Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
'Fors Clavigera', The Young Women Of Whitelands College, And The Temptations Of Social History, Christopher Bischof
'Fors Clavigera', The Young Women Of Whitelands College, And The Temptations Of Social History, Christopher Bischof
History Faculty Publications
On the first of May each year from the 1880s onward the young women at Whitelands teacher training college in London celebrated by throwing to the wind the timetable that normally dictated how their every moment would be spent. Instead, they adorned the college in flowers, donned in white dresses, and spent the day dancing, singing, and reading poetry. The tradition of May Day helped to poke a hole in the rather dour institutional regimen of Whitelands, which opened the way for many smaller, everyday acts that gradually reworked the ethos of the college.
"A Home For Poets": The Emergence Of A Liberal Curriculum For Elementary Teachers In Victorian Britain, Christopher Bischof
"A Home For Poets": The Emergence Of A Liberal Curriculum For Elementary Teachers In Victorian Britain, Christopher Bischof
History Faculty Publications
In this article I explore student culture beyond the classroom to argue that there existed an informal liberal curriculum which embraced a general spirit of intellectualism and the pursuit of a wide range of knowledge dealing with the human condition and the state of society. I also offer a new reading of the formal curriculum at training colleges by examining the formal curriculum alongside student accounts of their experiences of it, student responses to assignments, commonly used textbooks, and educationalists’ discourses about teachers’ training. While acknowledging that the formal curriculum emphasized rote memorization and was narrow, I argue that there …