"Progressive"

[Peter Gow]

I work in a school that calls itself progressive, and which was founded 88 years ago by people who were entranced with John Dewey and his ideas.

We spent the years from about 1945 to 1993 mumbling about or apologizing for our progressive history, but in recent years we've embraced and trumpeted both the heritage and a set of practices that we have chosen to describe as "progressive teaching." Most of these practices are based on ideas that have flourished in the past couple of decades, ideas that find their own sources in the work of Howard Gardner, the Sizers, Robert Sternberg, Grant Wiggins, Heidi Hayes Jacobs, and more lately Carol Tomlinson and others. We have also become a diverse community and have paid close heed to some of the more renowned thinkers in the areas of equity pedagogy and multicultural education: James Banks, Lisa Delpit, Gloria Ladson Billings, Jaime Wurzel, Peggy McIntosh, Carol Gilligan, Claude Steele, and the Sadkers.

While all these folks have produced ideas that seem to be clearly connected philosophically with the aims of Dewey et al., there seemed to be something inadequate, and even misleading, about calling the work we are engaged in "progressive." The problematic areas were simply that the received critique of Progressive Education (from the likes of Ravitch, Hirsch, the Thernstroms, and the Hoover Institute folks) was really aimed at aspects of Old Progressive practice that have largely been abandoned by contemporary educators or whose implementation on a large scale in public school systems has failed owing largely to a watering-down of both aims and methods. (Then there is the whole permissive/"free school" thing leftover from the 60s and 70s.) I have noted that Ravitch sent her own kids to what she called a "progressive" independent school and that in each section of Hirsch's point-by-point attack on what he calls "progressive" practice in THE SCHOOLS WE NEED he allows that, properly implemented, all the practices he derides could provide valuable learning experiences. The long and the short of it is that the term "progressive education" means too many things to too many people, and we here spend too much time explaining it, and ourselves.

The EdWeek piece (attached to this message) was designed to put the modern practices that we favor (and that seem to be the meat and drink of NAIS conference content these days, much to my delight, even if not every school is embracing these ideas whole-hog) under an umbrella and give the umbrella a name. The New Progressivism seemed as good as any--acknowledges the heritage but allows for new content. Selfishly, I am hoping that the term takes hold simply to allow our school and schools like ours to be able to talk about what we do in a positive, non-defensive way. I might hope that it could also become a way for all educators to celebrate the work of the New Progressive gurus mentioned above, and perhaps--this is the biggie--to give a name to a movement that might someday unseat the monsters of standardized testing and lockstep curriculum that seem to be stultifying public education in so many places.

So that's where I'm coming from on this. Your thoughts?

Thanks--PG

[Jamie Britto]

When the Ian Jukes session ended on Saturday and they handed out the black t-shirts, I thought, "Well that completes the concert-like experience." I felt more energized leaving New York than I have after any other conference.

Your observations in the article and here help bring focus to those sentiments. As a tech guy, I say Amen to the technology as tool. I also share the feeling that we can celebrate rather than apologize for our New Progressive stance.

At my school our work and thinking has very much to do with the seven points you list in your article. So my thoughts would be I hear you, I see you, and I raise my lighter high.

Peter, Thanks for starting this group and articulating your thoughts so well. I look forward to joining the disucssion.

[Peter Gow]

Thanks! You can raise that lighter, but you don't want me crowd-surfing above you.

Celebration is what I hope for. I just spent an hour with the parents of a Middle School student here who were "just making sure" that their bright, passionately musical child (a nonstop reader, too) will be well served in our high school. Of course, of course, and all the elements of the New Progressivism are why! I loved that conversation!

[Peter Vinogradov]

Having taught at a "Progressive School" for the last 14 years, I too am impressed at the number of things "progressive" means to different people. While that diversity of thought is sometimes a frustrating thing, it more often than not leads to the kinds of debate and pedagogical thought that I think are the lifeblood of any good educational institution, whether or not they call themselves "progressive".

The apparent age of the term, along with its rich tradition of being simultaneously embraced by schools and apologized for (by those very same schools), has put it in a precarious moment where it risks being left in the dustbin of educational history.

In contrast to your approach, Peter, of reaffirming the "Progressive" concept, I've lately heard educational leaders respond to this moment by describing the term as being "devoid of meaning", signaling a readiness to not only leave it in the dustbin, but to tamp it down to the bottom and cover it with pencil shavings. This same line of thought tends to go with the argument that the more successful elements of progressive thought and methodology are so widespread now, and so commonly embraced, that it's disingenuous to view these things as "progressive". However, as you rightly point out, Peter, there is a large-scale watered-down version of progressive aims and methods that shouldn't be confused with the ideas laid out by Dewey et al.

The dangerous aspect of this attitude, in my opinion, is that it risks taking us to the same place as the "zealots and hypocrites" you describe in your article. By being "post-progressive", we invite conformity and acquiescence to those same critical voices that have brought today's schools into a standards-based quagmire.

