Biography
Andrews was born at Margaretsville (Nova Scotia), and educated at the Salem (Massachusetts) Normal School. She taught for six years before receiving a degree in psychology and education from Radcliffe College in 1902. She also attended Harvard Summer School.
Through her work in the public schools in Boston, she became convinced that differing ethnic and economic backgrounds spurred conflict, and that each must be taught to understand the others in order to communicate and negotiate on peaceful terms.
In 1908, Andrews founded the American Peace League. This organization sought peace by teaching the principles of 'international justice' in American schools. She envisioned an international bureau of education, which would promote understanding among all nations. When World War I broke out, Andrews changed the name of her organization from the "American Peace League" to the "American School Citizenship League" in 1918.
In 1918, after being selected by President Woodrow Wilson, Andrews attended the Paris Peace Conference. She unsuccessfully lobbied for the League of Nations to include a provision for her dream of the international bureau of education. The reasoning was there was too much diversity in the cultures of the different countries to have a standard curriculum that would work for all.
She was known as a lecturer on education in Europe and America, as secretary and organizer of the American School Citizenship League, and as a member of the advisory council of the Institute of International Education and the International Peace Bureau (Berne, Switzerland), etc. She was also a delegate to the International Conference on Education in 1914 and represented the United States Bureau of Education at Paris during the Peace Conference.
Andrews was an advocate of the ideal of peace education, and promoted action at an official level to obtain curriculum changes. Today's Civil Education classes are a result of the efforts she and others made.
Her works include:
- The United States and the World (1918)
- The World Family (1918)
- The War - What Should Be Said about it in the Schools? (Boston, 1914)
- Central Organization for a Durable Peace (Boston, 1916)
- Freedom of the Seas (The Hague, 1917)
- A Course in Citizenship and Patriotism (:Houghton Mifflin, 1918)
- A Course in Foreign Relations, prepared for the Army Education Commission (Paris, 1919)
Read more about this topic: Fannie Fern Andrews
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