) aaa

PATTERNS OF WORKERS’ EDUCATION

 

Secondly, the schools have recruited students from all branches of unionism
and from all over the country. Men and women with different views, desiring
to become labor leaders, union organizers, and teachers of workers have come
together. Exchange of ideas has been stimulated. The schools have offered
winter and summer courses to those workers who have vacations at different
times during the year. Institutes and conferences also have been sponsored.

Brookwood Labor College sent students into communities at the close of a
session as teachers and as members of Chautauquas. Commonwealth and
Highlander Schools have become social and -educational centers for their
environs. Through extension work, more distant groups have been aided in
the development of local classes, and for these groups pamphlets and study |
outlines have been prepared.

Curricula and methods of the schools are similar to content and approach
emphasized by the older trade unions. Subjects studied during the resident
period are designed to further the labor movement along all fronts, economic,
political, cooperative, and educational. “Classroom education” and “training
for service” have been emphasized at the resident center; “mass education”
and “functional activity” in the community programs and extension service.

Another group of schools, the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women
Workers in Industry, the Wisconsin School for Workers, the Southern Sum-
mer School for Workers, the Summer School for Office Workers, and the
Pacific Coast School for Workers, were inaugurated primarily to provide
summer periods of study.* Since their initiation, they have extended their
scope and now help coordinate their work not only through a resident pro-
gram but also through an extension service, set up principally for alumni.
Committees which recruit for the institutions are comprised of representatives
of organized labor, alumni, educators, representatives of diverse community
organizations, and individuals generally interested in workers. Uniform re-
quirements for admission to the schools include a minimum of sixth to eighth
gtade education and two years’ experience in industry. Applicants must
prove that they are concerned with workers’ problems, by being active in local
organizations and affiliated with the labor movement.” 4

*To this chapter, the Bryn Mawr Summer School (now the Hudson Shore Labor 3
School) will not be discussed, since Part II is devoted to it entirely. Therefore reference d
will be made hereafter to four institutions. 1

E. G. Coit and A. Hourwich, “The Affiliated Schools for Workers,” Bulletin Eight ;
of the World Association for Adult Education, London, 1937.

58