Leading Adult and Community Educators

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Leading Adult and Community Educators – Group 1

Janice Miller, Joseph Morris, Ross Reynolds, and Frances Robinson

EDAC 631 - Ball State University

October 5, 2014

Profile

“Cora Wilson Stewart (1875-1958) was born in Farmers, Kentucky.  Her parents were Dr. Jeremiah Wilson and Ann Halley Wilson.  She was one of 12 children.  Cora attended Morehead Normal School (later Morehead State University) and the University of Kentucky.  She taught school in Rowan County.  She was married and divorced three times (twice to the same man, Mr. Alexander Thomas Stewart).  Their only child, William, died at age 4 in 1908.  She was an accomplished photographer and many of her photos are of Rowan County.  They can be viewed online at the University of Kentucky” (Hamilton, unknown)  Hamilton, S., USGenWeb Archives. Retrieved from usgwarchives: www.usgwarchives.net.

From the time of Ms. Stewart’s birth in 1875, and into her early adulthood, the following events had a large impact on life in Kentucky:  “1875:  First Kentucky Derby, 1891:  Present state constitution adopted, 1892:  Kentuckian Nathan Stubblefield invented radio, 1900:  Over 1,500 civilians took control of the Capitol for 2 weeks; governor declared martial law and activated Kentucky militia; Governor William Goebel shot by assassin.” (Frederick-Phillips, Dr., unknown)  Frederick-Phillips, Dr., World Atlas.  Retrieved from world atlas: www.worldatlas.com.   During the same time period, there were notable societal landmark events occurring in the U.S.  The industrial revolution had begun, immigrants poured into the country in record numbers, seeds of the labor movement and the women’s movement had been sewn, President McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Orville and Wilbur Wright completed their first flight in 1903, Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, World War I erupts in 1916, and 

The 18^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, which ushered in the era of Prohibition from 1920-1933.  (Bak, 2003) Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire. Bak, R. In Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire (pp. 54-63). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Perspective

The research on Cora Wilson Stewart will be interpreted from a Celebrationist History (paying tribute to an individual/institution…illustrating major milestones and accomplishments), a Narrative History (adding the how and what behind the facts, but not the why), and a Critical History (the retelling of a story from a particular perspective).  (Brockett, 1997) Brockett, R.G. and Merriam, Sharan B., The Practice of Adult Education (pp.63-66), San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass.  Research indicates that the methods and theories used by Ms. Stewart closely align with that of John Dewey, who is viewed as the father of Progressive and Pragmatic philosophies of education, and scholars such as C.R. Rogers, who combined Pragmatic/Progressive theories into Humanism-based practices.   “Dewey maintained that education may best be delivered by focusing on the learner and their needs and experiences.  Rogers added that adults are typically internally motivated and therefore can make decisions about educational content, instructional method, and evaluation.  Both scholars believed that teachers were more effective as facilitators of learning, rather than the ultimate authority on learning.” (Brockett R. a., 1997)  Brockett, R.G. and Merriam, Sharan B., The Practice of Adult Education (pp.33-41), San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass.   Ms. Stewart’s work appears to support the theory that by educating the individual you also improve quality of life for society as a whole.   

