Avery Coonley

The Avery Coonley School (ACS), commonly called Avery Coonley, is an independent, coeducational day school serving academically gifted students in preschool through eighth grade (approximately ages 3 to 14), and is located in Downers Grove, DuPage County, Illinois. The school was founded in 1906 to promote the progressive educational theories developed by John Dewey and other turn-of-the-20th-century philosophers, and was a nationally recognized model for progressive education well into the 1940s. From 1943 to 1965, Avery Coonley was part of the National College of Education (now National Louis University), serving as a living laboratory for teacher training and educational research. In the 1960s, ACS became a regional research center and a leadership hub for independent schools, and began to focus on the education of the gifted.

The school has occupied several structures in its history, including a small cottage on the Coonley Estate in Riverside, Illinois, and another building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It moved to Downers Grove in 1916 and became the Avery Coonley School in 1929, with a new campus designed in the Prairie and Arts and Crafts styles, landscaped by Jens Jensen, who was known as "dean of the world's landscape architects". The campus has been expanded several times since the 1980s to create more space for arts, technology, and classrooms. Avery Coonley was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, citing the "long-lasting influence on schools throughout the country" of the educational program and the design of the building and grounds.

The progressive legacy is still evident in the modern curriculum, which retains many traditions and educational activities dating back to the beginning of the school. Students work a minimum of one year above their current grade level, and explore broad themes allowing them to learn across subjects and engage in creative and collaborative projects, using instructional technology extensively. Opportunities to build on classroom studies are offered through a range of extracurricular activities. Admission is competitive and an IQ score of at least 124 is required. ACS is notable for its record of success in academic competitions at the state and national levels in mathematics, science, geography, and other subjects. ACS was recognized as a Blue Ribbon School by the United States Department of Education in 1988. Avery Coonley attracted national media attention in 1994 when the school was banned from competition in the Illinois State Science Fair after winning for the fourth year in a row. Although the decision was later reversed, the controversy was decried by the press as an example of the "dumbing down" of education and the victory of self-esteem over excellence in schools.

History

Founding and Cottage School (1906–1916)

In 1906, Queene Ferry Coonley, wife of wealthy Riverside industrialist and publisher Avery Coonley, decided to start a kindergarten program to allow children younger than five years old to attend. Queene Coonley was trained as a social worker and kindergarten teacher at the Detroit Normal School (now Wayne State University) and was impressed by the theories of Friedrich Fröbel, who believed children's early education should be an extension of their lives at home. Fröbel's theories captured the three main principles of what John Dewey would later call the "kindergarten attitude", which applied not just to kindergartners but to children of all ages. Dewey wrote that the primary role of the school is to train children in cooperative living, the root of all learning is the activity of the child and not external material, and directing children's spontaneous impulses towards maintaining the collective life of the school is how they become prepared for adult life. Convinced of these principles, Coonley sought to enroll her four-year-old daughter in the Riverside School, one of the few public kindergartens in the area, but was disappointed when the child was not eligible because she had not yet turned five.

Coonley persuaded the director of the Riverside program, Lucia Burton Morse, and her assistant, Charlotte Krum, to help launch a new school. Morse and Krum had attended Elizabeth Harrison's Kindergarten College, which "championed the concept of kindergarten teaching in America and was one of the first teacher's colleges in the country to offer a four-year program culminating in the bachelor of education degree". There they had studied the educational theories of John Dewey and others, who stood opposed to the more traditional pedagogical practices of the day, which saw education as the business of transmitting long-standing bodies of information to new generations and inculcating moral training based on rules and standards of conduct. Their new progressive views of education emphasized an individualized approach to education and an integrated curriculum where children learned from experience and social interaction. According to Dewey, "it is a cardinal precept of the newer school of education that the beginning of instruction shall be made with the experience learners already have; that this experience and the capacities that have been developed during its course provide the starting point for all further learning." These ideas laid the foundations of what would become the "progressive movement" in education. Coonley, Morse, and Krum brought these ideas with them to the new school, which Coonley described as "a Children's Community. Its purpose was not so much to teach what others had thought or grown-ups had done, but for the children themselves to do something."

A small cottage on the Coonley estate served as the first school building, reflected by its original name, the Cottage School. The designer was Charles Whittlesey, who had apprenticed under Louis Sullivan. The estate's main building, the Avery Coonley House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is now a National Historic Landmark. Over the years, many of the estate's buildings would be pressed into use as classrooms and residences for teachers. As new grades were added the school grew, and in 1911 Coonley commissioned Wright to design a larger space for the students. The new building was completed in 1912 and became known as the Coonley Playhouse, and featured dozens of brightly colored art glass windows, evoking flags, balloons, and confetti in what Wright referred to as a "kinder-symphony". "Their bright primary colors and lively geometric designs make them some of Wright's most famous windows."

