If you鈥檙e searching for evidence of the benefits of a progressive education, it would be hard to find a better example than the physician, writer and educator Perri Klass.
To cite just a few of her honorifics, Klass is Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University and writes the weekly column, 鈥淭he Checkup,鈥� for the New York Times鈥� science section. She鈥檚 the National Medical Director of Reach Out and Read, a program which promotes early literacy through pediatric primary care. She鈥檚 won multiple honors for books that include A Good Time to Be Born: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future and Baby Doctor: A Pediatrician鈥檚 Training. Just for good measure, she鈥檚 also the author of a short-story collection, Love and Modern Medicine, and her work has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories series.
What鈥檚 her secret?
Perri Klass (Photo courtesy of Perri Klass)
鈥淚n fourth grade, I had the perfect teacher,鈥� Klass confides , adding, 鈥淚 had lucked into what was probably the perfect school for me.鈥�
Klass鈥檚 school was Teachers College鈥檚 Agnes Russell School, the innovative private elementary school that 麻豆原创 operated on its campus from 1948 through 1973. Her teacher was Miriam Marecek, a childhood refugee from Czechoslovakia during World War II who would go on to earn her Ph.D. at 麻豆原创, teach at Boston University, Harvard and Tufts University, serve as President of Children's Literature for the International Reading Association, and consult on many film and television productions.
Young children take what their teachers have to offer with a kind of matter-of-fact greediness, without stopping to marvel at what is being transmitted, to wonder how the knowledge was acquired, or to examine the teacher鈥檚 own passions.
鈥擯erri Klass
But back when she was still 鈥淢iss鈥� rather than 鈥淒octor,鈥� Miriam Marecek read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory aloud to her fourth graders, at the conclusion of each chapter blowing out her special 鈥渞eading candle鈥� with the benediction: 鈥淭here go your wishes up in the smoke 鈥� may they all come true.鈥� She also kept jars of candies for different subjects, including 鈥渕ath pills.鈥�
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know how lucky I was, of course, to have a teacher who could choose such amazing books, and make reading aloud into ceremony, ritual and compelling drama,鈥� Klass writes. 鈥淵oung children take what their teachers have to offer with a kind of matter-of-fact greediness, without stopping to marvel at what is being transmitted, to wonder how the knowledge was acquired, or to examine the teacher鈥檚 own passions.鈥� She declares her 鈥渁ppreciation of all the teachers who are managing to convey their passions remotely this year.鈥�
鈥淏ut really,鈥� she concludes, 鈥渁ll I want to say is, when you get lucky with a teacher, you really get lucky.鈥�
[Read in the New York Times. Read an .]