New College for the Education of Teachers (or simply New College) was a progressive undergraduate college under the auspices of Teachers College, Columbia University that existed from 1932 to 1939. It does not represent the current institution that is Teachers College Columbia University.
The college was located in New York City. It used the same facilities as Teachers College at the Morningside Heights campus. The college also had learning communities established in North Carolina, Georgia, and abroad in foreign study groups. Using innovative ideas such as extended foreign study, community-based active research, and authentic assessment, a portfolio-based undergraduate learning curriculum was developed which rejected traditional summative grades or the accumulation of credits as the basis of degree completion. This was truly a "learn by doing" experience. The college was closed due to a combination of growing financial deficits and student activism in 1939.
History New College was established in 1932 under the leadership of Richard Thomas Alexander (1887-1971). New College, as it became known, was originally designed to operate as an undergraduate college level unit granting a Bachelor of Science and/or a master's degree after a period of study from three to five years. It was to serve the dual purpose of preparing young people for teaching positions in elementary and secondary grades and of affording a demonstration college for graduate students in Teachers College. Students would ultimately become professors in colleges and universities with teacher training programs.
The nationally acclaimed New College would close within seven years under the pretext of financial hardship over the protestations of some of the country's leading academic, political, and social figures of the era. In reality, the school was closed because the students followed the ideals of the New College program which promoted participation in the creation of a “new social order” at the grassroots classroom level using the Concept of Community as a framework. Students were taught to solve the problems they encounter in society seeking solutions for the betterment of their students and community. Sometimes the solutions would put them at odds with powers that be, which preferred the status quo. The educational philosophies of New College, developed by Alexander, encouraged students to think critically, solve problems, and later, question the ruling hegemony and the status quo of the dominant social structure. The examination and analysis of the "Persistent Problems of Living", the "Concept of Community", and the creation of a "New Social Order" served as the philosophical springboard for action, steered by those social and economic conditions of the times.
Relationship with Teachers College New College was an autonomous unit within Teachers College with its own advisory board, budget and faculty. If it was so advised, New College students could take classes at Teachers College if it fulfilled the objectives in their personal Long-Term View. New College students were young undergraduates, mostly teenagers, who were often at odds with the Teachers College students because of politics and youthful exuberance. Likewise, the Teachers College faculty was less than cooperative with New College with the exception of notable professors William Chandler Bagley, John Dewey, William Heard Kilpatrick, and George S. Counts. In the minds of some faculty members, if New College was the best way to educate teachers, according to Alexander, what did that say about the traditional curriculum?
Curriculum Alexander knew that the curriculum pattern for New College would have to go beyond anything philosophically practiced before. It's not that there were no other experimental institutions in the nation; indeed, other educators with vision were taking advantage of the experimental nature of curriculum design offered by the social conditions of the time. Alexander Meiklejohn A. R. Nelson, Education and Democracy: The Meaning of Alexander Meiklejohn, 1872–1964, (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001). at the University of Wisconsin, Bard College and Bennington College, were also introducing innovative curricular elements of a sound liberal arts education.Goodwin Watson, “Utopia and Rebellion: the New College Experiment,” In M. Miles (ed.) Innovation in Education, (New York, NY: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1964) In 1930, Alexander saw the need was to train educational leaders and not just classroom teachers. He laid out his curricular philosophy at the opening meeting of the convention of the New York State Association of Teachers College and Normal School Faculties, declaring that more emphasis should be given to the objectives of life and less upon the stereotyped processes of teaching, such as those embracing psychologically scientific methods. He told the audience, "In the last twenty years we have measured everything in the school system. We have scales for this and that, but we have ignored the real objectives of human society. Teachers give more heed to measuring what they teach than to educating the children."“Dr. Thomas Alexander sees Psychology as Useless Pseudo-science,” Teachers College Record. (32)3, (1930, December): 298. To his thinking, the inadequacy of training in the values of life was the greatest weakness in American teacher education. Alexander added, "Young teachers in training should be required to participate actively in some walks of life, and it would be extremely educative for them to pass a semester in a factory, on a farm, or in some industry. Their [the students'] ability to appreciate and understand the problems of life would be immeasurably increased." Those problems would be the basis of an innovative curriculum at New College. Alexander called them the "Persistent Problems of Living". He already had a global perspective from his travels all through Europe before and after the war and he traveled extensively in the United States lecturing and visiting schools. Alexander had the revelation that regardless of culture, social standing, religion and nationality that every person, every human on earth faced the same problems, in varying degrees in his journey down life's path. Colloquially speaking, everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time.
