GLADYS HILL Writing 1941 "Teaching Cooperation at Pine Mountain"

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY
Gladys Hill
Writing 1941
“Teaching Cooperation at Pine Mountain”

002-25 The Co-op store at Pine Mountain Settlement School, Kentucky, 1941. Photo by Virginia Garner. [burkhard_peo_002-25.jpg]

TAGS: Gladys Hill, English teachers, Vera A. Hackman, creative activity, Cooperatives, Cooperative League New York, acting on ideas, writing competency, intelligent food selection, critical thinking, good judgment, Virginia Garner, Ray Garner, industrial training

GLADYS HILL Writing 1941 “Teaching Cooperation at Pine Mountain”

Published in Consumers’ Cooperation, July 1941 (National Magazine for Cooperative Leaders) A publication of the Cooperative League, 167 West 12th Street, NYC

TRANSCRIPTION

Cover

CONSUMERS’
COOPERATION

[Notation] Pine Mt = page 151, JULY 1941
IMAGE
[Caption] Party Starts on First All-American Co-op Tour

JULY, 1941

TEACHING COOPERATION AT PINE MOUNTAIN Gladys Hill and Vera R. Hackman
INSIDE WASHINGTON–Capitol Letter John Carson
JUNE CONFERENCE REPORTS
AUDITORS MAP PROGRAM TO MEET EMERGENCY Laurie Lehtin
EDITORS AND EDUCATORS CALL FOR CO-OP WAR EMERGENCY DRIVE
PLAN FOR ARCHITECTURAL MODERNIZATION
WOMEN’S GUILDS PLAN MORE ACTIVITY NATIONAL CO-OP RECREATION SCHOOL
_________________________________________________________________________
A NATIONAL MAGAZINE FOR COOPERATIVE LEADERS

Page 001

Cooperation, the Core and the Method —
An Enriched Program for the Tenth Grade
Teaching Cooperation At Pine Mountain

Gladys Hill, Teacher of Cooperation, and Vera R. Hackman, Teacher of English
Pine Mountain Settlement School Pine Mountain, Kentucky

“COOPERATIVES belong to democracies, don’t they?” remarked a tenth grade pupil of Pine Mountain Settlement School in the midst of a discussion about the dangers threatening European cooperatives. Pupils have learned to appreciate the values of cooperation and are becoming intelligent consumer buyers as a result of our living, thinking, and working together. Coming from the coal and lumber camps of Harlan County, our pupils’ knowledge of buying is limited to the offerings of the commissary for their food and to the advertised stock of the mail order catalog for their clothing and furnishings. Pupils from the mountain hollows know only the limited stock of the local store or the attractive offerings of the “wish book” published by the mail order houses. Emphasis at Pine Mountain is upon cooperation as a way of life and as one solution for the immediate problem whatever that might be. Thus cooperation becomes simultaneously the core and the method.

Acting on Ideas

Pupils learn to work with ideas as well as with patterns of expression. In keeping with Pine Mountain’s philosophy of learning to do by doing, pupils continually act upon the ideas they are learning. To insure progress in a cooperative venture, study must precede practice. After the Rochdale principles, the local constitution, and the method of organization and administration are understood by the pupils, they proceed to organize the consumers’ cooperative store which they will operate for the school year. Share selling, publicity, clerking, buying, bookkeeping, and banking become well established patterns of continuous expression.

Paralleling this activity is a study of “Man and His Needs.” Beginning with the industrial revolution, pupils learn of the economic necessity which revolutionized social conditions and standards of living. They follow the economic changes with their accompanying political and social adjustments through the second half of the nineteenth century to the decades of economic planning that grew out of the World War I. Pupils recognize the fundamental differences in approach of imperialistic and socialistic nations. As a result of this study the pupils see the cooperative way as one democratic solution for economic and social problems.

Creative Activity

Creative activity is often spontaneous. The more daring ventures are suggested in broad outline by the instructors. Pupils develop the details and sometimes change the outline. Gratifying examples of such activity were the printed price tags for the store and the posting of poems on cooperation as a result of pupil initiative in using the school print shop as a resource at their command. The study of new fruits and vegetables resulted in an unusual assembly program–the urge of a few pupils to share their new found knowledge with the whole school. From pupils with artistic talent came original price lists, posters lettered with an almost professional touch, and stage scenery. The prize possession of many of the thirty pupils is a well illustrated notebook filled with co-op notes, buying hints, and lists of pamphlets and important addresses. These will be found in some of the Kentucky kitchens of tomorrow.

Subject barriers disappeared when the instructors suggested to one group the broader outlines for a play and to the other the outline for a display of the resources of the various cooperative or-…

July, 1941 151

Page 002

…ganizations. Let the pupils speak for themselves:

“Just think! We’re heroes! We wrote and produced a play! So you see everything that is worth doing takes worrying and studying. But the credit you get afterward is always worth it.” “I have never enjoyed anything in school as much as being in the co-op class. I also enjoyed listening and planning with my teachers these five weeks we spent on the play.” “I would like to help write another play sometime.”

