Basic Concept Of The Dalton Plan

By Helen Parkhurst

1. Freedom: "By 'freedom' I mean freedom to work without interruptions in order to pursue an interest and in order to develop concentration. As applied to an individual, it is understood to mean that he is to be free from those habits or conditions which enslave his life or impede his complete development." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

2. Co-operation: "Instead of the usual grade (class)rooms and grade teachers, we have subject laboratories and specialists; instead of confining the pupils of a single grade to one room, the pupils of four or five grades have access to as many laboratories and are permitted to go from subject laboratory to subject laboratory, mingling and living, within the school, while engaged in school pursuits, just as the community outside the school lives and works." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

3. Budgeting Time: "Under a properly conducted scientific management system, each worker becomes his own efficiency engineer; he studies every factor that influences his production; and he acquires new habits and drops wasteful ones so as to increase his efficiency." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

Co-operation:

"It is the social experience accompanying the tasks, not the tasks themselves, which stimulate and further both these kinds of growth. Thus the Dalton Plan lays emphasis upon the importance of the child's living while he does his work, and in the manner in which he acts as a member of society, rather than upon the subjects of his curriculum. It is the sum total of these twin experiences which determine his character and his knowledge." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

"It is culture acquired through individual development and through collective co-operation." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

Budgeting time:

"The Dalton Laboratory Plan permits pupils to budget their time and to spend it according to their needs." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

"From the academic, or cultural point of view the pupil must be made free to continue without interruption his work upon any subject in which he is absorbed, because when interested he is mentally keener, more alert and more capable of mastering any difficulty that may rise in the course of his study." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

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"Not until school machinery is reorganized and the energies of the pupils released from the time-table and the class-tent will they begin to develop that initiative, resourcefulness, and concentration which are the indispensable preliminaries to the process of learning." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

"Responsibility for the result will develop not only his (the pupils) latent intellectual powers, but also his judgement and character." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

Psychology of learning:

The Dalton Plan elicits a new response from the child's nature by inviting him to undertake the job in a way that appeals to his natural desire to learn things in his own way and even in his own time." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

"She (the teacher) will no longer be engaged in thrusting information down unwilling throats, or in exacting uninteresting tasks from apathetic pupils. From being the pursuer the teacher becomes, under the Dalton Plan, the pursued, whose advice and sympathy is sought and valued." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

Assignments:

"A good assignment represents a block of the whole job compiled from the standpoint of the pupil himself." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

"He (the student) will gain the satisfaction of so much accomplished with encouragement to fresh efforts." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

Giving Students Life Skills

“The Dalton Plan is designed

    •     to give pupils a training in handling a job
    •     to teach a pupil to manage time an to plan his work
    •     and at each step of the way take himself and his needs into account in order to assure individual development at each point." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)

"To become masters not only of our time and work, but also of ourselves, is a real preparation for life." (Parkhurst: Education on the Dalton Plan)