Carleton Washburne

Carleton Wolsey Washburne was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1889 to an obstetrician father. His mother was active in political affairs, especially education, and was a friend of the innovative educator John Dewey. The family was well-educated, though not particularly wealthy. Washburne was raised Protestant and attended the Francis W. Parker School.{{cite book|last=Graham|first=Patricia Albjerg|title=Schooling America|url=https://archive.org/details/schoolingamerica00grah|url-access=registration|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA|place=New York City, NY|isbn=978-0195315844|pages=[https://archive.org/details/schoolingamerica00grah/page/68 68]–70}} Late in his childhood, his family moved to Elkhart, Indiana, where Washburne attended a traditional school. During his high school years, Washburne moved back to Chicago to live with his maternal grandfather and study at John Marshall Metropolitan High School. When his immediate family moved to Elgin, Illinois, Washburne followed and finished his high school education there.{{cite news|last1=Meuer|first1=William|last2=Tubergen|first2=Jan|title=Carleton W. Washburne|publisher=Winnetka Gazette|year=1998}} He initially followed in the family footsteps and studied medicine at the University of Chicago. However, he found little interest in the material and transferred to Stanford University in California, graduating in 1912. Washburne married Heluiz Bigelow Chandler in the same year.

Washburne originally set out on a business venture, but was unsuccessful. Unable to otherwise support his family, he took a position as a teacher in low-income La Puente, California. Seeing the shortcomings of then-prevalent style of instruction, he combined the ideas of Dewey with his experiences at the Francis W. Parker school to create a progressive education curriculum. His work caught the attention of Frederic Lister Burk, the president of the San Francisco State Teachers College, who hired him to teach at the institution's affiliated elementary school. Washburne taught there for five years, serving as head of the science department.{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/636285/Carleton-W-Washburne|title=Carleton W. Washburne|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|accessdate=5 January 2014}} While there, he conducted research on preadolescence and studied at the University of California, Berkeley, becoming one of the first recipients of a doctorate in education.{{cite web|url=http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/a-school-fit-for-children/Content?oid=877158 |title=A School Fit for Children |first=Grant |last=Pick |date=February 28, 1991 |newspaper=Chicago Reader}}

Burk heard of an opening for a superintendent for Winnetka School District 36 in Winnetka, Illinois, and recommended Washburne for the job. Washburne oversaw Winnetka schools from 1919 to 1943. The district only had elementary schools, so Washburne was able to focus on that age group. It was here that he developed the Winnetka Plan, a system of individualized instruction in an ungraded setting. The Winnetka Plan, based on the principles of progressive education, aimed to develop the "whole child"{{cite web|url=http://www.winnetka36.org/sites/default/files/5/ProgressiveEducation2012.pdf |title=A History of Progressive Education |work=Progressive Education 2012 |publisher=The Winnetka Public Schools, District 36 |accessdate=5 January 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140106040444/http://www.winnetka36.org/sites/default/files/5/ProgressiveEducation2012.pdf |archivedate=6 January 2014 }} and included physical, emotional, social, and intellectual education. The curriculum included both "common essentials" (reading, writing, number skills, history, and geography) and "creative group activities" such as art, music, literature, and physical education.{{cite web|url=http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/legacy/research/edu20/moments/1919winnetka.html?cms_page=edu20/moments/1919winnetka.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130101091243/http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/legacy/research/edu20/moments/1919winnetka.html?cms_page=edu20/moments/1919winnetka.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=1 January 2013 |title=1919: Winnetka Plan |work=History of Education: Selected Moments of the 20th Century |publisher=University of Toronto |accessdate=5 January 2014 }} Washburne collaborated with Francis W. Parker and the North Shore Country Day School to share faculty and curricula. Among his other innovations in Winnetka, he instituted guidance programs in elementary schools, created middle schools, and promoted early childhood education. He served as chairman of the Winnetka Summer School for Teachers and the Winnetka Graduate Teachers College.