For example, in recent years, our own "Progressive" school launched a formal effort to define "excellence", an initiative which, though benign in its stated aims, reeked of all the same doubt, fear, and skepticism that has plagued educational decision-making for the last half century. And after a year or more of meetings, writings, and "study", I still couldn't tell you how we define "excellence".

And why couldn't I tell you? Because you don't have the time to hear it - Nobody does. Not parents, not administrators, and certainly not colleges. But here, let me try:

Recently, I taught a class in Flash animation. One of the students was a brilliant animator who'd spent a large chunk of his adolescent free time working in Flash. Entirely self-taught, his work was really something to behold - hands flying across a tablet, creating 3-d figures in a 2-d space with such detail and emotion that the rest of the students - all novices - and I myself, would just stand in amazement crowded around his workstation. By all accounts, this was "excellence", and it was only day 1 of the course.

But, as the course progressed, and we delved deeper into Actionscript, I could sense this student's resistance to adulterating his remarkable craft with a bunch of hairy code, even though his knowledge of that code was already fairly well-developed. As our projects got going, he started in on a project that would continue to showcase his animation skill, while demanding only a minimum of code. Meanwhile, the students around him were relentless in enlisting his help as they worked through the most basic mechanics of getting their clunky stick figures to move across a screen. And yet, through months of the course, he was unflagging in his willingness to interrupt his own work and help them out.

At some point, he scrapped his initial project and turned to one that was much more ambitious in its programming scope. In so doing, he piled programming challenges on himself, tackled them with a mixture of google and trial-and-error, and still never hestitated to get up and go help a classmate.

(More...)

[Peter Vinogradov]

(argh... too long for one reply...)

I probably don't need to tell anyone who's ever been in a classroom what aspects of all this I see as "excellence", but I can assure you that I couldn't describe it in any fewer words, much less in a single letter of the alphabet, and that none of it bears any resemblance to the sound bytes that agents of fear and doubt want to hear.

After 14 years, I'm leaving education altogether (with much regret), and I can only hope that if I ever return to it, I'll be able to still recognize those elements that fit into my own idiosyncratic definition of "Progressive". That definition certainly includes the points you list in your article, but I'd also want to add the following:

Student-centered: No, this doesn't mean "as opposed to teacher-centered, or pencil-centered", it just means recognizing and instilling in your school culture the notion that students have good ideas, and need to take the lead in determining what you're doing and how you're doing it. This doesn't mean a wishy-washy classroom with no plan, but it does mean a classroom and a set of school rules that are highly responsive to will and thoughtful input of students. It also means having teachers that love students enough to put up with their immaturity and growth process - who can exercise patience and extend an enormous measure of trust and faith.

A living schedule: this is a corollary to the previous point. The class I described above occurs in a time slot that consumes most of every wednesday (once upon a time, the powers that be allowed it to consume ALL of wednesday). Only with an open and creative schedule can you create room and space for students to lead their own learning, take real risks, and develop their passions.

Multi-age: This means creating and nurturing an environment where students are constantly challenged to accept and work with others who are operating at a substantially higher or lower intellectual and emotional level than themselves. This concept is anathema to those who want their kids to excel and be better than everyone at everything. However, the one thing kids in this environment won't suck at when they graduate is being able to listen, understand, empathize and collaborate.

Risk-taking: Classes will fail. Time will be wasted. Students will be frustrated. Parents will be angry. None of these conditions should be in the mission statement (I guess), but all of these need to occur, and all need to be learned from. If a school can't embrace this, it's just not progressive in my book.

Grade free: This goes along with your points, Peter, about alternative and creative assessment, but in my mind, the rejection of grading has to be spelled out explicitly. Kids are not meat, and their learning is not a race. To me, therefore, it makes no sense to slap a letter on them or rank them. The excuse that colleges don't have time for our wishy-washy narratives is nonsense. Showing off my own age and what a cultural infant I am, I refer to that 80's classic, The Karate Kid. My one distinct memory of that movie, other than "sand-the-floor", was when Miagi had to sign Daniel up for the final tournament. The guy at the registration desk says, "What belt is he?", and Miagi gives him an exasperated look that I'll never forget. With a sigh, he says, simply, "The boy is black belt".

[Peter Gow]

I like your additions, and I certainly concur with your point of view on "excellence"--a word that shows up far too often in mission statements and the like without any definition or context. I have a close relative who works at a school whose whole focus is on "excellence," whatever the heck that means. It is a word, like "rigor" (which clearly implies and in fact denotes pain and suffering, or at least contortion) that we try hard not to use in almost any unanchored way at our place; excellent can be an adjective as long as there is supporting evidence and context that points to something especially well done, but rigor is a term only for describing the physical state of a cold corpse.

As to schedules, we've been operating with a strange and wonderful "block" schedule for almost a decade now. Like the word progressive, we shied from using the B-word because some local public schools had poisoned the concept in some parents' minds with some ill-conceived and poorly implemented versions; we just called it an "extended-period" schedule. We're also working on ways of replacing or at least illuminating our letter grades with an more specific and descriptive kind of instrument than the usual private school narrative comments. It may take a while. Some years back our middle school started using letter grades (don't ask why, because your worst suspicions are probably correct), and getting that cat back in the bag seems to be an insurmountable task. How will they know where they stand? How will they get into college? Gosh, ask the folks at St. Anne's. Or ask, How will they know what they have learned, and how well, and what they might need to work on?--which are much better questions.

