Marjorie Barstow, John Dewey and the Alexander Technique: A philosophical constellation, or “Variations of the Teacher’s Art”

Abstract

This project examines one strand of Alexander Technique1 pedagogy: the approach pioneered by the noted American Alexander teacher, Marjorie Barstow, the first graduate of F. Matthias Alexander’s training course. Barstow’s approach is favoured by performers because of its immediate and direct application to real and challenging situations. At the end of her life, from the 1970s to the early 1990s, she attracted thousands of students to her workshops, and many of her long-term students have since become world-renowned teachers themselves. Barstow’s detractors have argued, however, that because her teaching and teacher-training methods varied from mainstream approaches, she neither taught the Alexander Technique nor trained teachers. This opinion assumes a limited and even tendentious approach to interpreting Alexander’s legacy. One reason for the contrary opinion is the failure to view Alexander’s Technique in a wider intellectual and pedagogical context. I address this problem by situating Barstow’s pedagogy in the context of educational and philosophical theories being developed contemporaneously with and in line with Alexander’s own discoveries, theory and pedagogy. In particular, Barstow’s work is examined in relation to the “pragmatic” turn inphilosophy observable in the thought of John Dewey, who involved himself directly with the Alexander Technique and its founder. I consider Barstow, Dewey and F.M. Alexander for the first time as educationalists, practitioners and thinkers who are linked by a common concern with the pragmatic ends of philosophy.