Kees Boeke
Encyclopedia
Cornelis Boeke was a Dutch
reformist educator, Quaker missionary
and pacifist. He is best known for his popular essay/book Cosmic View
(1957) which presents a seminal view of the universe, from the galactic to the microscopic scale, and inspired several films.
Boeke tried to renovate education by letting children in on decisions concerning school. He let decisions be made unanimously. He called this process sociocracy
. He designated school as a workshop, teachers as employees and pupils as workers. The goal of this form of education was to teach children a sense of democracy
. It was also based on Quaker
ideas. He founded one such school in 1926 in Bilthoven, which he led until 1954. The later Dutch queen Beatrix enjoyed an early education at this school.
family in Alkmaar. He studied architecture
at the Delft University of Technology
. As a student he spent a year in England where he met the Quakers. He became a Quaker and attended Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre
, the Quaker college near Birmingham. There he was inspired by Bournville, the garden town which the Cadburys, owner of the chocolate factory, had built for their workers. He married Beatrice (Betty) Cadbury. The couple went to Syria in 1912 as Quaker missionaries. In 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, they returned to England. They became active in peace work, the Fellowship of Reconciliation
having come into being through Henry Hodgkin. In 1915 Kees traveled to Berlin where he met Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze
, with whom Hodgkin had been working at the outbreak of war. Kees began to speak publicly in England: "The Germans are our brothers; God did not create man that he might kill; the war will find its quickest end when all soldiers lay down their weapons." He was expelled from England and returned to Holland. His family followed; there they lived in Bilthoven, near Utrecht. Their home soon became a pacifist center.
After the war, Boeke built in Bilthoven a larger conference center which he called "Brotherhood House." The first international peace conference took place there October, 4-11, 1919. Leon Revoyne, Mathilde Wrede, Leonard Ragaz, Pierre Ceresole
, as well as Hodgkins and Schultze, were present. Boeke and Ceresole became the secretaries of this movement, which called itself a “Christian International” or International Fellowship of Reconciliation
. Together with Helene Stöcker
, Friedrich August Wolf
(?) and Wilfred Wellock
they founded the Service Civil International
and in 1921 "Paco", which later became War Resisters' International
(WRI).
Kees and Betty Boeke considered the state and capitalist entanglement to be the root of war. As Betty was a Cadbury, she received large shares in her family's firm. She transferred this money to various charitable organizations such as the Quaker-Help Organization in Russia in 1920. Later they gave the shares to a trust for the workers in the Cadbury factory. For a while the Boekes refused to use money and avoid contributing to the state as they also spend on weapons; they wouldn't pay postage, tolls, or taxes and they never used public transport. They were imprisoned several times, and one of their seven children was born in prison. On one occasion the Dutch tax authorities auctioned off his estate to collect taxes, and the then Queen, Wilhelmina, bought his favorite violin out of the auction with her own money, and gave it back to him on the spot. Kees supported his family by working in Utrecht in a building association which he had founded; he did not work as an architect (which was his training), but as a simple worker.
In the late 1920s Boeke withdrew more and more from the international peace movements. He now believed he could build a better society through educating children, and he started a school, called “De werkplaats” (the workshop). He founded his school when in 1926, as a result of a 1917 constitutional reform, al private schools, including the Montessori school his children attended, started receiving an equal amount of money per child from the state, to which he objected.
His school, which uses Maria Montessori's methods
, extended by Boeke's own educational ideas, became nationally known; even the Dutch queen Juliana sent her daughters there. The school has been hugely influential for its creative way of making the students co-responsible for their own curriculum with the teachers, and many students who failed in regular schools, have blossomed at "De werkplaats."
Co-responsibility in school did not mean freewheeling at "the Werkplaats". Children had to perform tasks like help clean the school, gardening to grow vegetables and fruits, as well as aid with cooking the lunch. One could say that Boeke's notion of sociocracy
was in effect a secular implementation of the Quaker ideals, applied to education, in such a way that children were treated as adults, and were on a first name basis with their teachers. The roster of highly creative and successful people from this school is highly impressive.
Boeke wrote a major book on education. One of his last works was Cosmic View
(New York 1957). He died in 1966 in the company of his family.
survives today and was expanded upon in the work of a well-known student of the school, Dr. Gerard Endenburg
, who in the 1960s and '70s developed a governance and decision-making methodology by the same name while directing the Endenburg Electrotechniek company.
Boeke's essay/book Cosmic View (1957) presents a seminal view of the universe, from the galactic to the microscopic scale. It inspired several films:
Cosmic View is mentioned as an inspiration by Will Wright creator of a video game, Spore
(2008).
