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1970: Bank Street Leaves Bank Street
The day had long since arrived when the Fleischman's Yeast building on
Bank Street could no longer answer the needs of an educational facility
of national significance, now in its second half-century of service. Reluctantly,
in 1970, Bank Street left the street that had given the school its name
and so much more. A new facility was built on West 112th Street, in the
heart of Manhattan's Upper West Side educational community.
The address of the College had changed, but not its drive toward innovation.
In 1972, the New Perspectives program of weekend graduate courses was
launched to attract new students, to provide teaching opportunities for
faculty and practitioners from other parts of the country, and to experiment
with new courses. Since then, many thousands of students have come to
Bank Street for one-and two-weekend courses in early childhood and elementary
education, parenting and parent education, special education, supervision
and administration, and computers in education.
In 1976, a concept old to Bank Street had a new beginning in 50,000 wooded
acres of Harriman Park, part of the Palisades Interstate Park. Bank Street's
Tiorati Workshop helps teachers learn how to integrate the natural environment
with work in the language, musical, and visual arts and in the social,
physical, and mathematical sciences. This study of the environment is
simply an extension of the concept of the community as classroom. Since
its founding, hundreds of teachers and thousands of school children have
participated in Tiorati's programs. Tiorati continues today, with classes
for children and teachers in Harriman Park, at Bank Street, and in public
schools.
Also in 1976, a Graduate School program in Museum Education began to
train a group of new professionals who were comfortable and qualified
to work in both museums, with their ever-expanding educational function,
and in classrooms. Later, Museum Leadership and Museum Special Education
programs were added. Today, graduates of the programs are on the staff
of nearly every major museum in the country. Bank Street also started
an Infant and Parent Development program to meet the need for broadly
trained professionals to work with infants and toddlers and their parents.
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 mandated education
"in the least restrictive environment" for children with special educational
needs. The inclusion of these children in regular classrooms required
a reconceptualization of teacher education and practice, and this became
an important part of the work of Bank Street faculty. Faculty members
are still working actively to foster inclusion in the public schools,
and Bank Street now offers graduate degree programs in Special Education,
Bilingual Special Education, and dual degree programs in social work with
both Columbia University and Hunter College.
In the 1970s, Bank Street staff also managed the Parent/ Child Development
Center Project, a national program to study and replicate exemplary centers
for mothers and their young children, infants to age three. Staff worked
closely with centers in New Orleans, LA, Houston, TX, and Birmingham,
AL.
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