Harriet Finlay-Johnson
Harriet Finlay-Johnson or Harriet Johnson or Harriet Weller was a British educationalist and schoolteacher known for encouraging children to create dramas to improve their education.
Life
Finlay-Johnson was born in Hampstead in 1871. Her parents were Thomas Connolly and Jane Johnson. Harriet and her sister Emily both became teachers. She qualified in 1892 after working for eight years at St Mary's School, Willesden.She became the headmistress of the village school in Sompting in Sussex in 1897. Her sister Emily was employed on the same day on the same salary. Emily was in charge of the infants whilst Harriet was head. She led fifty children and she decided that only a revolutionary approach would put the children as the focus of education - "to help them to grow". She started by using nature walks. The approach at the school was not based on control but in empowering the children with educational visits. By 1903 she was one of twelve teachers chosen to serve on an advisory board on elementary education in her county.
Finlay-Johnson's major work was described in her book The dramatic Method of Teaching. It explains how she had encouraged children to create their own plays. Sometimes these would be based on works of fiction but at other times they would create their own original plays based on their own research of facts from history. The teacher was seen as the facilitator and not the lead in the investigation that created the drama. Moreover, she believed that the final creation should not be judged by adult concepts of how good the production was but through the eyes of the participants.