William P. Hull

William P. Bill Hull, 85, died March 13, 2010. He was born April 16, 1924, in Tupper Lake, NY, to Gerald P. and Josephine G. Hull. During WWII Bill served in the US Coast Guard on the schooner Gertrude L. Thibault out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and in the U.S. Navy, in Panama. He was president of his familys business 1968-1976, the OWD Corporation in Tupper Lake. Bill was a student, researcher, and teacher at Harvard University, worked at the Center for Cognitive Studies, and taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He taught at Shady Hill School in Cambridge, MA from 1947 to 1964. He spent a lifetime studying childrens thinking and how classrooms and schools can best be structured to foster and support childrens learning. He was a leader in the revolutionary changes in educational theory and practice in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. He pioneered research of the British Infant Schools, and worked to develop math and science curricula for the Elementary Science Study. He developed Attribute Games and Problems, still used by thousands of educators, and was at the forefront of the use of manipulative (hands-on) materials in classrooms. Bill founded the Reservoir School, helped to found the Fayerweather St. School, the Graham and Parks Alternative Public School, and to develop the Follow Through Program on a national scale. For six years Bill and his wife Sarah, also an educator, ran Teachers Seminars, helping teachers to develop the skills of recall, recording, and reflection, and validating the classroom teachers role as educational researcher. For over 55 years the Parents Nursery School, housed on the first floor of their Cambridge home, thrived under their watchful eyes. Bill began racing sailboats at the age of eight at Camp O-AT-KA in Sebago, Maine, where he was later Sailing Instructor. Sailing became a life-long passion, racing and cruising the East Coast. He introduced a class of sailboats (Flying Fifteens) to Frenchmans Bay, Maine and was a top competitor in New England. Bill loved nature and being active in the outdoors. His deep interest in how people of all ages learn included not only intellectual, but physical learning as well. In addition to sailing, Bill was an avid scuba diver and snorkeler, skier and ice skater. He was an Incorporator and President of the Cambridge Skating Club. He trained at MIT with members of the Chinese Olympic Table Tennis team. He was a life-long birder and always had bird feeders by his window. A man of integrity, Bill was incapable of saying anything that was not strictly true from his standpoint. His marvelous sense of humor carried him to the very end of his life. He was predeceased by Sarah (Gardner) Hull, his wife of 56 years. He is survived by four daughters: Suzanna Hull Feitler and her husband David of Shaker Heights, OH; Lucy Hull and her husband Bart Chapin of Arrowsic, ME; Jennifer Hull and her husband K.C. Potts of Wayland, MA; and Sabra Hull and her husband Richard Bigley of Olympia, WA, and eight grandchildren. A celebration of his life will be held at the Cambridge Skating Club in Cambridge, MA on April 25, 2010 at 1:30 PM. In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to the Parents Nursery School, 40A Reservoir St., Cambridge, MA 02138 http://www.parentsnurseryschool.net/.