Association was set up in that country. Founded by Alexander Graham Bell and his wife Mabel, it was backed by people such as Thomas Edison and Helen Keller. Maria visited the US again in 1915, this time accompanied by her son, Mario. She addressed several conventions and ran training courses. She also presented a ‘glass house’ school room to the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco. This enabled spectators to observe children learning using her materials and methods.

Moving from country to country

Over the next three decades Maria moved from country to country. Sometimes this was the result of invitations – such as basing herself in Barcelona, India and the Netherlands. Sometimes it was because of other challenges – such as the Montessori approach being banned in her native country by Mussolini. The Association Montessori Internationale was founded in 1929 and based in Berlin. The Nazi’s closed all Montessori schools in Germany, however, and the AMI moved to the Netherlands, which Maria also made her base. At the end of 1939 she and Mario visited India to run a three month training course. Italy entered the Second World War while they were on the sub-continent and Mario was interned, but she was allowed to travel around the country. Her son was released to honour her 70^th birthday, but neither were allowed to leave India until the end of the war.

Maria spent the final years of her life writing books and travelling the world educating teachers. She was also nominated three times for the Nobel Prize, in three consecutive years, 1949, 1950 and 1951. Her last public engagement was in London in 1951 when she attended the 9^th International Montessori Congress. She died at Noordwijk aan Zee in Holland, aged 81. Beside her was Mario who, together with thousands around the world, continued to practise her philosophy of education.

2) Principles.

What actually happens in a Montessori environment? Imagine you are visiting a class for the youngest children. You will probably see over 30 children – ranging from two and a half to six years old.

* The room has a prepared environment in which children can follow their natural tendency to work. It will embody the characteristics of beauty, simplicity, order, accessibility and reality. Children will have many enticing materials that are designed to help them explore their world and develop their skills.

* The children will be ‘working’. Some will be totally concentrated on their activity; some will be co-operating with others; some will be tidying up after their last activity and moving onto the next. Some may be preparing food. Some may be engaged in other activities.

* The children will be given freedom to work and move around within suitable guidelines that enable them to act as part of a social group. They can pursue their own interests – though they must also respect others.

* The educator will be watching the children. They will see when they become enraptured, follow their flow and, when appropriate, encourage and guide them to further exploration on this theme.

* The children will continue to develop their skills, repeating an activity until it satisfies an ‘inner goal’. They will then move onto the next activity they want to explore.

Montessori educators follow certain principles to enable young people – children and adolescents - to fulfil their potential. Let’s explore just three of these guidelines. First, young people want to learn and they also go through certain stages of development. Second, they can be enabled to learn by being provided with the right environment and encouragement at each stage of their development. Third, they can be helped to enjoy a sense of fulfilment. Let’s explore each of these principles.

* Every young person wants to learn and goes through certain stages of development – these are called ‘planes of development’.

Maria believed it was important to ‘follow the child’. This meant following their interests and understanding their journey through life. She believed there were four planes of development that everyone must pass through on their way to adulthood. These were: birth – 6; 6 – 12; 12 – 18; 18 - 24. Within each stage there were also ‘sensitive times’ when the youngster was drawn to learning specific skills. The educator’s role was to provide the right environment and encouragement to help them to develop during each plane. So let’s explore the stages laid out in Montessori education.

(The various stages of human development is common knowledge these days. Maria’s insights came at the beginning of the 20^th Century, however, before Freud and other thinkers. So in this sense her views were pioneering.)

The First Plane of Development: Birth to the Age of 6

The child goes through several sensitive periods during this time. These include learning via Movement; Order; Development of the senses; Love of the environment; Details and Language. The child learns with the ‘absorbent mind’ during this time. The ages 0 – 3 are unconscious learning; the ages 3 – 6 are more conscious learning. The question a child asks at this stage is: “What is it?”

Montessori believed that more learning takes place at this stage compared to any other time of life. Children begin to develop motor skills, imitate adults, learn language and relate to the world around them. They also like to repeat activities. Children have great physical and psychological needs. So they begin developing feelings about themselves, other people and the world.

