Progressive Education National Network

[Katy]

In today's educational climate, many influences divide educators. Rather than empowering educators who deliver educational programs, external forces such as high stakes testing and standards dictate practices, withhold support, and label educational environments. Our aim is to use the term Progressive Education to promote inclusion, variety and diversity in practice, equity in populations, and understanding of multiple definitions in educational practice.

For more than one hundred years, the term "progressive education" has been used to describe ideas and practices that aim to make schools more effective agencies of a democratic society. Although there are numerous differences of style and emphasis among progressive educators, they share the conviction that democracy means active participation by all citizens in social, political and economic decisions that will affect their lives. Progressive education has often been associated with more active learning, cooperative planning by teachers and students, a greater recognition of individual differences, and attempts to relate learning to 'real life.'

If we share our success stories, we can learn from each other. Our stories help other people understand who we are. Please consider answering one of the following questions: What is your definition of progressive education? Or: What do you do in your classroom (or school) that is child-centered and is an example of progressive practice?

[Reggie]

Progressive education is child-centered. Projects are the center of learning. Social and emotional grow are important. It is developmentally appropriate.

It is not driven by tests or sorting children.

[Robin]

The School in Rose Valley, where I work as the Service & Partnership Learning Coordinator, is currently in the process of redefining our model of progressive education. As part of this process, we have identified 12 core values or principles of progressive education (these are still in draft form):

~Learning comes from experience and is an active process in which the student’s intellect is fully engaged

~Knowledge and understanding must be discovered or constructed by the student for them to be meaningful and internalized

~Real learning requires understanding, integrating and applying skills and ideas

~Learning is a social and collaborative process

~Curriculum and learning should be relevant to the real world

~Students should be able to demonstrate their learning and understanding in a variety of ways

~Schools should value equally and nurture all aspects of a child’s development, including physical, emotional, social, creative and intellectual

~Schools should teach, model and design curriculum and learning experiences that nurture respect for diversity, including different abilities, needs, interests and cultural identities

~Schools should teach, model and design curriculum and learning experiences that promote democracy, and should be effective agents of democratic society

~Schools should be structured to provide children with a balance of freedom and expectation, privilege and responsibility

~Educators should be researchers, actively reflecting, pursuing and testing ideas and understanding about teaching, their students and the world

~Schools should be communities in which students live, not just prepare for their next schools

We are further defining progressive education as it is manifested at our school by identifying institutional practices, curriculum content, and teaching methods that express or support each of these principles. In doing so, we are identifying inconsistencies and goals and making plans to better align our practice with our beliefs about progressive education. This is a long, intense process, but necessary to maintaining our integrity as a progressive institution. It is also critical to have faculty consensus on our definition of progressive education to better support new teachers and to more clearly aritculate our mission in the community so we can achieve full enrollment and remain financially viable.

[Vivian]

I like what the School in Rose Valley is doing. Where is it located?

Here is my short version:
Progressive education is education in and for the citizens (future adults) in a democracy.

[Rob]

Progressive education is not institutionalized standards.
Progressive education is not exclusive.
Progressive education is not ranking and sorting.
Progressive education is not based on competition.
Progressive education is not narrow and convergent.
Progressive education is not a single path to an end.
Progressive education is not is not easy to explain.

Progressive education is diverse, experiential, messy, open-ended, and very targeted to meet individual needs while teaching students to be a part of a group.

[Claudia W.]

I work in a progressive school. It is the best education for students that I have ever experienced. I have a hard time explaining the education to others.

For example, when I tell people I work in a progressive school, they want to know what that means. If I say it is child-centered and based on choice, they usually say, "Oh, is it one of those schools that kids are allowed to do anything if they don't want to?" I respond by explaining choice at my school. Then I try to explain the responsibility part of freedom. I have the feeling that people think kids run wild and never do any academic work.

I wish I had an easier answer. People don't seem to understand what I say. Does anyone have a suggestion for me?

Standards and test scores are such an easy answer and people think they understand them. Is there an equivalent answer in progressive education?

[Xiao]

Progressive Education is interactive learning. The learner is engaged in the learning process and not viewed as a passive reciepient of knowledge from an "expert."

[gsherif]

[Weeden3]

[Grace Decker]

Over and over, I read, hear, and share with progressive educators that we SEE, understand, and GET what is happening in our classrooms and schools that is worthy and good and authentic and excellent... and yet, it seems hard to explain. This is the crux of the matter. This is the central challenge! Montessori folks point to "replicabilty" as one of the key reasons why montessori is a worldwide-- and truly excellent, often-- phenomenon. To me, however, it is the UN replicability of the outstanding progressive experience that is its core, its appeal, its authenticity... and I think we have to find a way to share that excitement with people who never, once, thought about it at all.

[Anna]

To gsherif: Do you honestly want to know about standards, or are you asking the question to provoke people?

This week the best place to read about the controversy is the article in the current Education Week by Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier. They agree that education is in trouble. They agree about many things. They actually do not agree about standards. It is a fascinating article and can be enjoyed by educators everywhere.

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/05/24/38meier.h25.html?levelId=2300

You can sign on as a guest if you just want to view the article. It is worth it.

[gsherif]

Anna,

Thanks for the link to the article. It was posted on the Small Schools listserv (on Yahoo), as are other interesting articles, case studies, etc. (For more ino., check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smallschools/).

[T. Yamamoto]

All the rational for the value and the compatibility of standards aside, the truth is just as weenen3 expressed it: It is the imposed standards without any room for input that is the antithesis of progressive education.

When it is something imposed or formula based, then effectiveness and teacher to student interaction is short-circuited and maximum results are impaired. Content standards are designed to make everyone conform or be regulated by the same standard. When did that become a good idea in a democracy?

The idea of education being driven by standards that are accepted as the basis for comparison or ranking is not a core value of progressive education, not is it what it is promoting.

[Sabine]

In reading this discussion and the Ravich/Meier article, I made an attempt to identify some unifying themes related to Katy's question, which is essentially, "define or describe progressive education as you understand it". Our online discussion studiously avoids explicating educational content (curriculum) in favor of methodology, in other words, progressive education is about an approach to teaching and not so much about curricular content. In the Ravich/Meier debate, Ravich argues for a National curriculum, while Meier argues for the implementation of a more widespread approach to education which leaves curriculum besides the point.

In my opinion, the question of essential curriculum is not one which can be side-stepped if the criticisms of the rigor-standards-assessment advocates are to be quieted. The Ravich/Meier article makes it clear that Ravich and Meier, at least, agree about this.

Even if I accept that progressive education is the method that best meets childrens' educational needs, I still need to know what is being taught.

My ideal for a progressive school would be one in which a challenging, useful curriculum is taught well. I would hate to have to choose between a school at which a challenging, useful curriculum is taught poorly and one at which curriculum is secondary to pedagogy.