Jane Addams and Her Role in Education

Jane Addams was an American activist and social reformer who dedicated much of her life to helping impoverished communities have access to the same conditions that the upper-class lived with. She was the first American woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Born in 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois, Addams was born into a wealthy family. Despite that, she saw the social problems and discrepancies in the lack of opportunity for impoverished communities and women especially. In 1881, she graduated as the valedictorian of Rockford Female Seminary. She could not finish med school and, instead, toured Europe with her friend, Ellen Gates. There she was exposed to settlement houses, particularly Toynbee Hall. Taking that idea back to the states, they founded Hull House.

Hull House was founded in 1889 in Chicago. It provided housing for immigrants and their families. It originally supported European immigrants and later African-American and Latin-American communities as well. Hull House had a nursery school, an employment center, libraries, and many academic and non-academic classes. There were citizenship and English classes as well as art, music and literature classes. Additionally, political discussion groups, play performances, and public lectures were popular.

She believed that education was the foundation of democracy. All people, including the poor and women, should receive an education. Additionally, the education received should not be detached from the students’ lives, but rather, improve their lives by making knowledge of all kinds accessible. Education should happen outside of the classroom as well. Recognizing diversity as it was, she believed in teaching based on students’ experiences, backgrounds, and cultures. Earning an education in a diverse environment taught students more than just math or literature.

Studying early childhood education, she fostered an environment of learning that impacted the classroom as well as the community. Methods, such as persona dolls, taught children tolerance for others but inside and outside the classroom. Addams worked on social reforms because she knew children could not learn in poor living conditions. Hunger, abuse, violence, and crime all affected children’s education. For that reason she co-founded the Immigrants’ Protective League and the Juvenile Protective Association. Additionally, she supported the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Addams knew there was more than one way of education. Encouraging imagination and the arts as a way of learning, music, art, sports, and other recreational activities, called clubs, were essential to the education system she envisioned. She also believed that an obsession with academics would harm rather than help children. Children needed play time. They needed clubs and social interaction to further their ability to process and understand the knowledge presented to them and how it is applied to their lives in a way that makes them productive citizens.

Hull House became a place where Addams could practice her visions of education, visions that still influence the education system today.

By Sarahi