The Laboratory School at the Institute of Child Study: Child Study as Progressive Education in Ontario

• In Event: "Schools of Tomorrow," Schools of Today Revisited: Lessons From Five Historically Progressive Schools

Abstract

1. Objectives: This paper discusses Toronto’s Institute of Child Study as a bastion of the child study movement. This movement was a distinct aspect of progressive education, which transformed the landscape of public education across Canada in the period following World War I. Three principal themes dominated Ontario’s progressivist thinking during the interwar period: a) the relationship of schools to society, which needed to be better correlated, or integrated, as society was rapidly transforming and schools were increasingly out of touch with modern life; b) the cultivation of active learning in the school, which would break with traditional forms of rote learning and examination; and c) the concentration upon the individual child, who had been up to that point, according to progressivist thought, subjugated to an unbending and outdated curriculum. As such, this chapter will discuss the Laboratory School, which included a Nursery School, at the Institute of Child Study in light of these three themes, demonstrating the particular interpretations of progressive education that the child study advocates put into place and theory within the context. The Canadian context that gave rise to the progressivist movement in the province of Ontario shall frame the chapter, for it is argued here that the concerted efforts to experiment with, reform, and rethink education in the interwar period are aspects of modernity and responses to dramatic social, political, and economic changes within the context.

2. Perspectives: This paper uses the perspective summarized in the Paedagogica Historica special issue on ISCHE 30, which argues for the use of both historical and sociological analyses to examine education and inequality. The paper provides a sociological analysis of the history of the school through an examination of the evolution of its curriculum and pedagogy, its changes and leadership, its problems with sustainability and its effectiveness in serving a diverse student population.

3. Methods: The paper uses historical methods, including archival research and document analysis.

4. Data sources: The paper analyzes archival documents, including memos, letters, newspapers, and planning documents.

5. Conclusions: In Ontario, following World War I, education were seen increasingly as the principle social instrument to enable individuals to adapt to modernity, to cultivate personal relationships to the changing order, and to promote an active relationship to social life. The promotion of active learning, of individualized instruction, and of education relating to contemporary life was at the core of progressivist thinking. The child study movement was a vital aspect of this progressivist thinking in Ontario, lending particular interpretations to these themes. Finally, the paper examines important lessons for the sustainability of contemporary progressive schools.

6. Significance: The paper provides an important contribution to the literature on the history of progressive education through the analysis of a significant laboratory school, one that has been absent from the literature in the United States.

Author

• Theodore Christou, Queen's University