The Work of Play: The Progressive Child
The rise of child psychology around 1900 inspired "progressive" educators to reimagine schooling from a child's perspective. What if, as John Dewey proclaimed, "learning by doing" better suited a child's natural capabilities than rote memorization? What if play, said Maria Montessori, was not idleness but "the work" of childhood?
At New York's progressive Bank Street School, Lucy Sprague Mitchell's pioneering language-development studies prompted a vigorous challenge to the common wisdom about books for the youngest ages. Her Here and Now Story Book asserted that preschoolers craved not fairy tales, but stories about the world they knew, as well as books that invited their playful, collaborative participation.
Mitchell's literary protégée Margaret Wise Brown led the charge in putting her revolutionary findings into practice, most famously in Goodnight Moon. An impressive array of artists lent their talents, too: Edward Steichen, Jean Charlot, Maurice Sendak, and Crockett Johnson, whose unflappable doodler Harold gave Mitchell's movement its poster child.
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A Hole Is to Dig: A First Book of First Definitions
Written by Ruth Krauss
Illustrated by Maurice Sendak
1952
