Celebrating 20 years of Dalton International

Today Dalton International is twenty years old. We would like to thank all the people who supported us for so many years. Here is the speech of the President: “Respect the child, respect him to the end, but also respect yourself. Be the companion of his thought, the friend of his friendship, the lover of his virtue…” Helen Parkhurst, Education on the Dalton Plan It has been already twenty years ago, on 30. March 2001, when the official notary act of Dalton International was signed. It was the concrete result of an intensive cooperation between my Dalton school in the center of Utrecht/NL with four innovative primary schools in Brno/CZ. Together we started to search for more international Dalton contacts, and organized visits to the Dalton schools in New York and Sydney. We have built our Dalton International community from trust and respect. It is from this perspective I would like to share with all Dalton community a vision and mission of Dalton International. From where we stand, we can firmly state that the Dalton International community worldwide, after twenty years, is stronger than ever. Owing to trust and respect, but also hard work we achieved a success. The core of Dalton International’s mission is to preserve the legacy of Helen Parkhurst. We have been doing our best to protect that legacy consequently. We are proud today of the high quality of our implementation processes and high standards in certification of schools and teachers. In taking care of the high standards, we became protective. Our protection came from love, respect, devotion and trust. During our work we have also became critical and judgmental for those who benefit from our organization for own profit, or who add the name ‘Dalton International’ illegally to their school name. Over time, more than forty schools worldwide are `Member of Dalton International` and we supported and trained even more ‘International Dalton Schools’ worldwide in: Australia, Austria, Czech Republic, China, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Turkey and The Netherlands. During the twenty years of our activities we have managed to: Initiate and guide the development of ‘International Dalton Schools’ Initiate and support the Austrian, Czech and Polish Dalton Association Initiate and support yearly Dalton conferences in several countries Contribute actively to local Dalton magazines Initiate the research in connection with ‘NENU University’ in China and ‘Adam Mickiewicz University’ in Poland on quality and effectiveness of Dalton education in International Dalton Schools Cooperate with universities providing students the option to receive the certificate of ‘International Dalton teacher’ Cooperate with the Chinese embassy in The Netherlands Cooperate with the Ministry of Education and local Educational Bureaus in China Initiate the Chinese and Turkish Departments of Dalton International in cooperation with academic environment and ministry of education in China and Turkey. Currently, we are constantly open to the new initiatives and we look forward to work hard on the future of Dalton education worldwide. We continue to open our hearts and our minds to the future united in the service of the children. We must speak on behalf of them. That is our legacy and our mission. We are focused on building bridges between the countries, we want all to speak one voice and look in one direction. That is the way to honor our legacy and ensuring our future. Today we thank all of our friends and educators with great vision and creative minds to support our activities and effort in building a world where the voice of the children can be heard. Roel Röhner, President Dalton International

Teacher Training Series in Wenzhou Dalton Elementary School

During an online seminar we spoke about practice and the organization process in Wenzhou Dalton Elementary School. During the second part of the session we have presented practical, authorial materials from the teacher´s Dalton handbook. The content of this session concerned the ways of providing an environment that serves the particular needs of each child´s stage development. Through the implementation of holistic approach of Helen Parkhurst , we help teachers in practical implementation of Dalton education at each stage of child´s development in order to shape their moral, emotional, behavioral and intellectual growth.