A REFLECTION
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF EXPERIENCE IN MY OWN LEARNING AND TEACHING BY USING THE
PROGRESSIVE APPROACH.
In our progressive approach, we see
the individual student’s curiosities, abilities and learning style as important
factors in designing, differentiating and assessing each student’s
learning. We encourage children to follow their interests, pursue problems
in a way that makes sense to them and defend their conclusions by explaining
their thinking in a variety of ways. We engage students with hands-on
investigations, projects and design challenges across the grades and subject
areas inspiring greater interest, depth and understanding. Our approach values
the skills involved in formulating one’s own questions, as well as answering
those of a teacher. We view mistakes as important opportunities for both
learning and assessment.
We believe each student learns best
not by reliance on normative standards, testing or passively consuming knowledge,
rather that each student learns best by actively constructing their own
understanding based on his or her knowledge, skills and experience.
There are enough elements on which most of us can
agree so that a common core of progressive education emerges, however hazily.
And it really does make sense to call it a tradition. Ironically, what we usually call “traditional” education, in
contrast to the progressive approach, has less claim to that adjective —
because of how, and how recently, it has developed. As Jim Nehring observed,
“Progressive schools are the legacy of a long and proud tradition of thoughtful
school practice stretching back for centuries” — including hands-on learning,
multiage classrooms, and mentor-apprentice relationships — while what we
generally refer to as traditional schooling “is largely the result of outdated
policy changes that have calcified into conventions.”(Nevertheless, I’ll use
the conventional nomenclature in this article to avoid confusion.)
It’s not all or nothing, to be sure. I don’t
think I’ve ever seen a school — even one with scripted instruction, uniforms,
and rows of desks bolted to the floor — that has completely escaped the
influence of progressive ideas. Nor have I seen a school that’s progressive in
every detail. Still, schools can be characterized according to how closely they
reflect a commitment to values such as these:
Attending to the whole child:
Progressive educators are concerned with helping children become not only good
learners but also good people. Schooling isn’t seen as being about just
academics, nor is intellectual growth limited to verbal and mathematical
proficiencies.
Community: Learning isn’t
something that happens to individual children — separate selves at separate
desks. Children learn with and from one another in a caring community, and
that’s true of moral as well as academic learning. Interdependence counts at
least as much as independence, so it follows that practices that pit students
against one another in some kind of competition, thereby undermining a feeling
of community, are deliberately avoided.
Collaboration: Progressive
schools are characterized by what I like to call a “working with” rather than a
“doing to” model. In place of rewards for complying with the adults’
expectations, or punitive consequences for failing to do so, there’s more of an
emphasis on collaborative problem-solving — and, for that matter, less focus on
behaviors than on underlying motives, values, and reasons.
Social justice: A sense of
community and responsibility for others isn’t confined to the classroom;
indeed, students are helped to locate themselves in widening circles of care
that extend beyond self, beyond friends, beyond their own ethnic group, and
beyond their own country. Opportunities are offered not only to learn about,
but also to put into action, a commitment to diversity and to improving the
lives of others.
Intrinsic motivation: When
considering (or reconsidering) educational policies and practices, the first
question that progressive educators are likely to ask is, “What’s the effect on
students’ interest in learning, their desire to continue
reading, thinking, and questioning?” This deceptively simple test helps to
determine what students will and won’t be asked to do. Thus, conventional
practices, including homework, grades, and tests, prove difficult to justify
for anyone who is serious about promoting long-term dispositions rather than
just improving short-term skills.
Deep understanding: As the
philosopher Alfred North Whitehead declared long ago, “A merely well-informed
man is the most useless bore on God’s earth.” Facts and skills do matter, but
only in a context and for a purpose. That’s
why progressive education tends to be organized around problems, projects, and
questions — rather than around lists of facts, skills, and separate
disciplines. The teaching is typically interdisciplinary, the assessment rarely
focuses on rote memorization, and excellence isn’t confused with “rigor.” The
point is not merely to challenge students — after all, harder is not
necessarily better — but to invite them to think deeply about issues that
matter and help them understand ideas from the inside out.
Active learning: In progressive
schools, students play a vital role in helping to design the curriculum,
formulate the questions, seek out (and create) answers, think through
possibilities, and evaluate how successful they — and their teachers — have
been. Their active participation in every stage of the process is consistent
with the overwhelming consensus of experts that learning is a matter of
constructing ideas rather than passively absorbing information or practicing
skills.
Taking kids seriously: In
traditional schooling, as John Dewey once remarked, “the center of gravity is
outside the child”: he or she is expected to adjust to the school’s rules
and curriculum. Progressive educators take their cue from the children — and
are particularly attentive to differences among them. (Each student is unique, so
a single set of policies, expectations, or assignments would be as
counterproductive as it was disrespectful.) The curriculum isn’t just based on
interest, but on these children’s interests
Some of the features that I’ve listed here will
seem objectionable, or at least unsettling, to educators at more traditional
schools, while others will be surprisingly familiar and may even echo
sentiments that they, themselves, have expressed. But progressive educators
don’t merely say they endorse ideas like “love of learning”
or “a sense of community.” They’re willing to put these values into practice
even if doing so requires them to up-end traditions. They may eliminate
homework altogether if it’s clear that students view after-school assignments
as something to be gotten over with as soon as possible. They will question
things like honors classes and awards assemblies that clearly undermine a sense
of community. Progressive schools, in short, follow their core values —
bolstered by research and experience — wherever they lead.
