Thank you for all your endeavours. I especially enjoyed this post. ALthough I graduated high school 40 years ago, I went to a high school, John Dewey High School, which was modeled on Dewey's philosophies and notions. There were no grades, no competition, a ton of eclectic offerings attempting to inspire learning and engagement/ownership and partnership between teachers and learners. We selected all our classes, they changed every 6 weeks, they were predominately eclectic (Herstory, Japanese Mind, Kennedy Years, Sociology of Sports, etc.), there were no grades, competition or sports, we decided how much of our days were going to be free, lots of opportunities for independent learning, etc. among the offerings and how this philosophy manifested. Previous to high school, I was a poor learner and this experience catalyzed a life long passion for learning; instructors truly knew, somehow, to activate our curiosities.
Stephen: what a wonderful addition to this post! Thank you so much for giving readers a real-life example of what progressive education used to look like!
Like most things, it's not an either/or situation — it's a little of both. In poorer schools, often discipline and regimen are experienced by students only at school. It is often the only place where they get a reprieve from the chaos at home. Much like the phonics vs whole language debate which continues even today, both are needed. Schools like John Dewey High School are selective in their admissions and so that muddies the water as to its applicability in a broader way. John Dewey High school selects students from test scores (no irony there) — supposedly equal numbers from high, middle and low scores. There are many factors that go into a good education, but I agree with you in that underfunding and low teacher pay are significant impacts.
And stabilizing families--I don't think that schools can do the work of parenting, and the social safety net provided by the military is significant (see Jennifer Mittlestadt, The Military Welfare State) and while families can still have a range of problems, having employed parents, housing, food, and medical care goes a long way.
Agreed - the military model proves past and current disinvestment is tragically wrong. In a perfect world schools should not have to do the work of parenting. But they have always occupied a liminal space between parenting and teaching. Another negative impact was the national trend to cut costs by consolidating regional high schools. This created mega high schools with student populations of 3,500 and higher.
Claire, #RightOn
Hi Claire,
Thank you for all your endeavours. I especially enjoyed this post. ALthough I graduated high school 40 years ago, I went to a high school, John Dewey High School, which was modeled on Dewey's philosophies and notions. There were no grades, no competition, a ton of eclectic offerings attempting to inspire learning and engagement/ownership and partnership between teachers and learners. We selected all our classes, they changed every 6 weeks, they were predominately eclectic (Herstory, Japanese Mind, Kennedy Years, Sociology of Sports, etc.), there were no grades, competition or sports, we decided how much of our days were going to be free, lots of opportunities for independent learning, etc. among the offerings and how this philosophy manifested. Previous to high school, I was a poor learner and this experience catalyzed a life long passion for learning; instructors truly knew, somehow, to activate our curiosities.
Stephen: what a wonderful addition to this post! Thank you so much for giving readers a real-life example of what progressive education used to look like!
Those ideas and practices all seem so... quaint, somehow.
It's how I teach, but so many parents and students have been conditioned to resist it and they'll even file complaints about.
So right, that the parents have been conditioned to want something else. great way of putting it.
Like most things, it's not an either/or situation — it's a little of both. In poorer schools, often discipline and regimen are experienced by students only at school. It is often the only place where they get a reprieve from the chaos at home. Much like the phonics vs whole language debate which continues even today, both are needed. Schools like John Dewey High School are selective in their admissions and so that muddies the water as to its applicability in a broader way. John Dewey High school selects students from test scores (no irony there) — supposedly equal numbers from high, middle and low scores. There are many factors that go into a good education, but I agree with you in that underfunding and low teacher pay are significant impacts.
And stabilizing families--I don't think that schools can do the work of parenting, and the social safety net provided by the military is significant (see Jennifer Mittlestadt, The Military Welfare State) and while families can still have a range of problems, having employed parents, housing, food, and medical care goes a long way.
Agreed - the military model proves past and current disinvestment is tragically wrong. In a perfect world schools should not have to do the work of parenting. But they have always occupied a liminal space between parenting and teaching. Another negative impact was the national trend to cut costs by consolidating regional high schools. This created mega high schools with student populations of 3,500 and higher.