Skip to search boxSkip to navigationSkip to main content

Key pedagogic thinkers: R. J. Harris

  • Meg Harris Williams
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

R. J. (Roland) Harris (1919-1969), English teacher and poet, was deputy head of the flagship London comprehensive school Woodberry Down in the 1960s. He was perhaps best known in the educational field for the findings of his PhD thesis (1962) which was an experimental enquiry into the teaching of grammar in the early secondary school years. He also worked for the Schools Council, where he was instrumental in the raising of the school leaving age to 16; and for the last two years of his life he taught psycholinguistics at Brunel University. Many of his child-centred ideas on education were honed in association with his wife, Martha Harris, who was head of the Child Psychotherapy training at the Tavistock Clinic; his group work and administrative experience lay behind her restructuring of the training in the 60s. In 1968, after a pilot project conducted at Woodberry Down, they started a pioneering Schools Counsellors' Course at the Tavistock

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Journal of pedagogic development (Volume 3.0, Issue 3.0)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 11/2013

Publication status

Published - 11/2013

ISSN

2047-3265

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/335940

Access to documents