Like dress code discussions, for which all teachers should be compensated at so-much a minute, those "What is progressive, anyhow?" questions can take far too much time. I confess to moments when I've thought our school should in fact ditch the P label and just talk about what actually happens in our classrooms and other areas of student experiences, but I'm too old to let go now. My hope is that "New P" can give new and comprehensible life to the idea, and I'd proudly add your suggestions to the list of descriptors. (Personally, I'm also a big fan of multi-age learning and play, and if you looked at the EdWeek piece on that a couple of weeks ago you'd have noted that the research was done at Sudbury Valley School, the U.S. Summerhill, which my oldest kid, now 30, attended for four of his "elementary school" years. His experiences learning and governing--and, I fear, smoking--with older and younger kids was absolutely crucial to his becoming who he is, although I'm waiting for the Nicorette to work.)

I'm sad to hear that you're jumping out of the profession, but thanks and best wishes, perhaps even for a safe return--PG

[Jon Acheson]

Proof is in the pudding - if projects and talents are evident in student work, then the parents and students who are interested in real work as opposed to test scores only, will come knocking. There is a market for progressive education labeled progressive, and we shouldn't apologize for its use.
My school too, like Peter G's, is nearing a 100 year anniversary and is avowedly progressive having also been started by Deweyites. Upper most in my mind is taking students seriously ... which can be a lot of fun ... and not worrying about parents and college and what comes next, but to live/educate now, in the moment and achieve excellence by experimenting with points of view, with ideas.
Of course, we have different students than we did 100 years ago. Getting students to read because there are really amazing things to read, and to think about when reading, can be a challenge. As McLuhan said we live in a 'mediated' digital world where media both reflects and forms thought. But engagement in nonmediated conversations, and reading and writing still happens at progressive schools - and the quality of student work whether it is a Flash file program or a pithy essay, improves over the four years.
So, it is the stuff kids end up doing that matters - the evidence of their work that demonstrates the sincerity of purpose and care that can be achieved in a progressive environment - stuff which is not demonstrated by writing two good 25 minute formulaic essays for the history AP test.

[Bill Ivey]

Hi!

The principles of "New Progressivism" along with Peter V.'s additional ideas sound very much like my ideal school, and I am so heartened to hear that they infused the NAIS conference in New York (which I was unable to attend).

I do agree that the word "progressive" has negative connotations created both by stereotyping of what the word means and by overgeneralization of the less successful brands/ideas/experiments of progressivism that have, in fact, taken place over the years. It's not a new phenomenon - if you look at the original “Miracle on 34th Street” from 1947, there's a reference to the girl who doesn't believe in Santa Claus attending “Ah! A progressive school!”

Since I'm a middle school teacher, I've been able to refer to the 14 principles of "This We Believe" as enumerated by National Middle School Association. With the imprimatur of NMSA, and by stating repeatedly and explicitly that "TWB" is rooted in research, I've been able to create at atmosphere at my school where much if not all of what you are calling New-Progressivism has taken hold and is seen as the basis of our culture and all we do. So oddly enough, in our case, integrating a term like "New Progressivism" into our daily vocabulary would need to be done fairly delicately. Yet, I understand the desire and perhaps even the need to have a shorthand term for the ideals by which we are trying to live. It's a conundrum.

Take care,
Bill

[Peter Gow]

Although I enjoy the original version of "Mo34thSt," I do cringe at the "progressive" reference there. Such references are all over the darn place, unfortunately--it's a cheap laugh, apparently. In fact, I'd like to propose that we start collecting these references. Maybe I'll start a wiki just for them.

"TWB" is an interesting alternative. Thanks for the tip on the NMSA principles.

[Alex Ragone]

Hi Peter --- Great article. Would you be interested in discussing it on our webcast? We'd love to have you. Are you available on 5/21 or 6/4 at noon est? Thanks! - Alex

[Josie Holford]

The indefatigable and invaluable Alfie Kohn has weighed in on the the meaning of progressive education in the Spring 2008 Independent School magazine. His article may be found here.
In addition to his knack of making things practical Kohn also outlines just why the definition of the traditions of "progressive" are so elusive and problematic; why they often leave the thoughtful practitioner on the defensive; and why progressive schools are so rare. I thought the section on misconceptions particularly on target.

[Peter Gow]

Much as I love Alfie Kohn, whom I heard present the "what is progressive" piece in a very compelling way a few years back at a conclave of progressive and nominally progressive and wishing-they-could-be progressive schools hereabouts, I saw that article, gulped slightly, and found myself thinking, "Sssshhhh!! Don't say any more! They might hear you, and they'll think we're all crazy." But I'm glad he's out there, and I like what he has to say--he does challenge schools to live a set of great values. What he says our children deserve, they really do deserve.