Two years of kindergarten were offered, beginning at age four, and students progressed through to first grade with other students their age. The Cottage School was free to all students, and was supported both by Coonley's own resources and funds raised by the Kindergarten Education Association. The Association, of which Coonley was president, promoted new educational ideas and raised money to help support them. In 1915, John Dewey and his daughter Evelyn featured the Cottage School in their book, ''The Schools of To-Morrow'', which examined how progressive schools around the country put new educational ideas into action. They were especially struck by how prominently nature featured in school life, noting that:

ey have, for example, a rare bird that is as much a personality in school life as any of the children, and the children, having cared for him and watched his growth and habits, have become much more interested in wild birds. In the backyard is a goat, the best liked thing on the place, where the children have raised him from a little kid; and they still do all the work of caring for him.

The Deweys held the Cottage School as an example of training in good citizenship, commenting on its mock elections, self-government, and public service: "The school organized by the pupils into a civic league has made itself responsible for the conditions of the streets in certain portions of town, and is not only cleaning up but trying to get the rest of the town interested in the problem." The teaching of English was also noted, as it was not taught as a separate subject but as part of history lessons, journal-keeping, and other exercises. Dewey wrote, "The emphasis is put on helping the child to express his ideas; but such work provides ample opportunity for the required drill in the mechanics of writing."

Junior Elementary School (1916–1929)

At the same time the Playhouse was built, Coonley agreed to build a kindergarten in the nearby town of Downers Grove, which did not have a public school. Coonley purchased land on Grove Street and commissioned the architectural firm of Perkins, Fellows & Hamilton to design the building. The school, led by Lucia Morse, was launched as the Kindergarten Extension Association School in 1912. In 1916, the Cottage School was closed and a first grade program was launched at the Downers Grove kindergarten, which was renamed the Junior Elementary School. To accommodate older students, a second grade class was added in 1920 for students around seven years old, a third grade in 1926 for eight-year-olds, and a fourth grade for nine-year-old students shortly thereafter.

The Coonleys moved to Washington, D.C. in 1916, and while Queene continued to devote her time and money, she left the day-to-day direction of the school to Morse. Under her direction, the Junior Elementary School built upon the educational foundations established at the Cottage School, with its focus on the active participation of the students. Drama, music, and dance were important parts of the curriculum, and nature study remained an integral component of students' activities. These ideas, and nature study in particular, were largely the creation of Colonel Francis Wayland Parker, whom John Dewey once referred to as "the father of progressive education". The Junior Elementary School was a proving ground for these principles, which called for a new way of relating to students, allowing them to freely experience their lessons on their own terms. No distinction was made between boys' and girls' activities, which included gardening, carpentry, and cooking. Coonley recalled that " had boys and girls. We made no distinction, boys and girls cooked, boys and girls did carpenter work, boys and girls took an equal part in all matters of government." Students re-enacted history and literature, composed their own music, and spent much of their time outdoors. In 1924, Coonley and Morse helped found a journal entitled ''Progressive Education'', in which they published their own practical experiences at the school, accompanied by articles written by leading educational theorists, including John Dewey. It became the leading professional journal of the progressive education movement and was published until 1957.

Avery Coonley School (1929–1960s)

Enrollment continued to grow, and a second building was added to the Junior Elementary School campus in the late 1920s, but still larger facilities were deemed necessary to accommodate future growth and additional grade levels. Coonley chose a wooded tract in Downers Grove, adjacent to the Maple Grove Forest Preserve, as the site for the new building, and her son-in-law, Waldron Faulkner, became the architect of the new building project. Over one hundred students attended school in the opened building on September 30, 1929, and it was renamed The Avery Coonley School, in honor of Coonley's late husband, who had died in 1920. Coonley chose an unusual mascot to represent the ideals of the school. She felt a seahorse was an example of a unique creature who was also a member of a larger community—an analogy for her vision for Avery Coonley. The seahorse swims upright, from which derives the school motto: "Onward and Upward", and representations of seahorses are reflected in decorative ironwork and the weather vane on the 1929 building.

Progressive education, a pedagogy promoting learning through real-life experiences, was at its zenith in the United States in the 1920s and 30s, and the Avery Coonley School was a widely known model of these theories in action. Avery Coonley was featured regularly in ''Progressive Education'' and other professional journals,Brown, Finn and Brown 1988, p. 22. and in 1938, the editor of ''Progressive Education,'' Gertrude Hartman, published a profile of the Avery Coonley School in her book ''Finding Wisdom: Chronicles of a School of Today''. She noted, " sitors from all parts of the United States and from foreign countries ame
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