About the School

The Bank Street College of Education began as a research group called the Bureau of Educational Experiments in 1916. This occurred during an era when people believed that children were to be seen and not heard, and education usually consisted of a female teacher in front of the class, lecturing or conducting drills. Yet, certain educators and feminists in New York City, such as Harriet Johnson, Caroline Pratt, Elizabeth Irwin, and Lucy Sprague Mitchell, questioned whether schools had to be that way. They were influenced by the revolutionary educator, John Dewey, who believed that a new and different approach to education could change society. He thought that children could grow up to become accomplished thinkers and rational contributors to a democratic society if they were encouraged to inquire actively about experiences that related the outside world to the classroom. Lucy Sprague Mitchell was the first Dean of Women at the University of California at Berkeley. She was "tired of working in an academic ivory tower with golden domes, but no firm foundations. I wanted to mix cement and sharp stones and build an educational foundation which would develop people with live thinking and feelings." She presented her educational ideas to a wealthy cousin who was willing to fund a research group that would develop new theories of child education. And so, in 1916, the Bureau of Educational Experiments was born. The staff included a doctor, psychologists, a social worker and teachers.

At first, its central pursuit was research: to study child development and to discover ways that children learn best and to publish their findings. It soon became apparent to the hard-working researchers at the Bureau that they needed their own group of children in a school setting where they could be studied with as few restrictions as possible. In 1918, the Bureau developed its second division, a nursery school in a series of houses on West 12th and West 13th Streets, which eventually evolved into Bank Street's School for Children. Harriet Johnson directed the nursery school, whose graduates continued their education right next door at Caroline Pratt's City and Country School. Since its earliest beginnings the School for Children also functioned as an education laboratory or workshop, where researchers and teachers worked together. During those early years, Lucy Sprague Mitchell recorded and collected children's remarks and the stories they told. She concluded that children's natural expressions reflect their sensory awareness and understanding of their world. One of the results of Lucy Mitchell's work was the "Here and Now Story Book" for children. Published in 1921, it became a best-seller. It was followed by many other publications which appealed to children's curiosity and imagination about the world. From 1916 to 1929 the Bureau and Nursery School continued to grow as it attracted more and more teachers who wanted to undergo this special training in early childhood education. In 1930, the Bureau had the opportunity to expand when it acquired the old Fleishman's yeast factory at 69 Bank Street. The Nursery School began adding elementary grades as the years went on. (This culminated in the graduation of its first class of eighth-graders in 1967.) At this new location, there was also space for a school to train teachers. With the beginning of this school, the Cooperative School for Teachers, the Bureau's ongoing and informal process of training teachers became more formal and the advisement process was developed.

After its move to Bank Street, the Bureau continued publishing the results of its research. Under the leadership of Barbara Biber, a psychologist and educator, researchers such as Edna Shapiro combined theory with practice as they worked with teachers on understanding and planning for children's cognitive and emotional development. Drawing on their own experience as well as the work of others, these researchers articulated an educational program and philosophy called the developmental interaction point of view. It focused on the stages of growth as children interacted with social, emotional, intellectual and physical forces in the external environment and in the internal world of the psyche. As these researchers continued to publish their findings, other staff members began developing children's books. In 1937, the Bank Street Writer's Laboratory was formed to encourage writers to create children's books that reflected the interests and needs of children at various stages of their development. In 1965, Bank Street's concern with equality of education led to the development and publication of the "Bank Street Readers." The first readers to feature the multi-racial and urban people of our contemporary culture, they were in marked contrast to the stereotypes used in other children's books at that time. In the 1960's, the Bank Street faculty helped to create the federal Head Start program, and later became one of the major sponsors of Head Start's Follow Through program in elementary schools around the country. By 1970, the original Bank Street building could no longer meet the needs of this rapidly growing institution. So, on West 112th Street, an old building was demolished, and a new building to house the Bank Street College of Education was erected in the heart of Manhattan's upper west side educational community. The address of the College changed, but not its commitment to educational innovation and improvement for all children. The original Bureau's tiny nursery school, which existed primarily as a child study laboratory, has evolved into today's elementary and junior high school, with an enrollment of 430 children. An infant and family center and an after-school program are now meeting the needs of working parents of infants, toddlers and young children. The infant and family center and the SFC still serve as training and demonstration centers in the college and are often chosen as sites for the evaluation of educational materials.