Today we need to learn how we can build and administer effective modern schools for the post-modern world during a pandemic. Let us see what lessons we can learn from the turn of the last century modern schools to succeed in our brave new world of the twenty-first century.
It was Emma Goldman who individually did the most to keep Spanish libertarian educator Francisco Ferrer's ideas about education alive in America. Leonard Abbot wrote in the June 1910 and July 1911 issue of Mother Earth that "Emma Goldman has done more than anyone else to keep alive American interest in the martyred founder of the Modem Schools. " Arguing for more than just the French libertarian tradition which influenced Ferrer, Emma Goldman called out to Americans to recognize the social importance of the Modem School. She said: "The underlying principle of the Modem School is this: education is a process of drawing out, not of driving in; it aims at the possibility that the child should be left free to develop spontaneously, directing his own efforts and choosing the branches of knowledge which he desires to study." Ferrer taught Goldman to decry restraint. He said to the budding student and to society in general, "We want men capable of evolving without stopping, whose intellectual independence will be their greatest force, who will aspire to live multiple lives in one life. " Ferrer and Goldman were talking about making students part of a social movement in which power would not trickle down from the government but instead would spout up as if from a fountain of youth.
Goldman spoke publicly about how the Modem School of New York City attempted to put its libertarian educational ideals into practice in the classroom. She noted that the "Modern School aims to teach composition through original themes on topics chosen by the pupils from experience in their own lives, and sketches are suggested by the imaginative or actual experience of the pupils." In teaching history, "a panorama of dramatic periods and incidents, illustrative of the main Emma Goldman, c. 1905 movements and epochs of human developments" were presented. History was, moreover, taught "to develop an appreciation in the child ofthe struggle of past generations for progress and liberty, and thereby develop a respect for every truth that aims to emancipate the human race. " Sex education was taught "to break down the [centuries old] wall which Puritanism has built around sex. "
Goldman also got Alden Freeman, ironically the son of the treasurer of the Standard Oil Company, who admired Goldman greatly, to pay two-thirds of the rent for the school's first site at 6 Saint Marks Place, where James Fennimore Cooper, author of Last of the Mohicans, lived from 1834-1836. When the school ran out of money in 1911 and could not continue at 6 Saint Marks Place, it was Goldman who raised contributions and led the move to 104 East Twelfth Street. Because of a shortage of funds, it was difficult for the Modern School in New York City to get and keep a director and teachers and to just stay in one place. According to Paul Luttinger, who taught at the school on Twelfth Street, Modem Schools often paid nothing or very little. Those who did teach or direct the school were men and women who put their dedicated visions of libertarian education into practice with great sacrifice to their own economic well-being. They could barely, if at all, eke out enough of a living for their own food and rent.
As director of the Modem School's Ferrer Center at 6 Saint Marks Place, Bayard Boyesen established a tradition of alternative modes of education in the classroom. He did away with the raised desk of the teacher and the rigid rows of student seats. Boyesen said that the role of the teacher was only to see that classroom discussions of ideas did not get too far afield. The teacher was moreover supposed to "restrain himself from supplying the conclusions which the children are working out for themselves. Ell John and Abby Coryell jointly took over the schoolts directorship for the 1911 and some of the 1912 school years continuing the belief that original and creative students, abhorred by the public school system, were not really bad but went unchallenged by not being allowed to exercise their individual ideas. They too moved on, probably unable to survive on the meager funds provided them as salary. Unfortunately, there is no record as to why the Coryell's actually left their po<s at the Modem School.
In October 1912, Will Du.rant took over the directorship of the Modem School when it moved to 63 East 107th Street because the facilities at Twelfth Street proved too small. This was primarily a Jewish and Italian area of the city between Madison and Park Avenues. As the Modem School's socialist director, Durant was convinced that the best school, like the best government, was the one which governed the least 132.1 Although the school lacked equipment and physical accommodations, he kept the Ferrer Centers radical reading room open to the public from 4-11 p. m. and on Sundays held lectures, picnics, and excursions. On Saturday nights, the Ferrer Dining Club socialized and ate meals together.
Initially working only as a teacher at the Modern School from 1910-1912, Will Durant found that if you do not force the child to do assignments but showed him the reason for them, he or she would usually do it and ask for more. L4Ql For his great compassion, the children loved him and called him Will, their friend. Durant, who started out as a substitute teacher in Newark and went on to teach French and Latin at Seton Hall was initially quite surprised by the
Modern School community when he first began teaching there in 1910. Durant said: "I had been led to believe that most of these men and women were criminals, enemies of all social order, given to presenting their arguments with dynamite. I was amazed to find myself, for the most part, among philosophers and saints." Will Durant met his future wife, Ariel, teaching at the ModernSchool at 63 East 107th Street. He affectionately called Ariel "Puck" because of her happy spirit. Ariel explained that despite the libertarian philosophy of the school, children were not free to endanger their well-being. She said that "the child might at any time leave the room and go out into the yard and play, though he was not free to go out into the street.
Because of the continuing economic difficulties at the school and his fondness for Will Durant, libertarian philanthropist Alden Freeman paid Will's teaching salary and helped him pay for his doctorate in philosophy degree at Columbia University. Durant left the Modern School to assume a professorship at Columbia University. Cora Bennett Stephenson, a disciple of Eugene Debs, assumed the directorship of the Modem School in May, 1913. Stephenson was previously dismissed from her Illinois public school teaching position for protesting Ferrel's execution. Maurice Hollod recalled in an interview with Paul Avrich that in 1913 when he was a young boy, he was taken to the school and fell in love with it. Hollod was particularly impressed by Stephenson's unwillingBs to use agyessive disciplinary measures. Hollod noted that "the third day in school I acted a little smart-alecky. She said to me: 'I dont think you are ready for class yet. I think you want play. So why don't you go out in the yard and play. I thought to myself What kind of school is this where they punish you by letting you play? 'Alfred, why don't you come back when you are ready to sit down and work with the class,' she said."
What can we do as educators to teach students to engage in online community schools based on the ideas established by Emma Goldman and the Modern School Movement? Your comments are encouraged.