Progressive Education Meaning

[twoteachers]

What do you consider "progressive education" ? I see this term a lot on websites, yet a lot of the schools use pretty standard curriculum. Thoughts?

[mathman85]

It's about educating the whole child and learning by doing, which some call it experiential learning. It's about going beyond conventional tests and cookbook experiments and teaching students ways to think. Alfie Kohn wrote some pretty interesting pieces on this topic.

[PsyGuy]

Progressive education isnt about curriculum its pedagogy and methodology. You can do the same curriculum vie rote learning or do it by inquiry (or PBL, eXp, GDi, SC, montessori, etc.). That said its really just pop.ed for whatever modern ideology, ethos, concept, strategy the IS or leadership wants to say it is. There are plenty of ISs and DSs in both IE and DE that claim to be progressive that are anything but. If you want an easy indicator look at how much the IS spends on classroom resources, the more resources available the more progressive its likely to be, you need to have 'stuff' for students to engage actively and meaningfully. ISs with a lot of chalk talk push and pull, and paper resources tend to be the most dated and least engaging (passive learning).

[reisgio]

Critical Theory Has DESTROYED Primary & Secondary Education. This is what "they" call progressive.

[vandsmith]

reisgio wrote:
> Critical Theory Has DESTROYED Primary & Secondary Education. This is
> what "they" call progressive.

lol, care to elaborate? what about tertiary ed.? i see it as quite important, actually.

v.

[PsyGuy]

I agree with @reisgio, though perhaps for different reasons. Critical theory is fine for tertiary, where students can wax philosophic about contextual and societal meanings and greater ethos and ask themselves "how do i feel about X author, and Y character, doing Z in T time". Thats not what secondary is about and even less so about primary. Students need to learn how to write, express a cognizant thought and support it. They need foundational skills in secondary and know how to read and write a paragraph in primary using grammatical rules. The whole Socratic method is fine for Uni, its too early and a disservice in secondary.
Students have too many feelings already, that they get to express about whatever on social media. I dont really care what my students think, or feel, or believe, or how they disagree with everyone who doesnt agree with them or share the same beliefs and feelings as them. I care they can form a statement, and express a conclusion based on a major and minor premise that they can support and form into text that adheres to convention.

[Doctor]

PsyGuy wrote:
> Progressive education isnt about curriculum its pedagogy and methodology. You can
> do the same curriculum vie rote learning or do it by inquiry (or PBL, eXp, GDi,
> SC, montessori, etc.). That said its really just pop.ed for whatever modern ideology,
> ethos, concept, strategy the IS or leadership wants to say it is. There are plenty
> of ISs and DSs in both IE and DE that claim to be progressive that are anything
> but. If you want an easy indicator look at how much the IS spends on classroom resources,
> the more resources available the more progressive its likely to be, you need to
> have 'stuff' for students to engage actively and meaningfully. ISs with a lot of
> chalk talk push and pull, and paper resources tend to be the most dated and least
> engaging (passive learning).
>

I disagree that isn't about curriculum. For example, the common ground curriculum is a progressive curriculum (https://commongroundcollaborative.org/). As far as identifying if a school is progressive or not, start by looking at their assessment policy. If it's heavily weighted toward knowledge and understanding, it's not progressive.

[PsyGuy]

@Doctor

Im familiar with CGC, lets just say it borrows heavily from IB (and Im being generous and leave it at that). Its not a curriculum though, its a system that takes a curriculum and applies their meds/peds/asst to it. I can take the CGC curriculum and apply a confucian imperial rote learning system to it, and its still the same curriculum.

I disagree with your characterization of non-progressive programs heavily weighted towards knowledge and understanding. There are a lot of subject fields that require a great deal of knowledge and understating in the form of knowing X happened at Y and what the definition of X is and how X applies to doing Z. Students need to know how to factor a polynomial for algebra and what the hypotenuses is and how thats relevant to sine/cosine/tan and knowing that and understanding that is the primary goal, there isnt anything progressive to it. Biology students need to know how to do a X^2 test in genetics, how they feel about global warming and rising oceans is a nice lesson for a different place and time, but the statistics just have to be known how to do it and understand when its appropriate.

