Northampton Association of Education and Industry & Biocitizen—linked
I’ve been writing a short biocultural history of Northampton, Massachusetts that will serve as the codex for all kinds of classes and presentations, and last night I came upon a text that filled me with joy. (“Codex” is a cool word btw: “ORIGIN late 16th cent. from Latin, literally ‘block of wood,’ later denoting a block split into leaves or tablets for writing on, hence a book”.)
This is from an account of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry written by a woman who described the education she received there:
Our teachers were people of original ideas on education; thoughtful, progressive, intellectual, somewhat unusual qualifications, then, for school teachers. The best remembered of them all were Mr. and Mrs. David Mack. All our teachers, however, were our friends and companions, and our schoolroom, very often, some lovely grove, or shady nook on the banks of the winding Mill River. We were taught botany wherever flowers grew, and we learned by object lessons many things that city children never knew unless in adult life their interest in some special pursuit brought them in close contact with nature. We traveled miles, climbed Mounts Holyoke and Tom in search of rare specimens of their flora, or minerals; anything, in fact, that our quick eyes could spy out from which our teachers could give us a new idea.
The italicized portion describes peripatetic, experiential environmental education—and forecasts the method and intent of Our Place!
This is where the people who formed the Northampton Education and Industry Association lived and worked
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