An Experimental Education

May 2011

It took about a year for my English to become fluent at which point my school life gradually began to look up. Luckily for me, there was a terrific craze for roller-skating a year or so after I arrived, and because I had learnt ice-skating in Switzerland, I was a whizz at this "sport". So my lowly status was considerably enhanced.

We enjoyed a huge amount of freedom-and free time-compared to children in most schools. Classes were very informal and we called teachers by their first names or by nicknames. In other ways too, we were extraordinarily privileged. It was one of the very few schools, for example, where every child had his or her own bedroom. Uniforms were spurned. We wore casual "week-end" clothes. Jeans had not yet become the unisex uniform of Western youth.

In the "Middle School" — for children up to the age of 13 — we were too young to understand the school's educational philosophy and, luckily, some of the teachers did not seem fully to believe in it. The maths teacher, for example, an elderly lady whose grey hair was tied back in an old-fashioned bun, made us memorise our multiplication tables with the aid of "Smarties tests". We would be awarded prizes of these much-coveted little multi-coloured chocolates if we did well. This method worked brilliantly (particularly as sweets were still rationed in this post-war period) and I have remembered my times-tables ever since — but it didn't exactly chime with the school's anti-rote-learning or anti-competitive ethos.

Most of my memories of this time involve out-of-class activities — going to see a film, for example, which, in those pre-television days, was an intensely thrilling treat. The nearest cinema was to be found in the seaside town of Paignton where, about twice a term, one of the teachers would take us by bus to see the latest "U" (universal, i.e. for all ages) certificate film. The programme would always include two films, one of them a B movie. These shorter, low-budget productions — usually crime stories — which were wonderfully free from "art-house" or any other pretensions, were more lurid and therefore often more gripping than the main feature.

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Child-led Education

Dartington Hall School

Education

W.B. Curry

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Ayesha

March 12th, 2013
11:03 AM

Thanks for a very interesting article. I wonder if you went to this school at the same time as the children's novelist Eva Ibbotson? She attended this school and later fictionalised it in her brilliant book 'The Dragonfly Pool' and also 'A Song For Summer'. I highly suggest former pupils of this school read these two books, as I would love to know how accurate they are. Please do let me know! My email address is maybleandzengi@hotmail.co.uk. Again these books really are an interesting read and may even bring back a few pleasant memories. They are set in the time of WWII. thank you once more!

Tracy

September 16th, 2011
5:09 PM

I found Miriam's article fascinating but I think one of the areas that she only touched on was a key element in the success of Dartington.The fact that there was virtually no bullying and students were taught mutual respect and tolerance. These were life -long lessons that have served me well. I attended Dartington from 1961 until 1969. And for me it was a lifesaver. I came from a very turbulent family background and the love and care I received from the teachers and staff at Dartington, I feel prevented me from having serious problems later in life. Yes, maybe there was not enough academic rigor, although I, and most of my friends did attend university. And yes, maybe too much time was spent socializing and obsessing about boys. But one thing that all that contact with the opposite sex, from an early age, gave me was that I left Dartington feeling I was equal or better than any male. A lesson that has been most helpful in both my private and work life. Also the fact that the art room was open 24 hours a day gave me access areas of creativity that I would never have experienced at any other school.

Tom Merrington

June 18th, 2011
3:06 PM

The only time my education ever stopped was when I went to school, quipped G.B. Shaw. He wasn't thinking of a progressive school like Dartington when he said that. I think Miriam Gross's - balanced - criticism of the laissez faire attitude to education needs to be directed at its sources - John Dewey and J.J. Rousseau, rather than at the school itself, which merely attempted to apply their philosophis of education as a reaction to, and in the context of, conventional state and public schooling of that era, which remains very much about the protection of orthodoxy and status quo however detrimental that tyranny might be to creative solutions to humans' evident universally dysfunctional relationship with themselves and with the environment. John Harris was the Latin teacher imported when I was taking O level in 1961. Though conventional in his teaching I remember his humour always came through as when he greeted each class with a hearty 'Hillard et Botting vobiscum' to which we were trained to catholic reply 'et cum spiritu tuo' By then the Childs had replaced Curry and with a mandate to make the school pay for itself. Thereby forced onto the attritional battleground of the marketplace it was the beginning of the slow, long drawn-out media-exacerbated bankruptcy of its nurturing and buffering ethos, which surely did embrace impossible utopian extremes in loading adult responsibilities and self-disciplines on juvenile shoulders. Perhaps the balance was too idealistic and none of us former pupils can run a double-blind test, but I for one feel sure that if I hadn't had the space and respect afforded to me by that protective approach I would have been far more likely to have been crushed by life's later onslaughts. If the real world is such a hard and ruthless place can Dewey or Dartington be blamed for trying to resist and counter its vortex, whether or not you think such an effort futile?

Alasdhair

May 9th, 2011
3:05 PM

I think that Miriam has written a sympathetic even affectionate article about Dartington albeit one with a sting in the tail in terms of critique of the educational methodology. I think that where DHS had failings it was in assuming that all students would respond to its freedoms in a positive and scholastically successful way. And many did. But not all. And some like Miriam (and myself) with a bit of scramble at exam time. Equally, when one looks at conventional schooling such as Miriam's Latin teacher experience, there are children who respond well as she did, and others who rebel, especially if it is all there is to school. So the point I am making is actually a simple one - that children are different, that they change as they grow, that they cannot and should not be treated in the same way. There are visual learners, hands-on learners, contemplative or deductive learners - I am sure educational psychologists have many names. But within current economics they have to be treated as a homogeneous blob and then the discussion is (to be truthful) not one of which educational approach is best so much as which one is least harmful to the greatest number of children. I have had my daughter given 0/10 for spelling words English-correctly when she was asked to learn Phonics. Many of us have those crazy and sad examples. If there was a failing in DHS to my mind, it was that they perhaps could have provided a more individual approach. But how to provide guidance to teenagers, guidance that they follow, has vexed the minds and hearts of adults throughout history. It's a tough one indeed.

RNE

May 8th, 2011
8:05 PM

Miriam I enjoyed reading your article. While I can agree with much of what you write I think you are your own best critic because your summary at the end, I believe, justifies the raison d'etre of the school. In spite of the relative absence of pressure what percentage of pupils went on to good universities? Perhaps we learn the work ethic by observation and no doubt parental behaviour and genetics are important in this respect. As a boy I believe the school taught me to regard girls as equals if not superior. I certainly noticed the difference when I left Dartington to attend an all male establishment for three years. Nude bathing? There were far more interesting ways of making contact. With regard to pressure to work I found the Dalton system, which was introduced while we were there, a good way of applying pressure to work but also a good way for tutors to pick up problems at an early stage if they had a mind to. I could go on but that's enough for the moment as this is a new medium and perhaps rather public for me.

Gideon Mitchell

May 8th, 2011
6:05 PM

This passage strikes a chord. 'At Dartington, there were no rewards for effort in any subject, artistic or otherwise; nor were there penalties for idleness. As a result, at this stage of our education, we learned very little.' That was certainly my experience from 20 years later. In a good, more conventional school children don't just learn things, they learn how to learn. The basic habits you need to cultivate to be able to learn things just weren't taught or even particularly encouraged when I was there. It was not cool to try hard at anything. The place had an air of apathy and cynicism about it. Treating kids like adults before they actually are adults seems like a pretty fundamental mistake and I think that's why it didn't work, at least for me.

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