Marietta L. Johnson’s Early ‘Organic Education’ Work

Abstract

Author Details: Jeroen Staring -Dr Jeroen Staring teaches mathematics at secondary schools in The Netherlands. His 2005 Medical Sciences dissertation describes the life, work and technique of F. Matthias Alexander. In 2013 he successfully defended a second dissertation, on the early history of the NYC Bureau of Educational Experiments. Abstract Until recently it was not known that Marietta Johnson, founder of the School of Organic Education in Fairhope, Alabama already wrote about her pedagogical principles and her school earlier than 1913. Between 1909 and 1913 Johnson also gave lectures. This case study highlights the reasons. It also gives an overview of Johnson's pre-1913 published work.

John Dewey, New Education, and Social Control in the Classroom

“…Still, Hopkins may well have been a yet unacknowledged theoretical and practical forerunner of Marietta Johnson and her didactic views regarding teaching an "Organic Education." Although Johnson never referred to Hopkins in her writings, she would have fully agreed with Hopkins" line of reasoning regarding body, soul and mind of the "whole child," quoted above (compare, for instance: Hunt, 1913;Johnson, 1913;Staring, 2013bStaring, , 2014Staring, , 2016.…”

The Influence of Beatrice Hinkle and Jungian Psychology on the Early Progressive School Movement in the United States

“…Marietta Johnson, originally a traditional teacher in Minnesota, influenced by G. Stanley Hall, abandoned her strict notions of children"s development when she was given The Development of the Child (1898), written by Nathan Oppenheim (Newman, 2002). In 1902 Johnson and her husband moved to Fairhope, Alabama where she eventually started the School of Organic Education based on the theories of Henderson, G. T. W. Patrick, Oppenheim, Rousseau, Froebel, and Dewey (Aldridge & Christensen, 2013;Cowles, 1996;Staring, 2013Staring, , 2014Staring, , 2016.…”