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Part 70: Progressive Education:
September 29, 2003:
I want to carry on by looking at some other attempts at progressive education. In England a system of teaching often called Free School is employed in teaching the primary grades. It is difficult to get a handle on this because the divisions in England are not the same as the American divisions. The primary school begins at age five just as in America. However, it is subdivided into infant stage and junior stage. It seems that the division is between age seven and eight and junior stage lasts until age eleven. Sometimes the children begin what is called middle school at age eight which lasts until age thirteen or so. It is somewhat confusing and seems to depend on the local conditions such as the size of the school.
Regardless of the divisions, Free School seems to be applicable only to the younger children. In this model, authoritarian instruction is set aside and the kids learn as individuals at their own pace in a play like setting. Depending on the activity, they may study alone or with a small group of other kids. Thus, the timetable for learning is individual based rather than group based. Also talking, physical activity, and moving around are encouraged. With the kids working as individuals or in small groups, how could it be otherwise.
In the infant school the kids work with a teacher. Play is seen as a part of the learning experience, but it is structured to draw out the child's analytic abilities. In the English model I do not see that the kids end up better educated, only that they are happier while learning. For sure, that's important, but it's not necessarily education. It is an improvement, but if it does not produce geniuses, there is something wrong yet.
Probably one thing wrong is they do not continue it beyond infant school. Once beyond this Free School age, it seems the notion of interest centered learning is set aside for the more traditional approach of authoritarian curricula driven education. For those interested, I'm sure there is more to learn from the English experience, but I will leave it at that.
For the old model of education we find that some school systems are very small and cannot be made bigger. For example, the schools in North Dakota are small. The population density causes that and will probably not change anytime soon. Silberman gives a lot of attention to these schools, but I see them as a special case. So called progressive education is happening there because they had a special situation. The schools were too small and too far apart to be effective in the traditional model. Their kids were failing the SAT. They had to do something and they went to a student centered model. It seems to be working better as far as passing the test is concerned.
Another experiment is something called the Parkway Program in Philadelphia. Also called the school without walls it is really a special admissions highschool. Again, this is a special case of progressive education. The student body is selected from all sections of the city. The kids are put into a tough academic curriculum along with considerable community based educational situations. It seems the entire community is involved in educating these kids including local government, businesses, colleges, and universities. This is a limited, but very successful situation producing highly motivated graduates.
My wife went to something of a progressive school in Detroit years ago when Detroit was still a decent place to live. This was Cass Technical Highschool. It's goal was the technical training of students along with the standard academics. Pre-nursing is the specialty my wife chose. There were many others. Admission was by application and the students came from a cross section of the entire city. Now that school would be called a school of choice, I suppose. Of course, it is not the same now. Since Detroit has fallen on hard times, the school system had gone the way of most big city systems.
I have briefly discussed some of these efforts at progressive education. There have been many others at various times and places, but that is enough for the flavor. Now, I must ask, are any of these efforts really working? If they are, where are the products? The kids get high scores on the tests and they go on to college, but I have to ask, what else? Where are the great scientists and leaders? Where are the intellectual giants and geniuses? We should be asking where are the Einsteins, Aristotles, Turings, and Booles? Where Are the Winston Churchills, John Adams', and George Washingtons. Where are the people who will change the world? If this method of education is working, where are these people?
Let's pause and look at this idea of schools producing world changing geniuses, I want to clear up my own thinking. By a person being a genius, I do not mean that each person has the potential to be omnipotent. I am not at all convinced of that. A person may not be a genius in all areas. That would probably be a rare situation. However, I do believe that each person has a particular genius which is unique to him or her. I believe it is the task of education to draw that genius out and allow it to begin developing. I don't see us doing that.
So far as I understand it, the weakness of the so-called progressive schools is they are still stuck on the classic curriculum driven model. They still have their standard set of subjects that everyone must learn. They have changed the way they present them. It is all so nice and all so friendly and all of that. They have gotten very informal. The kids are happier in this environment, but the teachers are still teaching the same rigid set of subjects.
It is not interest driven education at all. They talk the talk, but they do not walk the walk. They are still telling kids what they have to learn. It is just a different format for doing the same thing. Even though they are willing to let kids be kids a little bit, they still have the final goal of making those kids into replacement parts for our socioeconomic machine. They are still subverting the natural instincts and drives of the kids. It's all very nicey nice so the kids don't fight it and that is the real trap. They still have grades and they still move everyone along from grade to grade, ready or not.
They talk but they don't do it. They talk about interest driven education and they talk about learning being a process. They never actually applied these notions though. They still divide education up into levels, grades, scores, and compartments. They don't let it develop as a process. It is still a series of steps to the same old goals. They have their minds made up of the things we must learn. That is what went wrong. That is why nothing has changed. At bottom, they did not want anything to change. They did not want to change their value system and that's what it is about. So long as we cling to the old goals and value systems, nothing can change. Rhetoric by itself is not change.
I have finally realized the hypocrisy in this child's interest notion. When they say the child's interest, they do not mean what the child is interested in. They mean what adults see as the child's best interest. It's the same old bull. We do it for the child's own good. I have heard parents say that while they were beating their kid. "I'm doing this for you own good." What horrible hypocrisy. We continue to justify the atrocities we perpetrate on children with this nonsense. Education is still something we do to children for their own good.
All of these educators miss the point. Some of them even say that education should be about making people capable of teaching themselves. But they only see it with respect to university education. I insist it is even more true of children. The educators seem to deny the idea that children are fully capable of teaching themselves, given the support and material. Teaching ourselves is what we do from birth. The moment we become aware, we begin to investigate, explore, and learn. In fact, the only way we can learn, is through our own understanding. In a very real way, it is impossible to teach people. All we can do is present the material.
It is the very notion of teaching which interrupts this natural
behavior and spoils it. In the worst case, we make it impossible
for a person to learn by trying to force on them what they will
do naturally. All of our educators are so caught up in this student
teacher model that they cannot see the obvious. We cannot teach
people, we can only help them learn.
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