Dalton plan

Dr. Piet van der Ploeg lectures Philosophy of Education at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. His research interests include the history of reform education and the philosophy of citizenship education.Apart from John Dewey, no American educational reformer has been asinternationally successful and influential as Helen Parkhurst, the founder ofDalton education. In the 1920s and 1930s, Dalton education was spread throughout the world. At the moment the Netherlands is the country with the highest density of Dalton schools. Almost four hundred elementary schools (five percent of all) are Dalton schools.This historical and theoretical study gives an account of the practice and thetheory of the Dalton Plan. Next it discusses the background and context ofthe Dalton Plan. It also compares the Dalton Plan to other critical andinnovative approaches to education.Helen Parkhurst was herself not keen on historical and theoretical exercises.This study shows that historical and theoretical research is interestingnonetheless. It demonstrates the distinctiveness of Dalton education, forinstance: *that learning by experience is not the same as learning by doingand that experience doesn't have the same role for Parkhurst as it does forother reformers; *that there are important differences between working withassignments in the Dalton Plan and working with materials in the Montessori Method; *that the Dalton Plan holds efficiency as its main objective, whilst at the same time opposing the efficiency-hype seen at the beginning of the twentieth century; *that the meaning of cooperation in the Dalton Plan is not the same as what we usually mean by this; *that Parkhurst's school as a community distinguishes itself from Dewey's school as a community; and *that freedom in the Dalton Plan is something other than freedom of choice.