Bright Prospects

What is the difference between work and play in a young child’s education? At The Prospect School, education was a process of self-discovery. The school was inspired by three women friends and launched in 1965. This short film was made in 2019, but based on material and photographs from 1969.

After I taught there in 1968, I had returned to do a photo feature for the newspaper. The school administrator at the time was Marion Taylor, who also chaired the state Board of Education. “Anything new is suspicious,” she explained. “You have to keep proving yourself...” But the school’s goal wasn’t to make others change their approach to education. “We’re just trying to show that another approach can also work,” she said.

Although the school was young and evolving, the early results were already encouraging. Most students were unusually productive and original problem-solvers. On the other hand, the Prospect School also challenged the conventional categories. “Here we fight grade consciousness,” Taylor told me, “and allow the students to progress at their own rate. They’re unhappy when they’re not at school.”