User:GroutsbyHoney/sandbox

The first public school known as PS 3 was established in the 1820′s, when the visiting Marquis de Lafayette was taken on a tour to see this model of progressive American education. The current incarnation of PS3, also known as "The PS3 Charrette School," located in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village, is a product of the activism in the late 1960′s (and is one reason the school is still sometimes referred to as the "hippie school").

The founding of The PS3 Charrette School was to relieve overcrowding at PS41 the preexisting school in the same district (district 2), whose enrollment in 1970 was over 1200.

The PS 3 of today came into being through a community workshop process known as a Charrette, Between 1969 and 1971 through a series of community board meetings, workshops, ad-hoc discussions and “rap-sessions” with parents, children, teachers, educators, facilitators, and interested professionals culminated in weekend-long Charrette that ran from June 4-6, 1971 and resulted in the birth of PS3.

at which parents and other community members, teachers, administrators, public officials, social planners and educational consultants arrived at a vision of child-centered learning in open multi-age classrooms, with a nonhierarchical structure, active parent involvement and an emphasis on the arts. John Melser, an educator from New Zealand, served as the school’s first leader, and remained its director until 1991. Many of the John Melser Charrette School’s founding teachers have spent their entire careers at the school. That generation began to reach retirement age in the late 1990′s, but the teacher turnover rate remains low. Though the school has adapted to change, we are pleased that the essence of the original concept has withstood the test of time. It’s mission was to create “a special haven for children in which the freedom to pursue their purposes and happiness would be secured…with an emphasis on learning rather than teaching.” Teaching was “based on recognition that a child needs to discover his soul, develop his own discipline and responsibility.”

Children at PS 3 should have “a wide range of contacts with people of different ages, cultures, skills and knowledge, contacts with the “real world” and real world of art science and literature.” On September 16, 1971 PS3 opened with 423 students, 16 teachers, in 14 classrooms and spread over 4 floors.