Andrea & Lisamarie

LUCY SPRAGUE MITCHELL

Lucy was born July 2, 1878 in Chicago. In her time, children were taken care of but

silenced. They were looked upon as inferior and given strict scheduled lifestyles.

Lucy did not have a very intimate relationship with her father but she was influenced by him because of his great interest in education reform.

Little did they know she would mark the education system of America forever.

Her thoughts: How could anyone expect to teach children when they do not even understand the way children learn & what they are interested in learning.

Fun Fact: Lucy did not receive any kind of education until she was 16 years old.

THE EARLY YEARS

She pursued a college education in University of California at Berkley. Even though during this time it was rare for women to obtain this level of education.

Fun Fact: She graduated & became the first woman to become a Dean at the university.

1913: She moved to New York and married to Wesley Clair Mitchell.

She was fascinated by the theories of John Dewey.

+ John Dewey’s ideas: children learn through experiences connected to others as well as he called their learning a “social function.” Stimulating the creativity of children and encouraging each child individually is a key to affective education.

THE BEGINNING OF LUCY’S JOURNEY

She started the Bureau of Educational Experiments in New York.

How education was conducted at the Bureau incorporated by Sprague Mitchell: The interdisciplinary approach to classroom management, the study of student behavior, psychological profiles recorded and updated, family background and environment checks.

Her revelations about language: +during observations of children she found that language development is more important than they thought of before.

BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS

Her school programs were seen as “loony” and “radical” in the 1910’s, but in the 1950’s those schools were considered “developmentally appropriate” and became traditional nursery schools.

She promoted in what it was to raise “whole child.”

+ This meant they were children that were developmentally healthy and emotionally secure. She believed that if people raised “whole children” that society would progressively improve.

+ This centered on the focus on the children and fulfilling all their needs. Not just their basic physical needs but more in depth emotional, social, and mental needs. In 1930’s, she extended her teaching to train teachers to become

“whole teachers” to be able to teach and guide children to become “whole children.”

HER THEORIES

Years later, in 1950, the Bureau of Educational Experiments became certified as the Bank Street College of Education. The school that Mitchell founded served as a model for subsequent early education programs that were considered "developmentally appropriate." Possibly one of her greatest accomplishments is teaching teachers

that not all children develop at the same rate. Due to this for almost a century, teachers began to understand that neither behavioral nor intellectual maturity in children are created equal.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS