DALTON PLAN. — Within the framework of pedagogical activism (v.), the system known as the Dalton Plan occupies a notable place. It was devised by Helen Parkhurst (b. 1889) after the end of the First World War (1920) and implemented in the town of Dalton, from which it takes its name. Following the principle of the active school, it grants the pupil the greatest possible freedom and fosters knowledge as an autonomous product of the pupil’s inner self.
The idea of “personalizing” instruction first arose in Parkhurst in 1904, when she was called upon to teach in a rural school of forty pupils of mixed ages; it grew stronger when, later, she came into contact with the thought of Montessori and Dewey. In the Dalton Plan, the annual school curriculum is divided into ten defined tasks (called “contracts”), each broken down into a certain number of work units (twenty for each month, corresponding to the actual number of school days), each unit covering various subjects. The pupil undertakes, in writing, to complete one of the ten tasks of his or her choice, and may not move on to a new one until the subject matter of the current one has been thoroughly mastered within the month. This is intended to prevent the pupil from neglecting subjects he or she dislikes, which would gravely harm his or her overall development—a development that must also arise from the necessity of facing and overcoming obstacles. When the plan is applied to the entire school, the school is transformed into laboratories under the direction of specialized teachers. The number of laboratories equals the number of subjects: history, geography, philosophy, language, mathematics, and science. Each laboratory is equipped with all the materials relevant to the discipline it houses: filing cabinets, bibliographic resources, maps, atlases, apparatus, journals, books, and so on. The pupil works freely within the laboratory, conducting research as desired. Guidance on the various tasks indicates the exercises, research, and readings the pupil must undertake. When the pupil believes he or she has fulfilled the task (contract), he or she presents himself or herself to the teacher, who examines the completed work units. The progress of each pupil and of the group as a whole is recorded on charts. Each pupil has a personal folder in which teachers note the progress and units completed. The head of the laboratory also maintains a chart on which pupils’ programs are represented graphically. When several pupils reach the same level, it may be time to hold a common lesson. In the Dalton Plan, as seen in these possibilities for common lessons, collective instruction is not abolished; it is maintained within the classroom itself outside the laboratories. Parkhurst, who had initially minimized collective instruction, later recognized the need to give it greater scope and value.
In the Dalton Plan, there are no end-of-year promotions or report cards. Advancement to a higher class occurs when the pupil demonstrates that he or she has fulfilled the contract, that is, when he or she has attained the level of formation required for admission to the next class. This, of course, respects the psychological principle that formation is individual rather than collective, and while it is achieved in one pupil, it may be delayed in another or begin later.
The Dalton Plan has enjoyed considerable success in various countries, though it has undergone modifications to suit local conditions. Systems based on the Dalton Plan include: J. Mackinder’s system in the school of Macborough, Chelsea (England); the Howard Plan, adopted at Clapton in a secondary school for girls by Mrs. O’Brien Harris; in the Netherlands, the Kennemer Stelsel; in Germany, the Jena Plan of P. Peterson (cf. E. Planchard, *La pédagogie contemporaine*, Rome, Tournai-Paris 1948).
The success of the Dalton Plan is undoubtedly to be attributed more to certain external elements, such as laboratories equipped with all the materials necessary for research and study, and the replacement of class lessons with individual instruction. However, the plan reveals an insufficient and flawed aspect when it neglects the school as a social moment, as a community, reducing it instead to an aggregate of pupils who, isolated from one another, end up stifling the very personality that one seeks to promote—the individuality that is best formed and refined through relationships among pupils and between pupil and teacher. A system like this severs the educational relationship and, by centering the entire school on the pupil, isolates him or her from the teacher—that living example whose presence and authority the child always feels the need of.