Welcome to this week’s issue of Traversing, as always if you find this newsletter to be interesting, if it helps to inform your thinking about progressive education or if you think it might help others, please subscribe, share it with your friends and neighbors and share your comments and questions.
This week I will continue my exploration of the foundations of current educational systems and the reform movement which although it began with “A Nation at Risk” in 1983, began to have a direct impact with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. I will reference last week’s issue, so if you didn’t read it, that is a good place to start.
Dewey and Progressivism
The dawn of the current era in school reform began in earnest with the passage of No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which made some fundamental changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Before I talk about NCLB is it necessary to look at the model that preceded it. Richard Myer in his essay, “The Truth Behind Manufactured Malpractice: The Impacts of NCLB Upon Literacy Teaching and learning” outlined the impacts of ESEA on education. The original ESEA was an element of President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty. The initial foundations of the ESEA funding were situated in the work of progressive educators such as John Dewey. As a result;
Such views led to government supported programs in education that focused on play and inquiry for younger children as well as older children…. in which high school students studied science reflective of the way in which scientist do. Scientists dream, imagine, create, experiment, reflect, write and more as they face the questions that confront and challenge them. This kind of thinking was paralleled in classrooms around the country. The arts were viewed as integral to such work as well and students danced, drew, painted, and more as a part of their school days. Experimentation was encouraged…. 2
The incarnations of schooling that grew from this valuation of the unclear and inherently progressive ideals that dominated educational models for many years. There were of course ebbs and flows along with specific curricular disagreements, such as the role of whole language versus phonics-based instruction. It was during this time in education that I first began working in schools and it was during this time that I undertook the work of becoming a teacher. My own history as a student and a teacher is deeply intertwined with an educational world that embraced John Dewey and other “progressive” educational theorists. These educators, unlike A.S. Neill did not present a counter-narrative to the dominant expectations about schools and schooling. The school reform movement has never seriously considered the models promoted by A.S. Neill, John Taylor Gatto, John Holt or Ivan Illich. Their ideas, models and sometimes schools provide a counter narrative, but a narrative so far from the dominant educational narratives of multiple eras, that although they provoke thought and isolated schools, they have not had a major impact on the policy or models for schooling in this country.
My schooling experience began at the Smith College Campus School (SCCS) in Northampton Massachusetts. The school was and is the laboratory school for the Smith College School of education. My schooling experience was fit the model described by Myer. I fondly recall, experimentation, exploration and the arts. I still vividly remember building castles in art class as I learning about the medieval era in class. I remember my father, a professor of economics at Smith college, taking me out to breakfast at Jake’s a now closed diner in Northampton to celebrate the end of the school year. He told me that the special breakfast out was to celebrate the end of the school year and I remarked that it was nothing to celebrate. My elementary schooling experience was one of experimentation, joy and positive reinforcement.
My progressive schooling experience was grounded in the ideas of a number of prominent educators, philosophers and theorists. One of the most well know and influential was John Dewey. Dewey was an educator, philosopher and social reformer and he created ideas and systems that were a foundation for my elementary school experience. A fundamental shift from the essential knowledge of the virtuous classical model is a key element of Dewey’s ideas about schooling. This difference is outlined by Diane Ravitch in her examination of the last century of school reform “Left Back”;
Dewey wanted schools to concentrate on problems and processes rather than academic subjects. In a traditional school, children might study science by memorizing the technical names for different plants and their parts. In Dewey’s school, children would plant seeds, observe how they grew, and consider the soil and climatic conditions that affected plant life. Either way, they would learn biology, but the learning gained through experience, wrote Dewey, was far more valuable than that obtained by memorizing names. 58
Dewey’s educational ideas reflected the larger progressive movement in the United States at the time in the 1920s and 30s. Dewey’s educational ideas are still present in some schools and educational contexts. At the same time these practices have become inextricable intertwined with the measurement, classification, standardization and evaluation that are core features of the current educational landscape. Diane Ravitch recognizes that the “…progressive education movement was inspired by Dewey’s writings but was not always strictly loyal to Dewey’s intentions.” (59) Furthermore, this inspiration of has led to the following four ideas that she views as significant to understanding the current climate of schooling.
· First was the idea that education might become a science and that the methods and ends of education could be measured with precision and determined scientifically. This was the basis of the mental testing movement.
· Second was the idea that the methods and ends of the education could be derived from the innate needs and nature of the child. This was the basis of the child-centered movement.
· Third was the idea that the methods and ends of education could be determined by assessing the needs of society and then fitting children for their role in society. This was the basis of the social efficiency movement.
· Fourth was the idea that the methods and ends of education could be changed in ways that would reform society. Proponents of this idea expected that the schools could change the social order, either by freeing children’s creative spirit or conversely by indoctrinating them for life in a planned society. The first version was the faith of the child-centered movement and the second was the basis of the social reconstruction movement. (60)
These four elements of Dewey’s philosophy are deeply ingrained in my experience of the current educational systems in the United States. John Dewey’s ideas have been used as an unexpected foundation and justification for the current school reform movement, which is the subject that I will take up next week.
With Gratitude
People, Places and Things
In this section of the newsletter I share people, places and things that have inspired and taught me valuable lessons about rethinking learning.
This time of year, is busy (hence the late posting of this weekly newsletter), the school year is underway, the days are getting shorter and the weather colder. I recognize my own bias as both an educator and as a north easterner, but I am suspect this time of year is busy regardless of your place on the globe. As a result, my people, places and things for this week is something slower.
I don’t own many movies, I also don’t own a television, but one of the movies that I do own is To Be and To Have. I can’t remember exactly when I saw this film for the first time, but it was before the era of digital downloads and I felt compelled to buy a DVD, so that I could see it again.
It is a documentary about a small school in France, where a single teacher has a multi-age class of students and it slowly and beautifully tells their story without exposition. At the time I too was teaching is a small rural public school in a multi-age classroom, so it may have spoken to my own experiences. Teaching is fundamentally about relationships, the relationships between students, between students and teachers and between the school and the community.
My Ph.D. dissertation was a phenomenological exploration of the relationships that teachers had with their students, so again, I am likely biased. That being said, if you would like to have a window into one classroom and the relationships there, this is a film well worth watching.
See you next week!
Meyer, Richard. The Truth Behind Manufactured Malpractice: The Impacts of NCLB on Teaching and Learning. New England Reading Association Journal. 49:1 (2013) Print.
Ravitch, Diane. Left Back: A century of failed school reforms. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. Print.