Starting in 1928 Washburne led a study, in collaboration with University of Chicago graduate student Mabel Morphett, that attempted to determine the age when a child could reasonably be expected to learn to read. Examining first-grade students in Winnetka schools, they found that children with a mental age of 6.5 years could read successfully. Their findings were published in an education journal in 1931.{{cite journal|journal=The Elementary School Journal |volume=31 |issue= 7 |date=March 1931 |title= When Should Children Begin to Read? |first1=Mabel Vogel |last1=Morphett |first2=Carleton |last2=Washburne |jstor=995974 |pages=496–503 |doi=10.1086/456609|s2cid=144249481 }}{{cite book|editor-last1=Vinson|editor-first1=Kevin D.|editor-last2=Ross|editor-first2=E. Wayne|first=Martha Rapp |last=Ruddell |title=Literacy Research and Education Reform: Sorting Through the History and the Myths |work=Defending Public Schools|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PGS7G1DwtskC&pg=PA33|year=2004|series=Praeger Perspectives|publisher=Praeger Publishers|place=Westport, Connecticut|isbn=978-0275982980|page=33}} The study was influential in advancing among American educators the concept that the child's "reading readiness" was a critically important factor in the successful teaching of reading.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=61Lw3BEb89wC&pg=PA44 |pages=44–47 |title=Shaping the Preschool Agenda: Early Literacy, Public Policy, and Professional Beliefs |first=Anne |last=McGill-Franzen |year=1993 |publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=9780791411957 }}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1jQNWU9dshoC&pg=PA21 |title=The Secret of Natural Readers: How Preschool Children Learn to Read |first=Ada |last=Anbar |page=21 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2004|isbn=9780275984243 }} More recent research has suggested that the quality of the instruction a child receives is more important than mental age in determining learning success.{{cite journal|url=http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_197812_durkin.pdf |title=Pre-First Grade Starts in Reading: Where Do We Stand? |journal=Educational Leadership |date=December 1978 |pages=174–177 |first=Dolores |last=Durkin |publisher=Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ACSD)}}

Washburne was one of the founding members of the John Dewey Society in 1935. He served as president of the Progressive Education Association and of the New Education Fellowship. He oversaw the design and completion of the Crow Island School in 1940, which was heralded for its teaching concepts and unique architecture, and is now a National Historic Landmark.{{cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=2078&ResourceType=Building |title=Crow Island School |work=National Historic Landmarks program |access-date=5 January 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131103134222/http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=2078&ResourceType=Building |archive-date=3 November 2013 }}

Washburne resigned from the Winnetka School District in 1943 to help the U.S. Army reopen educational facilities in occupied Italy during World War II. He was the head of the Allied Forces subcommission which revisited the high school scholastic curriculum defined in 1935 by the Italian fascist Minister of Education De Vecchi. In the didactic of philosophy Washburne abolished from the scholastic curriculum of the liceo classico any reference to the fascist ideology and particularly to the Dottrina del Fascismo (Doctrine of Fascism) published by De Vecchi, but for instance, the Italian teaching of philosophy kept references to the thought of Giovanni Gentile for all the 1950s.{{cite book|author=Alberto Gaiani|page=71|language=it|title=Il pensiero e la storia. L'insegnamento della filosofia in Italia|publisher=CLEUP|date=November 1, 2014|series=La filosofia e il suo passato|volume=55|isbn =978-88-6787-262-6|oclc= 898471003|chapter=Una filosofia per la scuola repubblicana: i programmi del 1944}}

Washburne remained there until 1949, playing an important role in reorganizing the Italian public school system. He then accepted an offer to become the director of teacher education at Brooklyn College. In 1961, he joined the Michigan State University College of Education as a distinguished professor, where he taught for the rest of his life.

• Carleton W. Washburne Middle School in Winnetka is named after him.

Washburne published many works over his career, including arithmetic lesson pamphlets and book lists. He also published several books:

• The Story of the Earth, 1916 (with Heluiz Chandler Washburne)
• Common Science, 1920
• Progressive Tendencies in European Education, 1923
• Results of Practical Experiments in Fitting Schools to Individualize, 1926
• Better Schools: A Survey of Progressive Education, 1928
• The Public Schools and the Preschool Child, 1929
• Adjusting the School to the Child: Practical First Steps, 1932
• The Story of Earth and Sky, 1933
• A Living Philosophy of Education, 1940
• What Is Progressive Education?: A Book for Parents and Others, 1952
• Schools Aren't what They Were: A Book for Parents and Others, 1953
• The World's Good: Education for World-Mindedness, 1954. The John Day Company. {{asin|B0097747T2}}
• Winnetka: The History and Significance of an Educational Experiment, 1963 (with Sidney P. Marland, Jr.)
• Samuel Boussian, Mathias Gardet, Martine Ruchat : L'Internationale des républiques d'enfants, 2020, éd. Anamorasa, {{ISBN |9791095772958}}

{{Reflist|2}}

• {{Gutenberg author |id=34204| name=Carleton Washburne}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Carleton Wolsey Washburne}}

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Category:1889 births

Category:1968 deaths

Category:Educators from Chicago

Category:Stanford University alumni

Category:University of Chicago alumni

Category:San Francisco State University faculty

Category:Michigan State University faculty

Category:20th-century American writers

Category:20th-century American educators

Category:American philosophers of education

Category:Writers from Chicago

Category:Brooklyn College faculty

Category:People from Elgin, Illinois

Category:Francis W. Parker School (Chicago) alumni