The Second Plane of Development: 6 - 12

This is the time of childhood. Children start to develop more through intelligence, reasoning and imagination. They move towards social co-operation and begin working with others on shared projects. Children also want to learn more about other cultures. So it is a wonderful time for helping them to learn the arts, geography, history, languages and sciences. Children move towards developing a sense of morality, so at this point they need good role models. They also ask the question: “Why?”

Children want to learn about the Universe. So at this stage the Montessori educators start sharing the ‘Great Lessons’. These are epic stories about creation and life. The themes covered are listed below. Though the titles of the stories may different slightly in some Montessori schools, the educational topics covered remain the same.

The Great Lessons provide a framework – a unifying compass – that students can return to when new topics are introduced. They are then able to relate the learning to the eternal themes in life.

The Third Plane of Development: 12 - 18

The adolescent needs lots of food, sleep and thinking time as they grow both physically and psychologically. During the early years – 12 to 15 – they start seeing themselves as individuals, rather than as part of their family. They also look for ways to improve the world. Educators give students the chance to build on this theme and make a positive difference. Those aged 15 to 18 can tackle ambitious projects. Employing the skills they have already learned, they can stretch to develop other talents. Drawn to ideals, people of this age can sometimes blame others – parents, teachers, authorities – for imperfections in the world. Educators recognise there may be some truth in this view, but encourage students to develop their own ways to build better world. Each young person asks questions such as: “Who am I? Where do I fit in? How can I help to build a better world?”

The Fourth Plane of Development: 18 - 24

Montessori saw the fourth plane as moving to adulthood. The young person can pursue the ‘work’ they find fascinating and also make a positive contribution to the world. It is a time for gathering more experience and then finding and following one’s vocation. The questions asked include: “What do I want to do with my life? How can I gain economic independence? How can I do fulfilling work?” Young people who have grown up to be self-starters – to take responsibility and do satisfying work – are more likely to answer these questions successfully.

* Every young person can be enabled to learn by providing the right environment and encouragement at each stage of development.

Maria believed that early in life every educational subject had its foundation in the senses. It was then easier to move from the ‘actual’ to the ‘abstract’, the concrete to the concepts. The Montessori environment is therefore full of rich experiences which are geared to the young student’s plane of development. Starting from the first classroom, for example, the materials cover the following five areas.

* Sensorial.

This covers learning through the senses - seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting and moving.

* Practical life – learning about practical things in life.

This covers learning about the practical things in life – such as caring for the self, environment and others.

* Language.

This covers all aspects of language – such as words, phonetics, writing, grammar and composition.

* Mathematics.

This covers counting, adding, subtracting, multiplying, mental arithmetic and the practical applications of maths.

* Cultural Enrichment.

This covers geography, history, science, music, the arts and many aspects of cultural life.

Montessori educators create the right ‘prepared environment’ at each stage. The learners will then automatically move towards the activities they find most fascinating. The educator’s role is to encourage them to pursue these interests and develop specific skills. How to make this happen? The following video link provides an insight into Montessori approaches employed by some schools in Canada. It also contains footage of schools that claim to be Montessorian but actually do not follow the key principles – such as always having attractive materials accessible to children. It is well worth a look.

Montessori School in Canada

* Every young person can be enabled to experience a sense of fulfilment.

Montessori students appear to have more ‘flow experiences’ than those in other types of schools. What does this mean? Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the author of Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. He found that people enjoy a sense of flow when they experience the following conditions.

After working with Montessori educators for many years, Mihaly found that conditions in their classrooms often produced a sense of flow. This experience is similar to the Montessori concept know as ‘normalisation’. This is not trying to standardise the child. It refers to enabling them to experience what Maria believed to be the normal state of a happy childhood. It encourages a child to be themselves, do satisfying work and reach their inner goal. They are able to flow, focus, finish and, as a by-product, gain a sense of fulfilment.

