Jane's Pocket Change: From The Past to the Present
Chris Ellsasser (academic dean) and Tom Evans (dean of faculty) recently joined me in hosting a very special visitor – Philip Parsons, who was a teacher and administrator here at CSW in the 1970s. Philip was one of the major masterminds behind CSW’s hallmark mod system. The Module Plan, as it is known formally, was introduced within CSW in 1973 by then headmaster Robert Sandoe, but Philip was among those who were quite influential in its implementation.
CSW had long worked within a “Lab Plan” that created both long and short meeting times for classes and individual student-teacher conversations. Sandoe’s system allowed new kinds of teaching and learning in many different areas and disciplines. As noted in Individuals and Community - The Cambridge School: The First One Hundred Years: “Students were to enroll in ‘intensive’ courses for one month at a time, sometimes 2 or 3 courses at a time. A major course was allotted three hours of class time a day and a minor course 90 minutes a day.”
As Philip spent his day with us, visiting classes and speaking with students, he remarked on how the mod system seemed fundamentally the same. But he seemed equally impressed and interested in the ways in which it had evolved, and the nature of the classes we were currently teaching, especially the more interdisciplinary and hands-on, experiential courses.
Philip left us a copy of the first course catalog of the mod system (1973). I have enjoyed looking through it and considering both what seems similar to our offerings today and what seems different. Similar are courses that reflect the times and consider topics thematically (The Ferment of Democratic Culture, Affluence and Anxiety) and courses that reflect a focus on multicultural curriculum (A Literature of Minorities, Art of the North American Indian). What seems very different is the focus back then on introductory courses of various kinds and the courses that are based in a defined time period or geographic area. It is a beautiful collection of a broad and vital curriculum in all ways—I can see why Philip is so proud of it.
As I review our current curriculum, I see that same focus on an excellent liberal arts curriculum with a deeply integrated set of programs in the visual and performing arts. I also see our highly evolved focus on human growth and development as a tenet of a good education consistently demonstrated throughout our outstanding social justice and health programs.
CSW is progressive through and through – since our founding (that you heard about from Sherrill Bounnell last week) – to the ground-breaking Module Plan of 1973 – to our current day (which you will hear more about from Chris Ellsasser next week).
PS: Click here to read about the presentations our faculty made at last week’s Progressive Education Network (PEN) conference.
The Cambridge School of Weston is a progressive high school for day and boarding students in grades 9–12 and PG. CSW's mission is to provide a progressive education that emphasizes deep learning, meaningful relationships, and a dynamic program that inspires students to discover who they are and what their contribution is to their school, their community and the world.