Progressive education is just an excuse for students who cant sit down and focus, and do the actual work, because maths or memory recall, or whatever isnt their thing. Its for parents whose first excuse is "what are you doing to motivate my child" who dont like the answer "nothing, because thats not my job, thats your childs and your job", isnt the answer they want to hear. We dont have progressive work environments, and the reason we have so many snowflakes is they had their hands held and the focus was all about them and then they went into the real world after going to Uni for a 100K degree that qualifies them to do nothing and they end up sitting in a cubicle managing paper and no one cares how they think or feel or believe about it.

[vandsmith]

i am a bit surprised at you PG, since you have said many times you like the IB kool aid, that you wouldn't see the importance of CT in all levels of education, especially in primary, since the lack of critical perspective, argument, context and history seem to plague students as they move into MS, HS, and tertiary phases. i agree that there are a set of fundamental skills that students need to learn, that will never change (perhaps the specifics will), but in no way does emphasizing critical theory detract from fundamentals - in fact, it allows students to use fundamentals more effectively.

CT isn't all about feelings and "snowflakey" behaviour (a tired word of late) - among other things, it's about perspective, learning to reflect and think in different ways about topics and not simply in a factual, black and white way. do students still have to organize thoughts, plan writing, and write a cogent thesis/essay? of course. i think so-called progressive education tries to strike this balance. why shouldn't students learn the context and history behind coffee production? or waste and consumption?

i suppose i am of the mindset that inquiry, perspective, and context should be emphasized in any curriculum - to me that is progressive education, and in my opinion, is how CT looks in the primary grades. an education without critical thought, reflection, and understanding of context simply gives rise to technocrats and empty bureaucrats and, yes...those guys.

v.

[Doctor]

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Doctor
>
> Im familiar with CGC ... Its not a curriculum though, its a system that takes a curriculum
> and applies their meds/peds/asst to it. I can take the CGC curriculum and apply
> a confucian imperial rote learning system to it, and its still the same curriculum.
>
You can misapply any system. I guess this goes to a mission or vision statement that does NOT emphasize rote learning.
>
> I disagree with your characterization of non-progressive programs heavily weighted
> towards knowledge and understanding. There are a lot of subject fields that require
> a great deal of knowledge and understating in the form of knowing X happened at
> Y and what the definition of X is and how X applies to doing Z. Students need to
> know how to factor a polynomial for algebra and what the hypotenuses is and how
> thats relevant to sine/cosine/tan and knowing that and understanding that is the
> primary goal, there isnt anything progressive to it. Biology students need to know
> how to do a X^2 test in genetics, how they feel about global warming and rising
> oceans is a nice lesson for a different place and time, but the statistics just
> have to be known how to do it and understand when its appropriate.
>
Students need to know how to factor a polynomia; I'm not saying that shouldn't be assessed. Students also need to communicate all this to an audience and tailor the process of factoring to an application, like in projectile motion they could factor a polynomial as an application in math class. But this isn't know and understanding; this is more like communication and reflection.

> We dont have progressive work environments,

I've heard google is a progressive work environment with flex schedules, exercise machines, a barista - these are all possible assessment criteria.

[PsyGuy]

@Doctor

Your characterization that its a misapplication is just your POV, that you dont agree with, so you claim its wrong, but curriculum is just a series of X outcomes from Y materials.

No they dont, KS/K12 edu in the vast majority of scenarios is about preparing them for Uni. They dont need an application yet, there is nothing in KS/K12 edu that is above 1st year Uni. The audience they need to tailor too is what ever asst exam/paper is on the horizon. The world isnt going to ask or require them to solve problems, thats later in life. Its great to inspire students to see the forest, but as an IT I need them to understand the tree first.

Thats not progressive thats just comp and benefits. Its providing services that allow employees to spend ever more time at their work place.