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One's life is shaped by many things: circumstances of birth, parenting, geography, social and political events, economic status, and more. What we do with those influences, the way we interact with them and construct their meaning determines the day to day living we do and the legacy we leave.1 Berta Rantz left a legacy of understanding education as process, not just measurable products. This is a glimpse of her life and legacy as she told them to me in a series of interviews in 1993.
Berta Rantz was 99 years old when I first interviewed her. We spent the better part of a year meeting for a few hours a month. I edited and helped in publishing a book for her, Dramatics in Creative Education, which introduced readers to the philosophy of creative education and the psychology of child-centered teaching. This work offers a rationale for dramatics in the classroom and explores correlations among dramatics, behavior, and other subjects taught in a comprehensive school. While writing this book, I came to learn much about her life and about the Progressive Education movement of which she was an integral part.
Berta Rantz began teaching in a one-room country school in the forests of Puget Sound. After a short time in San Francisco's public schools, she moved to New York to become part of the vital 1920s progressive education movement. There she joined the faculty of Walden School that was then the pace setter in the experimental and creative education movement. She stayed for the next 26 years teaching and later directing the high school. In the fall of 1951, at the age of 58, Rantz left Walden to join another new experiment in education, Stockbridge School, an international, interracial, intercultural boarding school in Interlaken, Massachusetts. At this coeducational school for world understanding, she was assistant director, teacher, and finally educational consultant until her retirement at age 82. She continued her avid interest in education and was frequently visited by former students who assured her of her lasting influence on their lives. Among her legions of former students are those who went on to fame and fortune, including Chevy Chase, historian Barbara Tuchman, theatre director Mike Nichols, and musician Arlo Gutherie. She was visited by many of...