By: Sheri Werner, BA, MS, PPS
Director, Foundations School Community (K-8)
As Director of progressive K-8th grade Foundations School Community, I am often asked to describe Progressive Education and to discuss the ways in which it differs from Non Progressive Education. Last week, while visiting a local elementary school, I experienced such a vivid example of the differences between Non Progressive and Progressive Education that I decided to use this visit as an opportunity to clarify some of those differences and illuminate the advantages of Progressive Education. I was observing a kindergarten class that consisted of 16 children and two teachers. The children were seated on the rug while one teacher was leading them through a morning circle. I was impressed with the child friendly appearance of the room which portrayed a nice calendar and many other age appropriate visual educational materials on the walls. After the morning circle was concluded, the teacher began to explain the activity that was to follow. She explained that the children would continue their study of Native Americans, Plymouth, and The Pilgrims by working on teepees. I quickly glanced around the room, expecting to see some sort of half-completed project of teepees. Perhaps the class was building teepees using sticks, cardboard, wood, or clay? Before I finished my search for teepees, my attention was directed back to the front of the class where the teacher was standing, ditto sheet in hand, requesting the children’s attention to the traced teepee she held in front of her. The teacher pointed out the teepee and the surrounding traced objects on the ditto sheet which included a sun, bear footprints, and some Native American symbols. She explained that the children were to color the objects on the sheet. She then proceeded to remind the children that it was very important to color inside the lines of these objects. This comment was followed by a discussion about what color each item should be. After the color scheme was made clear, the teacher and assistant teacher, who until this moment was doing paperwork in the back of the classroom, decided that it would be best if the assistant teacher colored a ditto sheet herself so that the children could see a model of how to do it.
This episode provides an opportunity to discuss and explore some differences between Progressive and Non Progressive Education. The first notable difference is the curriculum that is studied. In a Progressive setting, the curriculum is chosen in conjunction with the developmental stage of the children. In regard to kindergarteners, curriculum is based on the understanding that children ages 5-6 years are still quite self-centered and self-referent, appropriately so. Their understanding of the world is based on concrete experiences and knowledge that is directly related to themselves. A Progressive setting would utilize this understanding of 5-6 year olds and choose a unit of study with which these children already have some familiarity so that they may grasp, connect to, incorporate, and expand their information to help them learn. This is referred to as a “developmental curriculum”. A unit on homes, for example, is an excellent study for kindergarteners. Every young child can relate to homes because everyone has a home. Within this study of homes, depending on the direction the study takes, children can concretely study everything from the various types of homes to the variety of people and steps involved in constructing a home. Through this social studies unit of homes, all cognitive areas including math, science, language arts, woodwork, art, and music are incorporated. And they are incorporated in a developmentally appropriate way- which, as stated earlier for this age group, is through concrete experiences. Field trips, which provide direct hands on experiences, are a main tool used in Progressive Education to facilitate concrete learning.
As the children grow older, they become more capable of moving away from a self-referent place and expanding their learning to incorporate people and things that are not directly related to themselves and their own experiences. They are ready to move towards more abstract learning. Hence, whereas kindergarten children lack the necessary primary knowledge, understanding and experience to study a group of people that is completely unrelated to themselves and to whom they have no contextual relationships, around the ages of 8 or 9, these children are quite capable of embracing a study which focuses on people that they have never met or seen- (i.e. Native Americans). A Progressive curricular study over time may be as follows:
Further notable differences between Progressive and Non Progressive education include the way in which information is conveyed to children and the role of the teacher. Progressive Education encourages students to learn via a hands-on approach to academic skills development. Hence in this study of homes, children would visit a variety of homes. They would blockbuild homes, make blue prints of homes, and examine materials used in constructing homes by visiting a construction site. They would read and write about homes. They may construct their own miniature homes out of popsicle sticks and other materials. The teacher’s role within the Progressive classroom is to provide experiences, materials and opportunities for children to explore and expand their knowledge and to support children to be proactive as they move through their individual learning process. This is done through encouraging all thoughts, ideas, and information that come from the children. The teacher is not there to be the ultimate source of information to a group of passive listeners. Rather he/she is there to provide a safe environment for children to take the necessary risks involved in gathering, evaluating, and sorting through information.
In a Non Progressive setting, often the teacher’s role is to be the primary source of information. For the most part, students are encouraged to passively take in information provided by the teacher. The emphasis is not on helping students to evaluate and discuss this information. Rather, it is on assisting students to digest the information and regurgitate it when asked to do so –usually in the format of a written exam. In this educational approach children are asked to do less thinking. Hence, much of any student’s intellectual potential is left untapped and unengaged.
Art and creativity in a Progressive setting are also handled differently than in Non Progressive settings. Progressive Education attempts to pull from the child his own ideas, thoughts and personal expression in his creative work. Children are respected as capable, contributing human beings. We are opposed to giving a child a ditto sheet with “correct” objects already drawn for them. If for example, a project requires a drawing of a teepee, we want the child to draw his perception of a teepee. We can learn a lot about his understanding of teepees if we allow him to freely show us what he knows. The choices that the child makes in his drawing, color scheme, layout, and accessories will help us learn much about the child. Asking the child to reach inside herself and portray these images also sends a message to the child: “These people care about what I think. They want to learn about me. My ideas are appreciated. My thinking is valued and respected. It is safe, and even encouraged, to take chances and experiment with different concepts. I must be really important!” This is the message we want conveyed. By handing a child a ditto sheet, telling her to color inside the lines and giving her specific directions of the colors that are to be used, what message are we conveying to the child? Are we not indirectly telling her that we the teachers are the experts? That there is one “correct” way to do an activity and we know that way; you, the child, do not know. We don’t care about your thoughts and ideas. We value your ability to follow directions, to conform to our thinking, and to produce a finished product that shows your incorporation of our thoughts and ideas.
Children look to the adults in their lives for acceptance and approval. They want to please us, to be like us, and to live up to our expectations. When we as adults, color a ditto sheet and use it as a model for children to follow, it is a clear message from us. Five and six year olds have yet to fully develop fine motor control. Their ability is certainly nowhere near our development. What, then, are they to conclude about themselves when they see our perfectly colored teepee and no matter how hard they try, they find themselves incapable of producing one as “perfect” as ours? Unintentionally and inadvertently, we diminish their view of themselves. We need to examine and reevaluate this message: Is this what we want children to take away from their educational experience?
As stated earlier, Progressive Education focuses on experienced-based learning. That is, much of what children learn is attained through experience based activities related to a study which is developmentally appropriate for them. Experience based learning itself is not sufficient. Children must do something with this new information they have acquired. At the end of a particular unit of study, children present a culmination that portrays the information they learned in the unit. Using the study of homes, for example, the culmination may include a house, built by the children out of big blocks, with each room distinguished from the others. There may also be a book, made by the children, about the steps involved in building a home. Another book may be about the people involved in building a home. Artwork about homes may be displayed in the blockbuilt home. The children may sing songs about homes. Through this process, the children are able to solidify the information they have gathered and present it in a way that helps them internalize this information. This learning process is supported by teachers who respect children as human beings with individual learning styles and an abundance of ideas, thoughts and feelings which need to be elicited by teachers, and in this process, cultivated. As these children are nurtured, supported, encouraged to take risks, and form connections to their peers, they become confident, proactive, cooperative members of the school community and ultimately of society.
Although there are several differences between Progressive and Non Progressive Education, the goals of both approaches are similar: we all want to produce children who are educated, proactive, and self-confident. As educators, our job is to constantly examine the means we use to achieve these goals and to evaluate whether these means will produce the end goal that we seek.
