Francis W. Parker

Francis Wayland Parker (October 9, 1837 – March 2, 1902) was a pioneer of the progressive school movement in the United States. He believed that education should include the complete development of an individual — mental, physical, and moral. John Dewey called him the "father of progressive education." He worked to create curriculum that centered on the whole child and a strong language background. He was against standardization, isolated drill and rote learning. He helped to show that education was not just about cramming information into students’ minds, but about teaching students to think for themselves and become independent people.

Parker was born in Bedford, New Hampshire in Hillsborough County. He was educated in the public schools and began his career as a village teacher in New Hampshire at age 16. He taught 75 children at Corser Hill at Boscawen, New Hampshire, making 15 dollars a month. Many of his students were older and had been exposed to more of the curriculum than him. After teaching in Boscawen, he began to teach in Auburn, New Hampshire, making 18 dollars a month. At 16 years old, he taught in Hinsdale, Massachusetts, and eventually took charge of all the grammar schools in his town Piscataquis, New Hampshire. At 21 years old he became the principal of a school in Carrolton, Illinois.

In August 1861, at the beginning of the American Civil War, Parker enlisted as a private in the 4th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry. He was elected lieutenant and was later promoted to captain and commander of the company. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and commander of the 4th New Hampshire in January 1865, serving in St. Augustine, Florida—part of that time in the brig. He was captured and held prisoner in North Carolina in May 1865.

After the war ended, Colonel Parker resumed teaching, first in Ohio, where he became the head of the normal school in Dayton, Ohio. In 1872, he traveled to Germany to study at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In Europe, Parker examined the new methods of pedagogy being developed there, proposed by European theorists, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Fröbel, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and particularly Johann Friedrich Herbart. Parker asserted that students benefit most from reading works of high interest, thereby activating background knowledge. A supporter of balanced instruction, he encouraged the use of the elements of phonics, as well as lists of word families, onsets and rimes, to assist in word recognition. This innovative educator integrated the skill areas of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Parker advocated many of the current language experience and process writing approach methodologies. He believed that children should write across the content areas on subjects that interested them, for enjoyment and that the proper form would come with practice. All writing should be natural and connected to authentic and meaningful activities, using the child’s own vocabulary; in other words, experience based writing. Parker was a teacher, principal and a lecturer, who wanted all children to have their own slate boards, so they could write and draw freely without fear of mistakes.

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