ABSTRACT
Today’s classroom, as it has derived from the schoolhouse of American tradition, is a window on a world dramatically changed from the rural America of its inception. As a device in rural society, the classroom served a vital need to extend the vision and understanding of a child from the several acres of his farm or village to the world of recorded knowledge and experience beyond. This made sense, and continues to make sense, under conditions that financially or practically prohibit the child’s movement from his personal world to the origins of that knowledge and experience. If society is to educate the whole child, a new school model is needed. “Educating the whole child” means the development of the body, mind, and spirit of the child in a social context which imparts to the child the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and awareness that he will need later as an imaginative, creative, and competent member of society.