Contributions

Cora’s professional work began in earnest when she began her teaching career just after college when “she was elected to the position of School Superintendent of Rowan County schools in 1901, at the age of 26.  Cora founded the Moonlight School movement in Rowan County, Kentucky, on September 5, 1911, to educate adult illiterates during the evenings.  Since Cora had contact with all of the Teachers in the county, she became keenly aware that there were mothers who could not write to children – grown and living in other states, mothers who could not read the letters they received, and who walked miles to bring these letters to Miss Cora to open and answer for them.” (Hamilton, unknown)  Hamilton, S., USGenWeb Archives. Retrieved from usgwarchives: www.usgwarchives.net. “Teachers volunteered their time to teach at the schools and Cora wrote the texts, called The Country Life Readers.  The schools were named the Moonlight Schools as initially, classes were only held on moonlit nights (so rural dwellers could find their way to and from school in the dark).  1200 people, ranging in age from 18 to 86, showed up at the 50 schools that first moonlit night.”  (Stewart, 1922) Stewart, C., Moonlight Schools, NY: E.P. Dutton & Co.  The Moonlight Movement became the model for adult education and quickly spread from the hills of Eastern Kentucky to neighboring Alabama, South Carolina, and Louisiana.  Cora was a delegate to the 1920 Democratic National Convention and she received a nomination for President of the United States.  President Herbert Hoover designated her as the Chairperson of his Commission on Illiteracy from 1929 – 1933.”  (Benschoten, 1931)  Benschoten, M., Retrieved from Kentucky Explorer Magazine www.kentuckystewarts.com/WilliamG/CoraStory.htm.  

Impact

In order to access the benefits of our democracy, people must have a command of basic educational skills.  For decades, citizens who could not read were not eligible to vote.  Through 

Her work to fight illiteracy, Cora Wilson Stewart and the Moonlight Movement opened the door for thousands of Americans to realize their potential and raise their standard of living.  Stewart’s work illustrates a willingness to meet the learner where they are.  She used her collaborative skills to involve illiterate adult learners with volunteer schoolteachers to raise the fundamental education standard for individuals and for communities across the United States.  Her method of including family members and community leaders fostered a nonthreatening environment so that her new instructional techniques could be employed.  Ms. Stewart successfully exhibits the effectiveness of teaching adults through non-formal means.  While she set the structure of learning from the top-down, learners came to the school of their own free will to be educated in a rather informal matter – where the shame of being illiterate was eliminated.  

Implications

Cora Wilson-Stewart’s work in education provided the footprints and the foundation for pioneers such as Myles Horton of the Highlander School.  Horton would train grass-roots community leaders so that they could return to their communities and educate adults, which enabled large-scale changes in society.    We can apply the methods of Stewart’s work in the way we collaborate with our peers and design our adult education programs for the betterment of the individual learner and our communities as a whole.

THE LIFE AND VISION OF MYLES HORTON

July 9, 1905 to January 19, 1990

Time Period and Background:

There are two significant time periods to research in the life of Myles Horton.  First, his personal time line, and second, the timeline of Highlander Research and Education Center.  Because Mr. Horton’s life was so deeply tied to Highlander, they are intertwined.

Myles Horton: 

Myles Horton was born on January 5, 1905 in a log cabin in Savannah, Tennessee.  Although not formally educated, Horton’s parents were schoolteachers.  He was of Scottish descent and was raised in a home that was deeply rooted in faith.  Their faith was the old-time “primitive Christianity” which was simple and had clear ideas of right and wrong.

In 1905, Eastern Tennessee was experiencing chronic poverty.   The Horton family was very poor, but they were a proud family with a high value on education and service.  Horton stated:  “From my mother and father I learned the idea of service and the value of education.  They taught me by their actions that you are supposed to serve your fellow men, you’re supposed to do something worthwhile with your life, and education is meant to help others.” (Horton, page 2)

  Myles Horton began his formal post-secondary education at Cumberland University, a small church run school in Lebanon, Tennessee.  He attended Cumberland from 1924 to 1928 and continued his studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.  Here he was exposed to radical Christian socialism.  He studied under Reinhold Niebuhr, who believed that society must be reformed to achieve “a social order based on the religion of Jesus.” 

Horton also studied Sociology at the University of Chicago where he created his concept of problem-centered education programming.

Horton was further influenced during his service as President of the Student YMCA and first met blacks and international students at a state conference in Nashville in 1927.  This was his first introduction to Jim Crow laws.  He also studied rural adult education schools in Denmark that were started in the 19^th Century by Danish Lutheran Bishop, N.F.F. Grundtvig.

