“The Turning of One's Soul”—Learning to Teach for Social Justice: The Putney Graduate School of Teacher Education (1950–1964)

Abstract

This article explores one teacher education program's experiment in “turning the souls” of its students to help them understand and care deeply about issues of race and social justice, including issues of environmental sustainability. The Putney Graduate School of Teacher Education (1950–1964), a small “reconstructionist” program, was based upon Deweyan principles of choice, discovery, and student-generated learning and had as its underlying tenet a commitment to change the world. These goals created a tension between student independence and the program's political commitments. Nonetheless, students discovered reasons for education that lay beyond themselves, their experiences, the classroom, and their traditional notions of school. By immersing students in experiences that moved them emotionally, students developed a willing accountability for changing their world.