Progressive Education - Educational Theory

Educational Theory

Forerunners

Progressive education can be traced as far back as to the works of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, with both being respectively known as paternal forerunners to the ideas that would be demonstrated by the likes of Dewey. Locke first speculated, “truth and knowledge… are out of observation and experience rather than manipulation of accepted or given ideas “ (Locke as cited in Hayes, 2007, p. 2). He further discussed the need for children to have concrete experiences in order to learn.

Rousseau furthered this assumption in Emile where he made a standpoint against students being subordinate to teachers and that memorization of facts would not lead to an education. (See:Emile, or On Education)

Another forerunner to progressive education was Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827). Although he did not consider himself an educator, his research and theories closely resemble those outlined by Rousseau in Emile. He is further considered by many to be the “father of modern educational science” (Hayes, 2007, p. 2). His psychological theories pertain to education as they focus on the development of object teaching, that is, he felt that individuals best learned through experiences and through a direct manipulation and experience of objects. He further speculated that children learn through their own internal motivation rather than through compulsion. (See Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation). A teachers task will be to help guide their students as individuals through their learning and allow it unfold naturally. (Butts and Cremin, 1953)

The "Progressive Education Movement," starting in the 1880s and lasting for sixty years, helped boost American public schools from a budding idea to the regular norm. John Dewey, a principal figure in this movement from the 1880s to 1904, set the tone for educational philosophy as well as concrete school reforms. His reactions to the prevailing theories and practices in education, corrections made to these philosophies, and recommendations to teachers and administrators to embrace “the new education,” provide a vital account of the history of the development of educational thinking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.4 Dewey placed so called pragmatism above moral absolutes and helped give rise to situational ethics.

References:

Hayes, William. (2007). Progressive education movement: Is it still a facto in today's schools? Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Butts, Freeman R. & Cremin, Lawrence A. A history of education in american culture. New York: Henry Hold and Co.