The Setting:

While Horton was receiving his education, the life of the common family in Appalachia grew even worse.   The stock market crashed in 1929, banks closed and mining became increasingly dangerous due to lack of regulations and a glut of coal.  People were hungry and desperate to find a solution to chronic poverty.   This was also the year that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected the 32^nd President of the United States.  

The miners who tried to organize in Appalachia were often the targets of violence from the coal barons. It has been said that there was war and bloodshed in the coalfields.   Roosevelt’s New Deal helped support labor organization, but there was still a gap in organization techniques.

It was in this economic and cultural climate that the Highlander Folk Center began in Grundy County, Tennessee.   Founded in 1932 by Myles Horton and educator Don West, the original focus was working with the progressive labor movement.  By the late 1930’s, Highlander served as the de-facto CIO education center for the region.

Highlander was at the forefront of the civil rights movement.  It was the first education institute in the south to integrate and held its first integrated workshop in 1944.

In the 1950’s and 60’s, Highlander was an extremely important incubator for the Civil Rights movement.  

Profile:

Myles Horton lived the life of an activist from childhood.  He said of his childhood teachers: “I didn’t respect them because I thought they were killing all the creativity, I became very critical of the way things were done.” (Horton and Friere page 28).

He also had a profound respect for the individual and saw them as the center of learning.  He first practiced this when he was running Bible Schools for the Presbyterian Sunday School Board in Ozone, Tennessee.  This was a desperately poor area and Horton saw that teaching Bible School was not meeting their needs.  He began to let them teach him what they needed and began to hold evening education classes.  

Myles was a man of faith, as many of the early activists in the Civil Rights movement.  His was a radical Christianity of change and held strongly to non-violent methods of resistance.

Perspectives:

Horton practiced liberating education.  He believed that education is tied to people’s struggles against oppression.  For example, he attributed the success of the first Citizenship School in Sea Island, South Carolina to this practice.  The School taught literacy, not just so people good read and write, but so they could vote.

His principles closely align with other adult educators such as Malcolm Knowles.  1) Start where people are, where they say they are, not where we think they are; 2) Participation in decision making is educative; 3) A belief that people can do things for themselves; 

Contributions:

Myles Horton is a prime example of how one person can make a difference.   His contributions to the Civil Rights movement alone are legendary, including the conversation about nonviolence.  He was asked about the future of non-violence by Phi Delta Kappa magazine in May of 1966.  Myles stated, “Education per se is non-violent.” (p. 148)

According to the same article, the idea of the “sit-in” was originated by workshop participants at Highlander (p. 149).  Many of the leading Civil Rights organizations members either attended or taught at Highlander including SCLS, COFO, SNCC and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.  The 1964 Freedom Summer Project, which was designed to register as many African Americans as possible in Mississippi, was launched at a Highlander workshop in Greenville.

Impact:

Just the names Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. mean impact.  Ms. Parks was trained at Highlander prior to her historic role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  In 1957, King attended a weekend event in honor of Highlander's 25th anniversary.   The FBI attended secretly and took pictures.  One of these photos later appeared in a Georgia pamphlet with the title “Highlander Folk School: Communist Training School.”

There are two significant quotes from article.  The first: “Here is the fellow, more than anyone else, who is responsible for the civil rights movement in the South.”  The other quotes were from Rosa Parks “He’s the only white man the Negroes fully trust.” 150

Zilphia Horton, first wife of Myles Horton, promoted music and dance.  One of the largest contributions from the world of music at Highlander is “We Shall Overcome.”  The civil rights anthem was adapted from a gospel song by Zilphia, from the singing of striking tobacco factory workers in South Carolina in 1946.  Peter Seeger then published the song in the People’s Songs bulletin and the rest is history. 

http://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/216482943/the-inspiring-force-of-we-shall-overcome

Implications:

Many have not heard of Myles Horton or the Highlander Research and Education Center, possibly because there was never a search for recognition.   Mr. Horton hesitated when documentary film maker, Lucy Massie Phenix, encouraged him to participate in a series of interviews with Bill Moyers.  Ms. Phenix convinced him of the greater good of these interviews and in 1982, Bill Moyers aired a two hour show entitled “The Adventures of a Radical Hillbilly.”

