George Dennison

Who was George Dennison?

George Dennison was an American novelist and short-story author best known for The Lives of Children, his account of the First Street School. He also wrote fiction, plays, and critical essays, most notably his novel Luisa Domic and a collection of shorter works, Pierrot and Other Stories. Having grown up in a suburb of Pittsburgh, he joined the Navy during World War II, attended the New School for Social Research on the GI Bill, and took graduate courses at New York University.

Although he devoted himself primarily to his art, he also taught school for a number of years, at all levels from preschool to high school. He trained at the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy with Paul Goodman and later worked with severely disturbed children as a lay therapist and teacher. As an educator he promoted the idea that relationships, not instruction, promoted real learning. As such schools needed to be places where freedom of choice created the trust that allows for a full relationship between teachers and students. These ideas were considered radical because they questioned compulsory attendance and the focus on external student behavior to enhance student management.