hose, say, of the Middle Ages: they were still based on who adults thought children were or should be, not who they really were. Before the 20th century, the ideas of such men as Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, and, in the United States, Francis W. Parker (1837-1902) had caused little more than rumblings beneath the floor of the traditional schoolhouse. Because of John Dewey (1859-1952), they gathered force, and in the 1920s and 1930s new and old ideas collided right in the middle of the classroom. Some of the schools, where neat rows of subdued children had sat immobilized in their bolted-down seats listening to a teacher armed with textbook, lesson plan, grade book, and disciplinary ruler, became buzzing places where virtually everything moved, including the chairs. The children were occupied in groups or worked by themselves, depending on what they were doing. Above all, they were always doing: reading a favorite book, writing, painting, or learning botany by tending, observing, and discussing the plants they were growing. The teacher moved around the room, asking and answering questions, giving a child the spelling of a word he wanted to write or the pronunciation of a word he wanted to read, and in general acting as a helpful guide for the children's chosen activities. The chattering and noise and activity were signs that the children were excited about and absorbed by what they were doing. They were, in fact, learning by doing. Dewey maintained that the child is not born with a ready-made faculty called thinking, which needs the exercise of repeated drill to make it as strong as the adult faculty. Nor, he said, is the mind a blank tablet on which knowledge is impressed. Mind thinking or intelligence is, according to Dewey, a developing, growing thing. And the early stages of growth and of knowledge are different from the later stages. The development of the mind begins with the child's perception of things and facts as they are rel...
