Stanwood Cobb
| Stanwood Cobb | |
|---|---|
| Born |
November 6, 1881 Newton, Massachusetts |
| Died | December 29, 1982 (aged 101) Chevy Chase, Maryland |
| Occupation | Educator |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1914–1979 |
| Genre | non-fiction, poetry and religious |
| Subject | Education and Bahá'í Faith |
| Spouse | Ida Nayan Whitlam |
Stanwood Cobb (November 6, 1881 – December 29, 1982) was an American educator, author and prominent Bahá'í of the 20th century.
He was born in Newton, Massachusetts to Darius Cobb - a Civil War soldier, artist and descendent of Elder Henry Cobb of the second voyage of the Mayflower - and Eunice Hale (née Waite) - founding president of the Ladies Physiological Institute of Boston and mother of Cobb's four sisters and two other brothers. He studied first at Dartmouth College, where he was valedictorian of his 1903 or 1905 graduating class, and then at Harvard Divinity School, earning an A.M. in philosophy and comparative religion 1910. His thesis work, Communistic Experimental Settlements in the USA observed that every such settlement had failed within a generation because of an inability of communism to get people to subordinate their own desires for the good of the group. In 1919 he married Ida Nayan Whitlam. Cobb was a member of several literary associations and of the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C..
Cobb lived internationally for some years before settling in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where he died.
In 1907–1910, Cobb taught history and Latin at Robert College in Constantinople (now Istanbul), followed by several years teaching in the US and Europe. He later headed the English department at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland (1914–15), taught at Asheville School in Asheville, North Carolina (1915–16), and was instructor of history and English at the United States Naval Academy (1916–19). Frustrated by the teaching experience at the Academy, Cobb heard a lecture by Marietta Johnson who helped marshal and crystallize his thoughts on education practice and curriculum theory. As a result, in 1919, Cobb founded the Chevy Chase Country Day School, of which he was the principal until his retirement, and, active in the progressive education movement in the United States, became a founder and motivating force, first secretary, and eventually president (1927–1930) of The Association for the Advancement of Progressive Education, later renamed in 1931 as Progressive Education Association (PEA) and then American Education Fellowship. The first president was Arthur E. Morgan. Later the influential John Dewey served as president. Cobb resigned the Presidency in 1930 following the influx of supporters of George Counts who moved the focus of the Association from a student-centred learning approach to one of a social policy oriented approach to education theory. However, between the enormous impact of World War II on all thought and the involvement of many members of the PEA in communism and the general atmosphere of Anti-communism in the United States the achievements of the PEA both before Cobb's resignation and after were largely lost and ended the efforts of the Association shortly after the Carnegie Foundation and Rockefeller Foundations withdrew their support.
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