Alice Moyer (1898-1980): A Woman Public School Teacher Views Progressive Education

Given the difficult of defining and comprehending progressive education (and in view of recent scholars' belief that the movement should be understood in context), this article seeks to shed light on progressive education through a historical case study. The subject is Alice Moyer (1898- 1980), a member of an under-researched group in the study of progressive education: women public school teachers. Moyer's teaching career spanned the years from 1917 to 1963, when public school teaching was a feminized occupation. She first taught at age 19 in a one-room rural school and subsequently worked in a village school district as well as larger consolidated systems in California and Oklahoma. Moyer attended normal school and received a baccalaureate degree in 1926 from the University of Oklahoma where she studied the Project Method under Ellsworth Collings, a former student of William Heard Kilpatrick. She published in the professional journal, "The Clearing House," and received an M. S. in Guidance from the University of Southern California in 1938. Moyer reported her professional experiences in a self-published memoir. This article will attempt to discern Alice Moyer's understanding of progressive education. It will show that she was a child-centered teacher who initially equated the "practice" of progressive education with what is widely regarded as the social efficiency strand of school reform.