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
reformist educator, Quaker missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
and pacifist. He is best known for his popular essay/book Cosmic View
Cosmic View
Cosmic View is an essay by Dutch educator Kees Boeke that combines writing and graphics to explore many levels of size and structure, from the astronomically vast to the atomically tiny. Originally published in 1957, the essay begins with a simple photograph of a Dutch girl sitting outside her...
(1957) which presents a seminal view of the universe, from the galactic to the microscopic scale, and inspired several films.
Boeke tried to renovate education by letting children in on decisions concerning school. He let decisions be made unanimously. He called this process sociocracy
Sociocracy
Sociocracy is a system of governance, using consent-based decision making among equivalent individuals and an organizational structure based on cybernetic principles...
. He designated school as a workshop, teachers as employees and pupils as workers. The goal of this form of education was to teach children a sense of democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
. It was also based on Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
ideas. He founded one such school in 1926 in Bilthoven, which he led until 1954. The later Dutch queen Beatrix enjoyed an early education at this school.
Biography
Cornelis or Kees Boeke grew up in a MennoniteMennonite
The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...
family in Alkmaar. He studied architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
at the Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology , also known as TU Delft, is the largest and oldest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands...
. As a student he spent a year in England where he met the Quakers. He became a Quaker and attended Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre
Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre
Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre is a Quaker college based in the Selly Oak area of Birmingham, England.The only Quaker Study Centre in Europe, it was founded by George Cadbury in 1903 and occupies his former home on the Bristol Road. Woodbrooke's first Director of Studies was the biblical scholar J...
, the Quaker college near Birmingham. There he was inspired by Bournville, the garden town which the Cadburys, owner of the chocolate factory, had built for their workers. He married Beatrice (Betty) Cadbury. The couple went to Syria in 1912 as Quaker missionaries. In 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, they returned to England. They became active in peace work, the Fellowship of Reconciliation
Fellowship of Reconciliation
The Fellowship of Reconciliation is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries...
having come into being through Henry Hodgkin. In 1915 Kees traveled to Berlin where he met Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze
Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze
Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze was a German academic working in theology, social pedagogy and social ethics, as well as a pioneer of peace movements.-Life:...
, with whom Hodgkin had been working at the outbreak of war. Kees began to speak publicly in England: "The Germans are our brothers; God did not create man that he might kill; the war will find its quickest end when all soldiers lay down their weapons." He was expelled from England and returned to Holland. His family followed; there they lived in Bilthoven, near Utrecht. Their home soon became a pacifist center.
After the war, Boeke built in Bilthoven a larger conference center which he called "Brotherhood House." The first international peace conference took place there October, 4-11, 1919. Leon Revoyne, Mathilde Wrede, Leonard Ragaz, Pierre Ceresole
Pierre Cérésole
Pierre Cérésole was a Swiss engineer, known primarily as the founder of the Service Civil International , or International Voluntary Service for Peace , in 1920, an organisation that helped in reconstruction after the First World War with the goal of achieving an atmosphere of brotherhood...
, as well as Hodgkins and Schultze, were present. Boeke and Ceresole became the secretaries of this movement, which called itself a “Christian International” or International Fellowship of Reconciliation
International Fellowship of Reconciliation
The International Fellowship of Reconciliation is an international faith-based nonviolent movement created shortly after the First World War, in 1919, to draw together national Fellowships of Reconciliation that had been founded during the war....
. Together with Helene Stöcker
Helene Stöcker
Helene Stöcker was a German feminist, pacifist and sexual reformer. Stöcker was raised in a Calvinist household and attended a school for girls which emphasized rationality and morality...
, Friedrich August Wolf
Friedrich August Wolf
Friedrich August Wolf was a German philologist and critic.He was born at Hainrode, a village not far from Nordhausen, Germany. His father was the village schoolmaster and organist...
(?) and Wilfred Wellock
Wilfred Wellock
Wilfred Wellock was a socialist Gandhian and sometime Labour politician and MP.He was imprisoned as a conscientious objector in the First World War....
they founded the Service Civil International
Service Civil International
Service Civil International is an international non-governmental voluntary service organisation and peace movement with 43 branches and groups worldwide...
and in 1921 "Paco", which later became War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International is an international anti-war organization with members and affiliates in over thirty countries. Its headquarters are in London, UK.-History:...
(WRI).
