1. Estabrook School HSR Feb 26, 2013

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Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy 13 hands and they knew something. What I did [then] was research. I would take a story and have the children talk in partners after I read it. I would test them in a week; I would test them in a month. I'd test them in three months and got tremendous recall.... They didn't call it cooperative learning in 1965. That was a very important aspect. It spread around the school. We had children going to other classrooms teaching other children in partners. They did their diagrams in partners. They discussed History or whatever. It was just half the time.32 Another example of an innovative program was a six -week unit on Power and Technology. The unit was conceived and taught by Bill Terris, whom Frank Lyman described as "the greatest large group instruction teacher in the history of the world." The course was singled out for a detailed description in Bair's and Woodward's book . 33 Bill Terris described how a child's problem could not remain hidden in a team teaching situation. With teachers' desks in the teachers' workroom instead of in the classrooms: Teachers would begin the day here; they would come back at the end of the day and say, "Oh, I had a terrible time with Jimmy today. Did anyone else have a terrible time ?" And two other teachers did. One said, "Well, you know, his father left this morning and didn't say goodbye. 04 People interviewed for this report said the Medill Bair, Superintendent of Schools, was a driving force behind team teaching in Lexington. Dick Barnes said, "Dan Fenn said at my retirement party that Medill Bair's work was probably the most exciting thing in the country, and I think he was right. Bair was just dynamic and he put Lexington on the educational map.... Medill was his own Sputnik for Lexington." Jacqueline Davison, member of the Standing School Building Committee, said, "Medill Bair met with the committee all the time. And I think it was his enthusiasm and endorsement of a lot of things that we might have hesitated to do that encouraged us to do them. 05 Estabrook's principal from 1961 until the late 1960s, Alexander Cummings, was also a strong advocate for team teaching. Actually, Rudolph Fobert, the superintendent hired after Medill Bair left, was also a supporter of team teaching. 32 Frank Lyman, interview with Anne Grady, June 15, 2012. 33 Medill Bair and Richard G. Woodward, Team Teaching In Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964), 131 -138. 34 Bill Terris, talk at the Estabrook School Celebration, March 3, 2012. 35 Jaqueline Davison, interview with Anne Grady, March 30, 2012. Anne Andrus Grady June 2012