These problems were developed in relationship to and revolving around four aspects of human existence: human relationships, natural sciences, the arts and aesthetics, and philosophy.“New College for the Education of Teachers, Educational Plan and Announcement 1934-1936. Teachers College Bulletin, (25)3New York, NY, 1934) The curriculum based on those persistent problems starts with Central Seminars in which the problems in these areas were generally analyzed and dissected. If the conversations found themselves heading off in two directions, Divisional Seminars were formed. The students met weekly as per schedule, or in private, and critically examined the coursework, the knowledge, and the skills necessary for the solution of the problem. The student also met frequently with their faculty adviser. Every hour in every day was considered to be part of the college learning experience. In order to expand the breadth and depth of the knowledge that comes with experience, as part of the New College program, Alexander created three required elements. The Period of Foreign Study, The Period of Industry, and the New College Community. Alexander felt that extensive travel and study overseas would broaden one's global viewpoint and increase appreciation for home. To appreciate the hard work of parents in a learning community, Alexander placed students in factories and stores to do the same work for a semester. The real jewel of the experiential learning process was the New College Community in North Carolina, where cooperative learning and critical thinking were developed out of necessity for survival."Education of Teachers in New College,” [Special issue]. Teachers College Record. (38)1, (Teachers College, Columbia University, October, 1936).
Persistent problems of living The persistent problems of living that form the basis of such commonality through relevancy with both student and teacher have been around for most of human history, are trans-generational, and affect everyone on the planet. They were articulated and defined as the guiding force behind the core curriculum of New College by Alexander and his first faculty in 1931, then revisited in 1935 by Alexander, Florence Stratemeyer and William Scott Gray in the Twenty-third Yearbook of the National Society of College Teachers of Education as the third principle in their work entitled Principles of Curriculum Construction for the Education of Teachers.Stratemeyer, F. B., Alexander, T., & Gray, W. (1935). Principles of Curriculum Construction for the Education of Teachers. Twenty-third Yearbook of the National Society of College Teachers of Education, 72-127. Finally, they were again developed as a theme to a much greater degree than previously done by Stratemeyer resulting in the crowning achievement of her scholarship, the 1947 text, Developing a Curriculum for Modern Living, co-authored with Hamden L. Forkner and Margaret McKim.Stratemeyer, F. B., Forkner, H. L., & McKim, M. M. (1947). Developing a Curriculum for Modern Living. New York, NY: Teachers College, Columbia University, Bureau of Publications. In this influential textbook, Stratemeyer states that students develop understandings from facing recurring situations of everyday living, events she called “Persistent Life Situations.”
The original problems, as first determined by Alexander and the New College curriculum planners in 1931 were: Adjusting to and cooperating with other people. Maintaining physical and mental health. Achieving economic and political security. Adjusting to and controlling the natural environment. Interpreting and creating art and beauty. Searching for guiding principles and ultimate values. Acquiring and transmitting social heritage.
In order to develop an effective curriculum pattern for New College, Alexander knew that the nature of society and of the learner had to be considered as critical factors. For the curriculum to be effective learners of any age must see the relevancy of the instruction to themselves and that in some form or fashion; it will prove of some benefit or forestall some calamity. To be the most effective and to reach the widest student audience acceptance the curriculum content in any subject must be presented in terms that every person understands. The unspoken nod to another a complete stranger which confirms a mutual understanding would be an example. Once everyone has the same specific shared information and common knowledge of a problem, then a solution or understanding borne of the input of the collective might be found. To Alexander, the Persistent Problems represented a logical way to integrate the curriculum with relevancy and individual meaning. The causal effect of this curriculum, then, was looking for solutions to the common problems everyone in the world could understand, since they were so basic. They would examine them in critical terms and using the good of the community as support, discuss choices and possible outcomes.
Period of Foreign Study