PARKHURST, HELEN

born March 7, 1887, Durand, Wis., U.S. died June 1, 1973, New Milford, Conn. American educator, author and lecturer who devised the Dalton Laboratory Plan and founded the Dalton School. Parkhurst graduated from Wisconsin State Teachers College in 1907, did graduate work at Columbia University, and studied at the universities of Rome and Munich and with Maria Montessori. Much later (1943), she earned a master's degree in education at Yale. She taught again briefly in Wisconsin, then moved to Tacoma, Wash. (191011), where she conceived what came to be the Dalton Plan. She returned to teach at Wisconsin Central State Teachers College (191214) and, after further work with Montessori, set up her own school in New York City in 1916. She had developed an experimental plan for the high school in Dalton, Mass., and drew on it for her New York school, which she conducted on a contractual basis with her students. Pupils worked in laboratory brigades on specific assignments for which they contracted. There were no tests or examinations, and external discipline was minimal. As they worked on assignments, students submitted progress reports to teachers. Parkhurst remained headmistress of New York's Dalton School until her retirement in 1942. Over the final three decades of her life she lectured throughout the world, wrote books, and produced radio and television shows for and about young people. Her books included Education on the Dalton Plan (1922), Work Rhythms in Education (1935), and Exploring the Child's World (1951).