The nineteenth century writers and reformers known as the Transcendentalists grappled with visionary ideas about the relation of the individual to society, nature, and self. Central to the explorations and experiments of these men and women was the role of education, which we will examine through the following topics and resources:
->Ralph Waldo Emerson and “The American Scholar”
->Henry Thoreau: Experiential and Lifelong Learning
->Educational Experiments at Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Other Utopian Communities
->Temple School and Plumfield: Schools of Bronson and Louisa Alcott in Fact and Fiction
->Elizabeth and Mary Peabody and the Kindergarten Movement
->Margaret Fuller and the Education of Women
Instructor Jayne Gordon, vice-president of the Coastal Senior College board and member of its curriculum committee, has taught courses on both Maine history and literature, and on the Concord writers. She has worked for decades as a public historian, educator, administrator, and consultant at numerous history museums and literary sites, and conducted classes, seminars and workshops on the Transcendentalists during her nearly 50 year residency in Concord, MA.
Instructor Kay Liss taught a class in Nature Poets and is looking forward to co-teaching this class with Jayne. Her favorite American writers come from the Transcendentalist movement and she taught a class on them at Round Top Center for the Arts Kay studied literature at Bard College and Environmental Studies at Southampton College of Long Island University.
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