Kees and Betty Boeke considered the state and capitalist entanglement to be the root of war. As Betty was a Cadbury, she received large shares in her family's firm. She transferred this money to various charitable organizations such as the Quaker-Help Organization in Russia in 1920. Later they gave the shares to a trust for the workers in the Cadbury factory. For a while the Boekes refused to use money and avoid contributing to the state as they also spend on weapons; they wouldn't pay postage, tolls, or taxes and they never used public transport. They were imprisoned several times, and one of their seven children was born in prison. On one occasion the Dutch tax authorities auctioned off his estate to collect taxes, and the then Queen, Wilhelmina, bought his favorite violin out of the auction with her own money, and gave it back to him on the spot. Kees supported his family by working in Utrecht in a building association which he had founded; he did not work as an architect (which was his training), but as a simple worker.
In the late 1920s Boeke withdrew more and more from the international peace movements. He now believed he could build a better society through educating children, and he started a school, called “De werkplaats” (the workshop). He founded his school when in 1926, as a result of a 1917 constitutional reform, al private schools, including the Montessori school his children attended, started receiving an equal amount of money per child from the state, to which he objected.
His school, which uses Maria Montessori's methods
Montessori method
Montessori education is an educational approach developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori. Montessori education is practiced in an estimated 20,000 schools worldwide, serving children from birth to eighteen years old.-Overview:...
, extended by Boeke's own educational ideas, became nationally known; even the Dutch queen Juliana sent her daughters there. The school has been hugely influential for its creative way of making the students co-responsible for their own curriculum with the teachers, and many students who failed in regular schools, have blossomed at "De werkplaats."
Co-responsibility in school did not mean freewheeling at "the Werkplaats". Children had to perform tasks like help clean the school, gardening to grow vegetables and fruits, as well as aid with cooking the lunch. One could say that Boeke's notion of sociocracy
Sociocracy
Sociocracy is a system of governance, using consent-based decision making among equivalent individuals and an organizational structure based on cybernetic principles...
was in effect a secular implementation of the Quaker ideals, applied to education, in such a way that children were treated as adults, and were on a first name basis with their teachers. The roster of highly creative and successful people from this school is highly impressive.
Boeke wrote a major book on education. One of his last works was Cosmic View
Cosmic View
Cosmic View is an essay by Dutch educator Kees Boeke that combines writing and graphics to explore many levels of size and structure, from the astronomically vast to the atomically tiny. Originally published in 1957, the essay begins with a simple photograph of a Dutch girl sitting outside her...
(New York 1957). He died in 1966 in the company of his family.
Legacy
Boeke's system of sociocracySociocracy
Sociocracy is a system of governance, using consent-based decision making among equivalent individuals and an organizational structure based on cybernetic principles...
survives today and was expanded upon in the work of a well-known student of the school, Dr. Gerard Endenburg
Gerard Endenburg
Gerard Endenburg is a Dutch entrepreneur, who developed a governance model for organizations that draws on equivalence and cybernetics. This model is inspired by the idea of sociocracy of Kees Boeke.-Biography:...
, who in the 1960s and '70s developed a governance and decision-making methodology by the same name while directing the Endenburg Electrotechniek company.
Boeke's essay/book Cosmic View (1957) presents a seminal view of the universe, from the galactic to the microscopic scale. It inspired several films:
- Cosmic ZoomCosmic ZoomCosmic Zoom is a 1968 short film directed by Eva Szasz and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. It depicts the relative size of everything in the universe in an 8-minute sequence using animation and animation camera shots.-Synopsis:...
(1968) produced by the National Film Board of CanadaNational Film Board of CanadaThe National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions... - Powers of TenPowers of TenPowers of Ten is a 1968 American documentary short film written and directed by Charles and Ray Eames. The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten . The film is an adaptation of the book Cosmic View by Dutch educator Kees Boeke, and more recently is the basis of a new...
(1968; re-released 1977) by Charles and Ray EamesCharles and Ray EamesCharles Ormond Eames, Jr and Bernice Alexandra "Ray" Eames were American designers, who worked in and made major contributions to modern architecture and furniture. They also worked in the fields of industrial and graphic design, fine art and film.-Charles Eames:Charles Eames, Jr was born in... - The IMAXIMAXIMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
film Cosmic VoyageCosmic VoyageCosmic Voyage is a 1996 short documentary produced in the IMAX format, directed by Bayley Silleck, produced by Jeffrey Marvin, and narrated by Morgan Freeman. The film was presented by the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum,...
(1996) produced for the Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
's National Air and Space MuseumNational Air and Space MuseumThe National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It was established in 1976. Located in Washington, D.C., United States, it is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and...
.
Cosmic View is mentioned as an inspiration by Will Wright creator of a video game, Spore
Spore (2008 video game)
Spore is a multi-genre single-player god game developed by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. The game was released for the Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating systems in September 2008 as Spore...
(2008).