School Wars: Progressivists Vs. Traditionalists By:Anthony S. Pellegrino

As mentioned before two factions are wrestling for the minds of students in our public schools today. Let’s continue to examine these two philosophies of education to better understand what is happening in the public schools.

One of the most popular texts used for teachers in training in 1929, Elementary Principals of Education by Edward Thorndike and Arthur Gates, made this blunt statement: “Traditionally the elementary school has been primarily devoted to teaching the fundamental subjects, the three R’s and closely related disciplines….,

Artificial exercises, like drill on phonics, multiplication tables, and formal writing movements, are used to a wasteful degree. Subjects such as arithmetic, language, and history include content that is intrinsically of little value.”

Schools have moved from their former position as a place where students went to get an education to a current position where: “In academic language, the progressive school is a place where children go, not primarily to learn, but to carry on a way of life.” (B. H. Bode, Progressive Education at the Crossroads, 1938.) It appears that children should feel good about them self even at the expense of not learning to read or write and do math.

The progressive school emphasizes teaching the whole child, not subject matter. The classroom is “child-centered.” It is more important that children achieve a high degree of selfesteem at the expense of a high education. They should learn to work together in groups. The brightest student and the slowest student are required to work on the same level of learning. Slower students must not feel the stigma of a poor grade. If their attendance is good and an effort is made, they should be promoted regardless of their lack of understanding of content in any subject. Thus gradually standards have been lowered in the public schools to such a low point that many students graduate merely on the basis of social promotions. It has been shown that over 25% of graduating seniors can barely read their diplomas.

Consider this statement about the progressive movement as stated by John Holt in 1974 in his book Escape From Childhood: ” Young people should have the right to control and direct their own learning, that is, decide what they want to learn, and when, where, how, how much, how fast, and with what help they want to learn it. To be more specific, I want them to have the right to decide if, when, how much and by whom then want to be taught and the right to decide whether they want to learn in a school and if so which one and for how much of the time.”

Yearly we pump more money into the school system, hire qualified teachers, built better classrooms, demand that parents participate in the education of their children, encourage businesses to be more cooperative in hiring our graduates. Yet test after test reflects dismal performances from our students. So who is to blame for this shocking state of affairs? We will discuss this in the next articles.

However at this point I wish to remind everyone that the purpose of these discussions is to make you aware that there is more beneath the surface that affects our educational system than most of us are aware. There is no one simple method for improving our educational system. When we understand the trend and understand the major players affecting these changes, we as intelligent parents and public can question why certain methods of teaching are used. If the results are not satisfactory than we should demand more effective techniques. (To be continued)