Educators

Progressive pioneers

The Progressive Teacher Blog celebrates pioneers of progressive education in state schools.

Rosa Bassett – As headteacher of the County Secondary School in Streatham (London), Bassett introduced the Dalton Laboratory Plan during the 1920s. She contributed a chapter to Helen Parkhurst’s Eduction on the Dalton Plan in which she explained the success of the experiment.

Stanislav Shatsky – Shatsky set up the First Experimental Station in the Soviet Union where he developed theories on children’s communities and self-direction. He faced personal danger as Stalin’s reaction set in. A selection of Shatsky’s writings are published in A Teacher’s Experience.

Alex Bloom – As headteacher of St George’s-in-the-East (a post-war secondary modern in the East End of London), Bloom established a school in which students and staff created their own rules for community life, curriculum and learning. Read an article on Bloom and the school here.

Deborah Meier – In 1974 Meier was a founder teacher of Central Park East Elementary School (New York City) – a small school that promoted democratic procedures and used a project-based curriculum. Details of Meier’s books, articles, and blog posts can be found here.

Alex Bloom’s progressive school community

Alex Bloom was headteacher at St George’s-in-the-East school (Stepney, London) for 10 years in the immediate aftermath of World War II. In that time, he created a beacon of progressive education in the state sector, insisting that “a child can’t grow up in an atmosphere of fear.” As the Daily Mirror reported in 1951, the school did not have “formal lessons in the accepted sense, tests or competitions, prizes for achievement, penalties for failure, imposed punishment, division of children into ‘bright’ or ‘dull’ classes.”

Donalda Dickie and the Enterprise

Dr Donalda Dickie was involved in devising and implementing a progressive model of education for state schools in Alberta (Canada) in the 1930s and 1940s. She led system-wide change around the concept of the enterprise, which she defined as “a series of purposeful activities arising out of the pupils’ needs and interests and revolving about one central theme.” The Enterprise emphasised social learning that underpinned the development of a sound mental health, an understanding of knowledge linked to community life, and an ability to reason through the scientific method.

Our ‘knowledge’ is different to theirs

Recently David Didau wrote about ‘neo-progressivism’. His post summarises the traditionalists’ current critique of progressive education. Apparently, Didau believes in social justice, wants children to be creative, collaborative and critical and grow up “to be tolerant, compassionate, open-minded, curious, cooperative and to help leave the world in a better condition than that in which they found it.” Before we mistake Didau for a modern-day Dewey, he quickly establishes his traditionalist credentials by declaring that “knowledge underpins all of those attributes.” He upholds the traditionalists’ two-stage prescription for education: students should acquire knowledge, then use that knowledge as an object for critical thought.

Dare the School Build a New Social Order?

In 1932, George Counts took on the leaders of the Progressive Movement of his day in a pamphlet called Dare the School Build a New Social Order? He counter-poses the individualistic aims of US progressives to the collective solutions required in economic crisis. In a vision of the ‘American dream’ that might jar for its overt nationalism, Counts resolutely places the agency of teachers and students at the heart of building a new social order in which the citizens control ‘the machine’ of industrialism.

Stanislav Shatsky: the great experimenter

Stanislav Shatsky, a leader of progressive education in Russia, was at the centre of a state-backed attempt to introduce progressive teaching methods into classrooms. Pre-1917, Shatsky set up settlements for children of the urban working class that promoted self-government and taught skills relevant to the needs of the children’s local communities. Although he initially maintained his distance from the Bolshevik Revolution, an increasing realisation that the educational leaders of the Soviet state (particularly Krupskaya) shared his progressive philosophy led Shatsky to join Narkompros (the People’s Commissariat for Education).

Re-reading Dewey

2016 is the centenary of the publication of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education. The book, published during a period of rapid economic growth in the US, places education at the heart of social progress. Dewey’s philosophy is one of hope for a better future in which people are educated to adapt to changing economic conditions. In educating children to think critically and reflectively, schools can help to challenge the inequities that exist in society: “It is the aim of progressive education to take part in correcting unfair privilege and unfair deprivation” (p. 140).

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