‘Normalisation’

So what is ‘normalisation’? The Montessori Centenary web site gives the following overview.

“Montessori education aids the development of the child’s will. Through constant decision making (choices) the child’s ability to listen to his interests and impulses is developed. But the environment also contains within it limits, both natural and social, that give the child constant practice in the inhibition of those impulses.”

“For example, in the prepared environment there is only one of each set of materials - one easel for painting, for example. If a child has an impulse to paint and another child is already painting, there is a natural limit to that impulse. Similarly, an activity, freely chosen, is only complete when it has been returned to its place on the shelf, ready for the next person to use; the only limit to individual freedom being the needs of the group as a whole.”

“Montessori education has a special term for the process whereby characteristics including initiative, self-discipline, concentration, independence, a love of purposeful activity, and compassion become manifest in the child - ‘normalisation’. This does not refer to a standardisation or a process of being forced to conform, but describes a unique process in child development.”

“Maria Montessori used this term to indicate her belief that these characteristics are the normal characteristics of childhood. She believed that the characteristics that we normally associate with childhood - such as capriciousness, selfishness, laziness and the inability to concentrate - appear only when a child’s natural development is being thwarted.”

“When children are allowed freedom in an environment suited to their needs, they blossom. After a period of intense concentration, working with materials that fully engage their interest, children appear to be refreshed and contented. Through continued concentrated activity of their own choice, children grow in inner discipline and peace. This ‘normalisation’ is the single most important result of Montessori education.”

Students are encouraged to follow their own rhythm and become self-managing. They then aim to develop mastery in their chosen field. Let’s move onto the impact of Montessori education.

3) Practice.

So what have been the effects of Maria’s work? During the first part of the 20^th Century it appeared that her approach would revolutionise education across the globe. When she arrived in America in 1913, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle described her as: “… a woman who revolutionized the educational system of the world …” Her books, such as The Montessori Method, because instant best-sellers. During her lifetime she produced many other books, such as The Absorbent Mind and The Secret of Childhood. These expanded on the principles she developed in the schools.

Within twenty years of her greatest triumphs, however, Maria’s views began to fall out of favour: but during the past half century there has been a growing appreciation of her work. Today Montessori is the single largest approach to education in the world. It has over 22,000 schools in more than 110 countries. Some of Maria’s pioneering ideas have been embraced in mainstream education, such as helping students to learn using their multiple intelligences. There are, of course, many aspects of education that run counter to Montessori education. These include continually grading students, forcing them to compete and constantly interrupting their flow of concentration.

Contribution to the strengths approach

Maria’s work embodied many elements of the strengths approach. For example:

a) She created a pioneering approach that helped literally millions of students to build on their strengths. They could pursue their interests, take responsibility for their learning and work until they reached their goal. They could flow, focus, finish and, as a by-product, find fulfilment.

b) She created attractive environments that encouraged students to use many senses when developing their skills. This enabled them to pursue their preferred learning styles which improved their chances of success. This is a key part of the strengths approach.

c) She encouraged each student to clarify their own philosophy and contribution to the world. Maria invited them to begin thinking this way by providing a guiding compass – The Great Lessons – that gave an overall framework. They could refer back to this compass to see how each new educational theme fitted into the big picture. Each student was later encouraged to develop their own life philosophy. They could then drawn strength from this inner compass and choose how to make their best contribution to the world. This embodies a key principle in the strengths approach.

Maria was a giant amongst educators. She invited us to focus on the potential of children and humanity. She wrote:

“We do not want children who simply obey and are there without interest, but we want to help them in their mental and emotional growth. Therefore, we should not try to give small ideas, but great ones, so that they not only receive them but ask for more.”

She provided many ideas that we can use to serve children. As Maria said: “In serving the child, one serves life,” and: “Within the child lies the fate of the future.”

You can find out more about Maria by visiting the Association Montessori Internationale at:

http://www.montessori-ami.org