The Whole Child
Pendleton, Elsa
The Whole Child The Lives of Children, by George Dennison. Random House. 308 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by Elsa Pendleton For many young parents, the search for the right school (or the correct...
...thus the actions were punished or controlled when necessary, the failure to read could be overcome, the vulgarities of language could be ignored...
...WILLIAM L. O'NEILL, associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, wrote "Everyone Was Brave...
...The First Street School was in operation for two years...
...The five teachers (of whom Dennison was one) were committed to the success of the school and deeply concerned with the total life of each child...
...The teachers' respect for the child is shown in the separation—so consistent as to be unconscious—between the child himself and his destructive actions...
...Some experiments in education do succeed in combining theory with solutions of many practical problems, and they indicate how much improvement can be made, even with the present quality of school administrators and the shocking inadequacy of financial support for schools...
...The successes, which were great, both in "achievement" as measured by standard tests, and in the children's relationships with others, resulted largely from the trust the children developed in their teachers...
...The greatest defect in the new educational theories is their very idealism, which tends to transcend the bureaucratic problems of accreditation and tuition and maintenance costs...
...Yet it is clear that they loved and suffered with their youngsters, and only the realization that their lives drew them out of the neighborhood ultimately led to the dissolution of the school (this dissolution was primarily due to the school's failure to win financial support from funding agencies —a lack which Dennison believes may be more easily overcome today...
...his description is honest and practical and, despite the admitted failures of some of the projects, the book can be used by parent and community groups as a guide for their own models...
...its pupils included twenty-three Puerto Rican, Negro, and Caucasian children from the neighborhood, many or most with learning or personality problems, all from low-income families...
...ELSA PENDLETON combines free lance writing with graduate study and the care of two young sons...
...Reviewed by Elsa Pendleton For many young parents, the search for the right school (or the correct educational environment) is pursued with a zeal approaching mania...
...CATHARINE HUGHES is a free lance critic...
...The book is partly a diary, partly essays on the philosophy and the day-to-day activities of the school...
...THE REVIEWERS BERNARD T. FELD is professor of physics at MIT's Laboratory for Nuclear Science...
...Finally, he is wise enough and honest enough to admit that it is unrealistic to expect success with every child...
...this deep concern defines the philosophy of the First Street School—the development of the whole child, an awakening of his awareness of his relationships with his universe through a variety of activities...
...A survey of alternative methods of education has long been needed...
...The most striking quality of the program is the compassion of the teachers, and their respect for the people of their community...
...He has the knowledge and the judgment, and most of all the persuasive skills, to compile a useful handbook for parents and community leaders throughout the country...
...Dennison admits that one reason for the ultimate failure of the school is that the teachers were not truly from the neighborhood and thus were not totally involved with the success of the school...
...The author offers suggestions to groups wishing to begin their own schools and cites several schools in different parts of the country which have had some continuing success...
...it can only be done by someone who, like Dennison, is not dependent upon the established public education machine...
...It was located on New York's lower East Side...
...Hopefully George Dennison has more to give us...
...The practicality of The Lives of Children arises from the specific details of the school's program...
...Dennison describes his book as "a practical description of freedom in its relation to growth and learning...
...The First Street School, which George Dennison describes in his book, The Lives of Children, is one such school...
...it is not enough today to be able to discuss Piaget and Montessori, one must also be familiar with Erikson, Goodman, Friedenberg, and the growing circle of educational heretics...
...This intense and widespread concern may well be the most hopeful phenomenon of the new decade, although the less affluent may complain about the damage done inadvertently to the public schools by the creation of experimental private schools which are too costly for the children who need them most...
...The defects in the book are minor, and not so much faults as omissions of useful material...
...The second defect is trivial—he seems to have assumed that all of his readers live in New York City...
...MAURICE R. BERUBE is on the staff of the Institute for Community Studies, Queens College...
...If we can concentrate upon the child and his interests and forget the self-indulgence of rhetoric, it will be because of books like this...
...He co-edited "Confrontation at Ocean Hill-Brownsville...
Vol. 34 • May 1970 • No. 5
