Richard Thomas Alexander

Richard Thomas Alexander (1887–1971) was an American educator and education theorist. An early proponent of the progressive education movement of John Dewey, Alexander was the driving force behind the creation of the New College, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City. He was its chairman from 1932 to 1938. Alexander was described by his contemporaries as a hard-working, pragmatic man and a common sense academic with a genius for organization and a love of education.

Early life (1887–1913) Richard Alexander was born on July 3, 1887, in Smicksburg, Pennsylvania, to Mary Elizabeth Wilhelm Alexander and William John Alexander, one of four children. He had two older brothers, John Wilhelm Alexander and Wallace P. Alexander, and a younger sister, Ethel M. Alexander. Alexander applied to the University of Missouri but he was not given credit for the work he had done at the normal school. Alexander started Columbia University studying German on September 25, 1907, on a trial basis.

Coming from a rural setting, Alexander did not let himself be bored in the big city. He obtained employment during the week downtown as an usher in the theater district, including the Metropolitan Opera House. It was very good pay, however most of the performances were at night which ordinarily might interfere with studies. Alexander sensibly saw an advantage to the situation. Reminiscing years later to his son, Alexander said there wasn't much work to do as an usher. prompted him to Germany.

Alexander accepted a position teaching science at Heathcote School(also known as Heathcote Hall) in Harrison, Westchester County, New York, about twenty-five miles north from Manhattan. This was a private boarding school for young boys. During the summer break Alexander returned to Europe to continue his graduate studies. At Columbia University he skipped the desire to complete a master's program and registered as a doctoral student with Dr. Paul Monroe during which time he was also a graduate assistant to Dr. Edward L. Thorndike.

Alexander completed his dissertation and received his doctorate in 1916, submitting his dissertation entitled The Prussian Elementary Schools. The work, a detailed description of Prussian educational practices before the war, was published in book form in 1919. This is significant because, Alexander's next major work, (co-written with Beryl Parker) entitled The New Education in the German Republic, offered a detailed description of German education after the war, in contrast to his first book.

Alexander and Russell spent three years in Nashville together at one time briefly sharing an apartment until Russell left in 1917 to become Dean of the College of Education at the State University of Iowa. In 1923 Russell became a professor of education and associate director of the International Institute at Teachers College until he succeeded his father as Dean of Teachers College in 1927. It was Russell that brought Alexander to the faculty at Columbia as part of the International Institute and later, it was Russell who approved the creation of New College. Dr. Franz Hilker, Dr. Peter Petersen, Paul Geheeb, and Adolphe Ferrière.

New College (1930–1939) All of Alexander's experiences thus far convinced him that a new type of teachers college was necessary to address the social issues of the day. Originally, New College's progressive foundations, its philosophical origins, and its influences were the Concept of Community, Critical Pedagogy, and German Progressive Education. After the planning for the new college began, the United States suffered the economic upheaval that was the Great Depression. Resulting influences then included Social Reconstruction and Student Activism. for organizing and participating in demonstrations, protests and pickets.

By 1938, Dean William F. Russell had to decide that the experimental institution was a financial failure. Indeed, the figures in the budget were very clear. New College was in a continual state of deficit spending, but then again, so was every other college or university in the United States, Teachers College included. A college or university that ran in the black during the Depression was a rarity. Although notoriously apolitical, Alexander found himself governing the college through a highly politicized decade steeped in extreme idealism calling for social action. Alexander didn't consider himself a “progressive” or an iconic figure of reform like Kilpatrick or Counts, but rather he was an educator who knew that the teacher, a competent and cultured one, makes the difference in any community or society. Because he never liked to play the political game the extreme left would accuse him of anti-Semitism and being a secret Nazi sympathizer, while the extreme right would hold up his college, the reflection of his educational philosophy, as an example of communist infiltration in higher education. New College closed in 1939. especially through his close friendship with Drs. Franz Hilker and Friedrich Schneider, who both were highly regarded in the burgeoning field of comparative education. The innovation of foreign study as a requirement lived on in Dr. Agnes Snyder, who soon left after the closing of New College, eventually becoming the chairman of the Department of Education at Adelphi College. In this position she called on Alexander to renew his vision of New College through Adelphi's New Teachers Education Program (ANTEP), which required foreign study as part of the program.

Later, in a letter to alumni of New College, Thomas Alexander wrote that in 1945 "at a dinner in my home one night, William Russell said, 'Tom, the biggest mistake in my life was to close New College'. Dr. Alexander answered, 'It's a hell of a time to find that out'.”

Richard Thomas Alexander purchased the land where the New College Community was near Canton, North Carolina, where he lived until his death on October 16, 1971. was appointed to lead the E&RA (Education & Religious Affairs) branch of OMGUS, the Office of Military Government, United States in the American Zone of post-war Germany, Alexander was in 1946 recruited to advise on rebuilding the German education system, drawing up recommendations which made Dewey's educational ideals central to the project. Alexander and Taylor worked for the relatively minuscule E&RA branch whose first mandate was simply to get the children off the streets. The attempts were not successful partly due to Alexander's non-political nature. Echoing his intransigence to non-educational aims, Alexander and Taylor did not try to reach out to political allies who might help them but rather chose their counterparts in Germany, secondary education scholars. The unwillingness of the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church and other Christian entities to accept a one-track school system because of concerns about lowered standards soon discredited the American attempt to reform German education, which was effectively abandoned in 1948. For his efforts, nonetheless, Alexander was awarded a medal by the German Government.

Publications Alexander, R. T. (1919) The Prussian Elementary Schools. New York, NY: Macmillan. Alexander, R. T. (1927) Practice Teaching in Germany for Elementary and Secondary teachers. Educational Administration and Supervision, 13, 289–291. Alexander, R. T. & Kandel, I. L. (1927) The Reorganization of Education in Prussia. New York, NY: Teachers College, Columbia University. Alexander, R. T. & Parker, B. (1929) The New Education in the German Republic. New York, NY: John Day Co. Alexander, R. T. (1929) The Training of Elementary Teachers in Germany. New York, NY: Teachers College, Columbia University. Alexander, R. T. (1930) A Wider Extension of the Content of Student Teaching. Educational Administration and Supervision, 16, 352-358 Alexander, R. T. (1930) Need for the establishment of an experimental teachers college. New York, NY: Teachers College, Columbia University. Alexander, R. T. (1931) Plan for a Demonstration Teachers College. Virginia Teacher, 12, 192–195. Alexander, R. T. (1931) New teachers college. School and Society, 34, 528. Alexander, R. T. (1933) Significance of New College. National Education Association, Proceedings of the Seventy-first Annual Meeting, Chicago, 730–735. Alexander, R. T. (1935) Basic aims, scope, and organization of the curriculum of New College for the education of teachers. Proceedings of the Institute for Higher Institutions, 75–95. Alexander, R. T., Snyder, A., Morris, M., & Limbert, P. (1935) New College and its community building program. Unpublished manuscript, New College, Columbia University. Alexander, R. T. (1936) New College program for the education of teachers of social science. Educational Administration and Supervision, 22, 447–470. Alexander, R. T., Snyder, A., & Stratemeyer, F. (1937) "The curriculum at New College." In B. Lamar Johnson (Ed.), What about survey courses. New York, NY: Holt and Company.