Draaiboek taakwerk

Met dank aan 'Daltonschool de 7Sprong' in Houten.

Strong Dalton development in Poland

Yesterday I've got an email from Barbara Buczkowska - Staniec.
She is teacher at the Public Kindergarten number 7 in Czestochowa - Poland.




Barbara is writing:

"I send you this photo with children form my kindergarten which are in "Dalton situation".

I think that in my kindergarten Dalton education is more and more popular and teachers and parents started appreciate results. We have worked according to Dalton ideas for two years and we can observe growth many skills and better preparation for school and their further life".

Dalton in secondary schools

The Dalton Plan,  by Belle Rennie

(Honourable Secretary of the Dalton Association G.B)

The article was published as “preface” in  “Report of a conference on the Dalton Plan in secondary schools”. April 1923

The Dalton Plan is a scheme of educational reorganisation worked out by Miss Helen Parkhurst and is the result of many years of practical experience as Director of the Children’s University School in New York.

It is applicable to the school work of pupils between the ages of eight and eighteen.

It aims, briefly expressed, are threefold.

In the first place to import that freedom for self-development which has proved so valuable in the case of infants into the school life of older children, while at the same time ensuring that they shall acquire a thorough mastery of the academic tasks set in the school curriculum.

In explaining the second aim of the Plan, Miss Parkhurst quotes Professor Dewey, who says: “The aim of a democratic education is not only to make an individual an intelligent participator in the life of his immediate group, but to bring the groups into such constant interaction, that no individual, no economic group could presume to live independently of others”.

The third aim is to give ‘a viewpoint’ since the psychological effect of presenting his work to the child in such a way as to enable him to see the goal at which he is aiming, is a stimulus of a most profound and far-reaching kind.

The Plan involves a re-organisation of school living, but no change in staff, standardisation, curriculum or method.

More will follow. R.R.

International Dalton Conferences

The first International Dalton Conference took place
April 24 - 27. 1923 in London.
Dalton International restarted the organisation of International conferences since 1998.
The next International Dalton Meeting will take place
26 - 28 May 2014 at KPZ University - Zwolle - The Netherlands.

Dalton in 2014

Books written by Roel Röhner and Hans Wenke:

 1. Leve de School
 2. Translation in Czech
 3. Daltononderwijs, een blijvende inspiratie
 4. Translation in Czech
 5. Hallo Dalton
 6. Translation in Czech
 7. Dalton, doe het eens anders
 8. Keuzetaken onderbouw door Wendy van Beurden en Paul Bruijn
 9. Keuzetaken middenbouw door Roel Röhner
10. Keuzetaken bovenbouw door Roel Röhner
11. Dalton opzoekboekje,  handelingswijzers voor kinderen
12. Het Daltonspel, ontwikkeld ter inspiratie van Dalton schoolteams
13. Pedagogika planu daltonskiego (Polish)
14. Daltonplan Pädagogik, eine praktische Inspiration (German)

The same book
as 13 and 14
in Dutch.

Dalton in 1923

The influence of Rosa Basset for the Dalton Plan

Rosa Bassett   (9 August 1871 – 19 December 1925) was an English educationalist and headmistress of Stockwell Secondary School.

After a relocation from Stockwell the school's name was changed to County Secondary School, Streatham, located in Welham Road, London. It was later renamed Rosa Bassett School in her memory and honour.

Rosa Basstt was instrumental in the first application of the Dalton Plan of teaching within an English secondary school. She contributed a chapter to Helen Parkhurst's book on the Plan, as well as writing the introduction to a book of Dalton Plan class assignments prepared by the staff within her school.

On 27 May 1920 an article on the Dalton Plan by Belle Rennie was published in the Times Educational Supplement, introducing the ideas of Helen Parkhurst to a British audience. 

Parkhurst's view that education should move away from traditional, to rigid, class-based teaching and allow for teaching to be adjusted to the pace of each individual child clearly aligned with those of Bassett, as within a month Bassett had started a small-scale trial using the Plan at the school with a group of pupils who had already completed their university entrance examinations.

The results were deemed a success, and the full-scale use of the Plan within the County Secondary School, Streatham was phased-in over the 1920–1921 academic year.

Rosa Bassett's support of the Dalton Plan was considerable, and she wrote about the school's introduction of the Plan for The Times, which was reprinted as a chapter within Parkhurst's book. Bassett supported Parkhust's visit to England in 1921 by opening the school to visitors who wished to see the Plan in practice. 

A two-volume set of Dalton Plan assignments covering English, Geography, History, Mathematics and Science, prepared by the staff of the school with an introduction by Bassett, was published in 1922.

In 1921 Bassett was given leave of absence from the school so that she could visit America to see the operation of the Dalton Plan there.

She also lectured in New York on the experience learned while introducing the Plan in England, donating her fees to the Dalton Association to support further visits of teachers to America.

In 1922, Miss Parkhurst published 'Education on the Dalton Plan' to which Miss Bassett contributed a chapter "A Year's Experiment in an English Secondary School."

Wikipedia