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.

Shatsky (1922) ‘Which comes first: the children or the school?’

Extracts from A Teacher’s Experience.

(p. 203) The main question which should serve to get rid of the blurred ideas of present-day educationists is not what is the kind of school we need today, but what is a child’s life, what are its characteristic features and in what way are they of value in relation to the work of the school.

Continue reading “Shatsky (1922) ‘Which comes first: the children or the school?’”

Shatsky (1918) ‘First steps towards education through work’

Extracts from A Teacher’s Experience.

(p. 176) Prejudices in the way of setting up an education through work establishment. There are two deeply rooted social prejudices which stand in the way of our attaining this ultimate goal, these are, firstly, the idea that it is essential to train children for their future life, activity or career (the prejudice regarding social education) and, secondly, the belief in the indisputable existence of a well-defined volume of knowledge strictly laid down for each stage of life…. These two parallel ideas which are mutually supporting have dealt and continue to deal great harm to children and they complicate efforts to think and analyse clearly and sensibly with regard to questions of child care. It is teachers whom these ideas impede most of all.

Continue reading “Shatsky (1918) ‘First steps towards education through work’”

Stanislav Shatsky: the great experimenter

Stanislav Shatsky

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).

Continue reading “Stanislav Shatsky: the great experimenter”