Bank Street Approach
Lucy Sprague Mitchell
In 1918:
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Children were seen and not heard 
All schooling was teacher directed 
Teaching was drilling 
Preschool education had not been
researched 
• And then along came LUCY !!!
LUCY SPRAGUE MITCHELL
• The first Dean of Women at UC/Berkley.
• A friend and admirer of John Dewey.
• Dedicated to developing a new kind of
education that would help build a more
rational, humane world.
Teamed with Carol Pratt, Harriet Johnson,
and Elizabeth Irwin to change thinking
about how children learn.
Bureau of Education
Experiments
• Began in 1916 by L.S. Mitchell with a grant
given to her by her cousin
• Staffed by a physician, social workers,
teachers
• It’s objective was to study children in as
free an atmosphere as possible!
• A Nursery School was opened in 1918.
WOW!!!
HOW WAS BANK STREET
DIFFERENT?
Free expression in clay, paint and drawing
was encouraged.
Field trips to interesting places around the
city, such as the zoo or a bridge.
Children were encouraged to inquire about
their world.
The language of children was studied.
Teachers were constantly reassessing and
self reflecting to improve their pedagogy.
“LIVELY INTELLECTUAL
CURIOSITIES TURN THE WORLD
INTO AN EXCITING LABORATORY
AND KEEPS ONE EVER A LEARNER.”
L.S.MITCHELL
• Mrs. Mitchell studied children’s language for
many years. She published her first book “Here
and Now” in 1921 and it became an all-time best
seller. This led her to develop the Bank Street
Writer’s Laboratory in 1937 to do the work of
writing for and about children. This was the
first step in the Bureau’s effort to improve the
quality of children’s literature – and that effort
continues today! For example…
Little Golden Books, affordable/ marketed to mass
market/children feel ownership.
Bank Street Readers- multi ethnic urban basal
readers first published in 1965 and 1966. It was
the first of its kind and entered the schools
dominated by “Dick and Jane”.
Preprimer readers- In the City and People Read.
Bank Street Writers Laboratory-developing writers
such as Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon)
and Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are)
69 Bank Street became a place of
metamorphosis in early childhood
education.
• Lucy Sprague Mitchell was a visionary
who sought to improve the education
of children and thus their teachers
through research about early
development and cognition. In so
doing, she sought to improve the
human condition and society as a
whole.
•I
LUCY!
• AND BANK STREET!
End notes….
• I attended “nursery school” in 1959-60 in NYC – almost
certainly modeled on Bank Street Approach. This is what
piqued my interest in this model. In addition, the impact
that Bank Street has had on education and early childhood
learning as a whole, teaching us as educators to WATCH
children and to LEARN from children impresses me greatly.
Bank Street continues to be a laboratory for teachers, now
serving as a college and graduate school for educators. It is
an excellent resource for continuing education. Teachers
from all over the world continue to flock to it’s present
headquarters to learn the latest and finest in pedagogy.
• For more information go to www.bankstreet.edu