Writing a Play on Co-ops

At first the idea of writing their own play seemed too ambitious to the pupils. They were in a dilemma. No suitable play could be found and they were resolved to do a play. So it is significant that every pupil after the production comments on the feeling of accomplishment and of delight in the dramatic approach. This fourteen scene play, “Co- operation Around the World” was a most satisfying expression of the ideas they had previously learned. Equally rewarding was the series of displays which appeared in the store and in the reading room of the library. Pupils were alert to the opportunities for cooperation between groups, with teachers, and with other pupils. The letter writing, interviewing, reporting, poster work, articles for the school paper, explanations in assembly, arrangement of displays, and acting in a play they had written themselves were for individual pupils very satisfying expressions of their own creative ability. Their next cooperative venture was the writing of “Experiences in Consumer Cooperation at Pine Mountain.” Much careful thinking, exercise in critical judgment, objectivity, weighing of values, elimination of irrelevant detail, and an honest evaluation of their experiences went into this pamphlet. Pupils saw the pamphlet through the printing processes including linotyping, proofreading, make-up and press feeding.

Experiences from the pupils’ social environment offered a sharp contrast to cooperative buying. As the pupils came to us they knew only price as a guide to quality rather than real intelligent tested value. They had poor buying habits, knew nothing of government grades, never had bought by weight or in quantity. Their families had been victims of installment companies, mail order houses, and credit associations. In learning to make the food dollar go farther we have emphasized the importance of buying wholesome inexpensive foods, of following a food budget, and relying upon the advice of the U.S. government and established consumer laboratories. The only local example, other than the school store, of a cooperative enterprise is the R.E.A. which will soon serve our school and community. We studied the guide books, discussed the problems with the neighbors, and are watching the progress of the line across the mountain with great interest.

Learning Intelligent Food Selection

As a result of our study of consumer buying our pupils have a comprehensive guide to intelligent food selection. We have stressed nutritive value and have introduced a variety of new foods such as tree ripened citrus fruits, frosted foods, whole wheat breads, green vegetables, and cheese. This emphasis grew out of a need for a greater variety in the diets of our families. Pupils are now beginning to read labels and to buy by weight which are the first steps in intelligent buying.

Attention was focused on publications of cooperative organizations, research laboratories, government agencies, and private enterprise when pupils wrote business letters to procure materials from these sources. They have taken great pride in collecting and filing this material. When the home economics and mechanics departments came to borrow some of our materials one pupil remarked, “Every department in school finds our pamphlets useful.”

We believe, too, that some definite contributions have been made to character building. Pupils accept the privilege of operating the store as a public trust. Administering the capital stock of $197…

152 Consumers’ Cooperation

Page 003

…for the benefit of the 115 stockholders becomes a real responsibility. Shopping intelligently for their store has become a matter of personal pride and is an honor. Pupils volunteer for clerking, bookkeeping, cleaning the store, doing errands, arranging the stock and displays, printing stationery, and speaking in assembly programs. Said one pupil in evaluating her experiences, “I feel I have accomplished something.. I feel more able to go about my work, more willing to cooperate with the group.” Said the junior partner, “I am learning a lot more about cooperatives than I would have if I had just got down a book and read. What I learned from the book no one else would have known about. But in this way we share with the whole school. Not one but everyone profits by it.” We instructors are greatly encouraged to see the strong individualism of these young Southern Highlanders yield to delight in cooperative enterprise.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Those who are interested in reading a printed pamphlet entitled and describing “Experiences in Consumer Cooperation at Pine Mountain Settlement School,” Pine Mountain, Kentucky, can get a copy by sending ten cents, plus postage, to the Pine Mountain Settlement School. The chapters in the booklet describe cooperation in the store, cooperation in the classroom, spreading the cooperative idea, basic materials for cooperative study. We can not refrain from moralizing to the effect that every child in every public and private school in America ought to have the opportunity of engaging in cooperative business activities as well as of studying, writing and speaking about cooperation in other school courses as the children who attend this Settlement School are having.)

….

July, 1941 153

GALLERY: GLADYS HILL Writing 1941 “Teaching Cooperation at Pine Mountain”

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: 001 Gladys Hill writing. [hill_teaching-_cooperation_PMSS_001]

: 002 Gladys Hill writing. [hill_teaching-_cooperation_PMSS_002]

: 003 Gladys Hill writing. [hill_teaching-_cooperation_PMSS_003]

GLADYS HILL Staff, Trustee, Interim Director – Biography

GLADYS HILL Correspondence Part 1 – 1929–1939
GLADYS HILL Correspondence Part 2 – July 1940 – January 1952