Elsie Ripley Clapp and the Arthurdale Schools

Abstract

Written in Kentucky during the darkest days of the depression, Elsie Ripley Clapp described her pedagogy and her democratic conception of the community school. Deeply influenced by her association with and reading of John Dewey, Clapp believed that the depression only worsened the loss of community in American society and that the school could serve as a means to restore community life. In our own era, where discussion of community abounds, Clapp’s work in progressive education provides insight into linking the school and community in preparing children for active participation in a democratic society. Her work presents a challenge to those who see education as merely the imparting of information and learning defined as a point in time, easily assessed by pencil and paper tests. Learning for Clapp was both an individual and a social process, grounded in human experience—the foundation of community and democracy as ethical association. Yet, her work also brings attention to the progressive paradox—the contradiction between democratic theory and actual school practice. As a biographer, my goal is to tell her story in the context of her historical time frame and life experiences. Through studying Elsie Clapp, a teacher and administrator, contemporary educators can gain a clearer understanding of the difficulties women leaders faced. Through this study of Elsie Clapp and other leaders in progressive schools, a renewed dialog about the purpose of American education in a democratic society will ensue with the goal of improving practice.²

A community school foregoes its separateness. It is influential because it belongs to its people. They share its ideals and its work. It takes from them and gives to them. There are no bounds as far as I can see to what it could accomplish in social reconstruction if it had enough wisdom and insight and devotion and energy. It demands all these for changes in living and learning of people are not produced by imparting information about different conditions or by gathering statistical data about what exists, but by creating with people, for people.¹