Other recognition hav come, including Horton’s book “The Long Haul” winning the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award posthumously.  And in 1982, Highlander was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Of all of these tributes, the strongest factor that produces long term implications is that Highlander has just celebrated its 75^th Anniversary.  And they are true to their mission as this statement exemplifies

“Highlander serves as a catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement building in Appalachia and the South. We work with people fighting for justice, equality and sustainability, supporting their efforts to take collective action to shape their own destiny.”

Summary of Leading Adult Educators

	Myles Horton	Cora Wilson Stewart
Time Period	1905-1990	1875-1958
Profile	Married, Scottish descent who was a man of faith “primitive Christianity.” Studied at Cumberland University, Union Theological, and University of Chicago; President of the Student YMCA; Founded Highlander Folk Center	One of 12 children; Married three times; studied at Morehead State University and University of Kentucky; School Superintendent of Rowan County Schools;
Background	Education and Activist	Education
Contributions	Highlander Folk Center worked as a progressive labor movement; served as the de-facto CIO education for the region; forefront of the civil rights movements 1950’s and 1960’s; held its first integrated workshop in 1944; “We shall Overcome” originated from the music of Highlander.	Founded the Moonlight School movement in 1911; it became the model for adult education; spread from the Hills of Eastern Kentucky to Alabama, South Carolina, and Louisiana; Moonlight movement opened the door for thousands of Americans to realize their potential and raise their standard of living.
Impact	Rosa Parks was trained at Highlander prior to Montgomery Bus Boycott.  In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King and FBI attended 25th anniversary event at Highlander. (Picture displayed in Georgia Pamphlet).	Cora Wilson-Stewart work in education provided footprints and the foundation for pioneers such as Myles Horton of the Highlander School. Ms. Stewart trained grass-roots community leaders and they went back to their communities and trained adults which enabled large scale changes in society.
Implications	1982, two show on Mr. Horton’s entitled “The Adventure of a Radical Hillbilly”; Horton’s book” The Long Haul” winning the Robert Kennedy Book Award; 1982 nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.	1920, Ms. Stewart was delegate to Democratic National Convention and received nomination for President of United States. President Herbert Hoover designated Ms. Stewart as Chairperson of Commission on Illiteracy from 1929-1933

References

Bak, R. (2003). Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire. In R. Bak, Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire (pp. 54-63). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Benschoten, M. (1931). Kentucky Explorer Magazine. Retrieved from Kentucky Stewarts: www.kentuckystewarts.com

Berson, R. (1994). Marching to a different drummer unrecognized heroes of American history. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Brockett, R. a. (1997). The Profession and Practice of Adult Education. In R. a. Brockett, The Profession and Practice of Adult Education (pp. 33-41). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Brockett, R. G. (1997). The Profession and Practice of Adult Education. In R. G. Brockett, The Profession and Practice of Adult Education (pp. 63-66). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fisher, S. (1993). Fighting back in Appalachia: Traditions of resistance and change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Frederick-Phillips, Dr. (unknown). World Atlas. Retrieved from WorldAtlas.com: www.worldatlas.com

Hamilton, S. (unknown). USGenWeb Archives. Retrieved from usgwarchives: www.usgwarchives.net

Highlander. (n.d.). Retrieved October 3, 2014.  .  http://www.tnhistoryforkids.org/places/highlander

Horton, M., & Jacobs, D. (2003). The Myles Horton reader: Education for social change. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.

Horton, M., & Kohl, J. (1990). The long haul: An autobiography. New York: Doubleday.

Lucy, P. (n.d.). Tribute to Myles. Social Policy, 21(3), P.13-18.

Moyers, B., & Horton, M. (n.d.). Retrieved October 3, 2014, from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40932454?uid=3739256&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104811590213

Stewart, C. (1922). Moonlight Schools. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.