Louis M. Smith

A Kind of Educational Idealism: Integrating Realism and Reform

By intent, this essay has several major guiding assumptions. First, it has an autobiographical flavor, that is, it attempts to capture an individual’s thoughts and activities from the early days of educational reform in the mid twentieth century. “Being around” and “involved” at that time carries its own kind of insight and testimonial. Second, an early case study of Kensington, an innovative elementary school, Anatomy of Educational Innovation (Smith & Keith, 1971) caught the imagination of a number of educators in schools and universities. Third, such an event — an innovative school and a book length monograph describing and conceptualizing the first year — had its own antecedents and consequences. Stories and conceptualizations became strands of educational innovation and change in their own right. These strands are a part of this small piece of educational history. This essay speaks to those as well. Fourth, the very task of writing about these events is a creative process and takes the author and reader into unexpected directions, yielding more ideas about the nature of educational idealism, realism, and school reform. Such are the tasks of this essay.