Alexander was described by his contemporaries as a hard-working, pragmatic man and a common sense academic with a genius for organization and a love of education.
He attended the First District Normal School (later, Truman State University) in Kirksville, graduating with a Bachelor of Pedagogy (Pd.B.)
[3] Alexander applied to the University of Missouri only to find disappointment when he was told he would not be given credit for the work he had done at the normal school.
He obtained employment during the week downtown as an usher in the theater district, including the Metropolitan Opera House.
He had obtained employment teaching science at Robert College, a boys' school in Constantinople, Turkey, until the Adana Massacre[4] prompted him to Germany.
The philosopher Dr. Mortimer J. Adler suffered a similar fate as he failed to pass the required swimming test for a bachelor's degree at Columbia College.
At Columbia University he skipped the desire to complete a master's program and registered as a doctoral student with Dr. Paul Monroe during which time he was also a graduate assistant to Dr. Edward L.
[1] The next year, 1915, was significant for Alexander in that he would receive academic acclaim as the founder of the Peabody Demonstration School and a contributor to the establishment of the Knapp Farm.
In 1924, Dr. Thomas Alexander was asked to become part of the staff joining Isaac Leon Kandel, Lester L. Wilson, Stephen P. Duggan, Milton C. Del Manzo, George Counts, and Ruth McMurry.
Alexander was the German expert at the institute and as such he returned to Europe many times and cultivated friendships with Dr. Fritz Karsen,[8] Dr. Franz Hilker, Dr. Peter Petersen, Paul Geheeb, and Adolphe Ferrière.
[1] There was a planned departure from traditional teacher-training institutions by placing special emphasis on child nature and development through experiences designed to give the student an insight into the problems of contemporary social life.
Alexander sought to develop a critical consciousness in his students for intellectually based social leadership and provide guidance in effectually meeting the universally persistent problems of living, that is, the essential problems of living that students and in reality, all humans, would face in all stages of their development as individuals, as members of social groups, and as teachers of children and adults.
Using innovative ideas such as extended foreign study, community-based active research, and authentic assessment, a portfolio-based undergraduate learning curriculum was developed which rejected traditional summative grades or the accumulation of credits as the basis of degree completion.
In the world, New College students saw the rise of Hitler in Germany, Japanese aggression in Manchuria, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War.
Some students, avowed communists and socialists, were given “credit” and in one case, a scholarship,[11] for organizing and participating in demonstrations, protests and pickets.
Although notoriously apolitical, Alexander found himself governing the college through a highly politicized decade steeped in extreme idealism calling for social action.
Alexander didn't consider himself a “progressive” or an iconic figure of reform like Kilpatrick or Counts, but rather he was an educator who knew that the teacher, a competent and cultured one, makes the difference in any community or society.
Had New College not existed, Alexander may very well have been regarded as an early pioneer of comparative education, along with Kandel,[14] especially through his close friendship with Drs.
Echoing his intransigence to non-educational aims, Alexander and Taylor did not try to reach out to political allies who might help them but rather chose their counterparts in Germany, secondary education scholars.