- Would the practices of the Boston Latin School help restore order and rigor to today’s classrooms?
"6 Forgotten Tips from America’s Oldest Public School
...But there’s something we may not have considered.
Is it possible that the path to fixing American education may not be found in the latest and greatest education theories?
Could our history instead hold the answer?
I thought of this when I ran across an 1877 article from the American Journal of Education.
The article described the educational practices used by Boston Latin School – the oldest and longest operating public school in America – when it was under the leadership of Francis Gardner in the mid-1800s.
During Gardner’s time at Boston Latin, the school offered a six-year course of study to which students ages 10 to 16 could attend after successfully completing grammar school.
Some of the methods which stand out include:
1. Memorization – According to Gardner, one of the first lessons a student was given was in Latin Grammar. This lesson was to be thoroughly memorized. Memorization was required because it was efficient and “because [the memorized words] express the ideas to be conveyed better than the pupil can give them in his own language….” Fear of memorization without understanding was groundless, Gardner noted, because future oral examination of the student made “it impossible for the learner to acquire mere words without ideas.”
2. One Class – Today’s high school students move from one class to the next by the sound of the bell – a process which John Taylor Gatto once claimed was hindering learning and simply training students to obey rather than think. The Boston Latin School of Gardner’s time seems to have agreed with Gatto’s reasoning, for it had an entire class study every subject with one teacher for the entire year. The reason? “This arrangement is found to produce better results than when frequent changes are made….”...
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