Kees Boeke

Cornelis Boeke (25 September 1884, Alkmaar - 3 July 1966, Abcoude), usually known as Kees Boeke, was a Dutch reformist educator, Quaker missionary and pacifist. He is best known for his popular essay/book Cosmic View (1957) which presents a seminal view of the universe, from the galactic to the microscopic scale, and inspired several films.

Boeke tried to renovate education by letting children in on decisions concerning school. He let decisions be made unanimously. He called this process sociocracy. He designated school as a workshop, teachers as employees and pupils as workers. The goal of this form of education was to teach children a sense of democracy. It was also based on Quaker ideas. He founded one such school in 1926 in Bilthoven, which he led until 1954. The later Dutch Queen Beatrix had to undergo an early education at this school, which she didn't really enjoy, as she later stated.

Kees Boeke grew up in a Mennonite family in Alkmaar. He studied architecture at the Delft University of Technology. As a student, he spent a year in England, where he met the Quakers. He became a Quaker and attended Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, a college in Selly Oak, Birmingham. There, he found inspiration in Bournville, the garden village which the Cadbury family (owners of the chocolate factory) had built for their workers. He met and married Beatrice (Betty) Cadbury. The couple went to Syria in 1912 as Quaker missionaries. In 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, they returned to England. They became active in peace work, the Fellowship of Reconciliation having come into being in 1914 through Henry Hodgkin. In 1915 Boeke traveled to Berlin, where he met Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze, with whom Hodgkin had been working at the outbreak of war. Boeke began to speak publicly in England: "The Germans are our brothers; God did not create man that he might kill; the war will find its quickest end when all soldiers lay down their weapons." He was deported from Britain and returned to the Netherlands. His family followed; there they lived in Bilthoven, near Utrecht. Their home soon became a pacifist centre. Later in the Second World War Boeke took part in the underground Dutch resistance movement against the same Germans, he called brothers before. This was although in line with his ideas of anti-authority and his disapproval of war and prosecution.

...
Wikipedia