PROGRESSIVIS

M
Report by Willy C. Timbal
PROPONE
NT
 John Dewey
● He believed that people learn best
from social interaction in the real
world.
● He believed that book learning was
no substitute for actually doing
things.
Progressivism
Progressivism
● originated in the general reform movement in American society and politics life in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
● Opposed to traditional schooling, progressive educators designed a variety of
strategies to reform education.
● Arising as a revolt against traditional schools, Progressive education opposes
Essentialism and Perennialism.
● Educators such as Marietta Johnson, William H. Kilpatrick, and G. Stanley Hall
rebelled against, rote memorization and authoritarian classroom management.
 Marietta Johnson
(1864–1938)
● founder of the Organic School at
Fairhope, Alabama, epitomized child-
centered progressive education.
● Believing that prolonging childhood is
especially needed in a technological
society, Johnson wanted childhood
lengthened rather than shortened.
● Possessing their own stages of
readiness, children should not be
pushed by teachers or parents to do
things for which they are not ready.
● She believed children learn most successfully and satisfyingly when engaged in the
active exploration of their environment and when constructing their own meaning of
reality based on their direct experiences.
● Johnson’s activity-based curriculum accentuated physical exercise, nature study,
music, crafts, field geography, story telling, dramatizations, and games.
● Creative activities such as dancing, drawing, singing, and weaving took center stage,
while reading and writing were delayed until the child was nine or ten years old.
● Johnson designed a teacher-education program that went from preservice to practice.
● During preservice, caring and effective teachers needed to develop
○ a sincere affection for and understanding interest in children;
○ a knowledge base in child and adolescent development and psychology and in the skills and subjects
they taught;
○ an interest in social welfare. As practitioners, teachers should create safe, developmentally friendly,
and engaging classroom environments in which children learn at their own pace, according to their
own interests.
 William Heard
Kilpatrick (1871–1965)
● a professor of education at Columbia
University’s Teachers College, made
progressivism an integral part of a teacher’s
progress from preservice to practice.
● In restructuring Dewey’s problem solving
into the project method, Kilpatrick
followed three guiding principles:
○ genuine education involves problem
solving;
○ learning is enriched as students
collaboratively research and share
information to formulate and test their
hypotheses;
○ teachers can guide students’ learning
without dominating it.
● Using these principles, Kilpatrick described four types of projects:
○ implementing a creative idea or plan;
○ enjoying an aesthetic experience;
○ solving an intellectual problem;
○ learning a new skill or area of knowledge.
● Kilpatrick believed that teachers who used the project method could transform their
classrooms into collaborative, democratic, learning communities.
Francis Wayland Parker
(1837 – 1902)
● was a pioneer of the progressive school
movement in the United States.
● John Dewey called him the "father of
progressive education."
● He worked to create curriculum that centered
on the whole child and a strong language
background.
 KEY
CONCEPTS
Practices opposed by progressives
● The Progressive Education Association opposed
○ authoritarian teachers,
○ exclusively book-based instruction,
○ passive memorization of factual information,
○ the isolation of schools from society, and
○ using physical or psychological coercion to manage classrooms
Practices favored by progressives
● These progressive educators positively affirmed that
○ the child should be free to develop naturally;
○ interest, motivated by direct experience, is the best stimulus for
learning;
○ the teacher should facilitate learning;
○ close cooperation is essential between the school and the home;
and
○ the progressive school should be a laboratory for
experimentation.
social reconstructionism
● progressives experimented with alternative curricula, using
activities, experiences, problem solving, and projects.
● Child-centered progressive teachers sought to free children from
conventional restraints and repression.
● The social reconstructionists believed that teachers and schools
need to investigate and deliberately work to solve social, political,
and economic problems.
The Basic Questions
● Progressives view knowledge as public rather than metaphysical. It can come from
many sources—from books, experiences, experts, the library, the laboratory, and the
Internet—but it is to be used to accomplish a purpose.
● Progressives are open to using technology in the classroom, providing it is an open
means to accessing information.
● When students work together collaboratively, results of learning are open ended in
that they lead to more experiences and socially charged in that they bring individuals
into social contact.
Readiness, interests, and need
● For progressives, children’s readiness and interests rather than predetermined
subjects shape curriculum and instruction.
● They would resist the imposition of standards from outside of the school as another
form of authoritarian control that can block open-ended problem-based inquiry.
● Instructionally flexible, progressive teachers use a repertoire of learning activities
such as problem solving, field trips, creative artistic expression, and projects.
Constructing reality
● Constructivism, like progressivism, emphasizes socially interactive and process
oriented “hands-on” learning in which students work collaboratively to expand and
revise their knowledge base.
● Preservice experiences, such as clinical observation, should be directly connected to
classroom practice and not regarded as preparatory to it.
● In turn, practice should be considered as a continuing process of in-service
professional development in which teachers construct innovative and more effective
teaching strategies.
 Aim of Education
● To promote democratic and social living
● CUltural values
 Focus in the
curriculum
● Subjects are interdisciplinary, integrative and interactive.
● Curriculum is focused on students’ interest, human problems and
affairs.
Implications for Today’s
Classroom Teacher
Project method-Progressive strategy
● The project’s activities permeated the school and the community, bringing residents
and students together in a common collaborative effort.
● The project’s purpose was to teach respect for different cultures and to understand the
consequences of intolerance.
● “to give our children a broader view of the world . . . that would crack the shell of
their white cocoon.” - Linda Hooper
Summary
Educationa
Curriculu l Propone
Theory Aim
m Implication nt
s
Progressivism To educate the Activities and Instruction that Dewey
(rooted in individual projects features problem Kilpatrick
pragmatism) according to solving and Parker Johns
his or her group activities;
interests and teacher acts as a
needs. facilitator