I have in the previous immediate postings reviewed two
educational philosophies. My interest is
to share with you some basic information concerning this topic to assist you in
any effort you might make in influencing what is taught at a particular school
or schools. With progressivism, the
third philosophical tradition, we turn a page from conservative philosophies,
perennialism and essentialism, to considering liberal philosophies.
Progressivism had its initial following in the US during the
1920s. It was an outgrowth of the
Progressive Era, a time when reformers found the takeover of American politics
by the corporate entities disarming. The
years following the Civil War saw enormous changes in the American economy. Central to those changes was the way those
corporate entities took on a national presence.
Of particular importance is how this development was influenced by
industrialization and the factory system which routinized the lives of millions
of American workers. Based on external
motivations – doing the bidding of others to either receive rewards or avoid
punishments – education had become an extension of organizational thinking that
was prevalent in industry. Instead of
embracing these changes, progressives saw all of these developments as a
dehumanizing process. With the rise of
organizations and bureaucracies, the science of efficiency rendered workers and
even customers as mere quantitative assets or liabilities. Objectifying the bulk of the American
populous readily led to abusive practices.
Education, as I pointed out in the last posting, was not immune to these
trends. In its stead, progressives
called for education to be considered as a part of life that advances the
dignity of the individual. Incorporating
philosophic arguments of pragmatism, progressives called on educators to adopt
strategies that have students use natural methods of learning.
One of this philosophy’s prominent spokespersons, John Dewey,
wrote quite a bit about this approach to education. One of his ideas, which says a lot about what
progressive education is in general, is his idea of occupations. Dewey implemented an instructional strategy
at the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago (which was started by
Dewey) introducing students in the earliest grades to the skills involved with
several of the occupations that were, due to industrialization, losing
prominence in the economy of the day. A
description of this strategy and how it was implemented follows:
The occupations in cooking,
weaving, sewing, and gardening, woodwork and metalwork were lifelike, yet had
to be simplified, purified, and enriched so that the children were not
overtaxed in their mental ability, damaged in their moral growth, or captivated
in their narrow world-view. In fact, the
occupations were conceived so broadly that they integrated considerable subject
matter in literature, art, history, geography, chemistry, and physics, and
included excursions to parks, farms, to factories, libraries and museums, with
the objective of extending the horizon of the students beyond the familiar and
the immediately necessary. Moreover, the
teacher chose and suggested problems and situations of such nature that the
students had to pass through the complete act of thinking and doing and to
refer to knowledge and experiences of past and present generations (i.e., to
utilize books, expertise, and scholarship) if they were to execute their plans
and projects properly.[1]
What I particularly see as reflective of progressive thinking is
the educational function the occupations fulfill; they give reasons for
learning the 3-Rs. To do these
occupations, whose value is individually self-evident, one needs to do
computations, be concerned with how chemical reactions take place (as in
cooking), read directions, understand the elements of physical force, and so
on. In other words, the occupations not
only introduce the basics, but also give them, in the minds of the students,
practical reasons why they are important and necessary to learn. With that context, let’s review some of the
progressives’ other ideas.
As already indicated, they believed in learning through
experience. More specifically, that
means the focus of this philosophy is to center it on the child/adolescent as
opposed to the content or the teacher. Lessons
should be mostly about performing experimental projects. That is, through exposure to life, students
generate questions and proceed to formulate answers to those questions. With such a focus, the process – as opposed to the substance – of learning becomes
central. And that learning revolves
around solving problems that are relevant and felt relevant by the student. A good teacher is one who can creatively
present segments of life in which the student actively engages in what
progressives describe as active learning, not passive reception of content as
is the case with “back-to-basics” instruction.
The activity involves, as I just indicated, solving problems and in
doing so, is organized by the application of the scientific method: hypothesizing, testing, and formulating
conclusions. These conclusions, in
pragmatic terms, then become the source of new learning and problem-solving.
As part of their ideals, progressives promoted democratic thinking
and processes. They spoke and wrote
about shared decision-making and encouraged among all affected parties, active
engagement at school, in the community, and all other collective arrangements
in which the student or anyone is situated.
This bias lends itself nicely with the aims of federation
theory. In my review of federation
theory, I pointed out the role progressive thinking plays in a curricular
approach that features that theory. I
made the claim that while implementing a curriculum guided by federation theory,
it could accommodate any of the established instructional approaches usually implemented
by teachers – the approach that is most conducive to federation theory is progressive
education. The only reservation in
making this connection is that federation theory is based on a definite set of
values and progressivism supports a more natural rights approach to
values. The only proviso I would add is
that if one reads progressive inspired articles and books, the tacit values
they seem to rely on is, in my estimation, highly federalist in nature. I can readily observe that none of the values
comprising the federalist moral code I have presented in this blog contradict
any of the concerns that progressives opine.
Unfortunately for progressives, the reaction to it was to readily judge
it as excessively permissive. It flew in
the face of more authoritarian views of schooling and even as a challenge to
more Puritanical biases that were still held strongly across the country,
especially in rural areas. The very idea
that youngsters were to be sent to school and “study” subject matter of their
own choosing sounded foreign to many.
This seemed as though it was a plan to lower the standards that students
would face in school. This was not true. Progressivism was not an introduction to a
softened curriculum. Progressive lessons
could be as demanding as any instruction emanating from perennialist or
essentialist educators, but the permissive impression was communicated to many by
the language progressives used. There
were also off-shoots of progressivism that were guilty of such degraded
educational endeavors. This negative image
was further advanced by conservative elements in our political and educational
establishment that wanted to undermine any attempts to institute progressive
efforts. A dramatic rendition of this
antagonism can be detected in the popular film, Auntie Mame.[2]
[1]
Knoll, M.
(2004). Laboratory School,
University of Chicago. In D. C. Phillips
(Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Theory
and Philosophy, (pp. 455-458).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. See http://mi-knoll.de/122501.html
.
[2]
DaCosta, M. (director) (1956).
Auntie Mame. Warner Brothers.
