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The Golden Mean
September 01, 2010 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) at 07:49 AM
Here’s an interesting video from the 40’s that explains the thinking behind “progressive” education trends. Of course, it’s impossible to tell from the little bit shown, but it looks as if schooling in the 40’s probably struck the right balance between traditional methods and progressive methods. No one could have predicted, however, that educators would have gone to such extremes as they have today. One gets the feeling that the main proponent of progressive methods, John Dewey, would have been appalled if he could have foreseen where his ideas would lead.
Probably appalled at throwing out the best of the old, and discarding the important elements of the progressive methods, such as art, music, physical education and other projects. Where is a school handing out saws and hammers for a project to seven year olds? How about sketching class being conducted outside, under a tree? Fund raising activities being led and conducted by the students, without having to seek permission from the principal or higher authorities. Starting in grade 3, the school I went to in the 60s, our annual field trips the majority of the costs, were fund raised by the kids. The favourite method, was having one or two bake sales at the local church hall on a Saturday morning. The fund raising taught us skills, that no reading in a book would, or the handling of money and final say-so is conducted by adults only, as it is today’s schools. Leaving the kids to do the grunt work, on pestering their parents and neighbours for money.
But of course that was in the 60s. What was common practice at one time, has been whittled down to safety, security reasons, and the children being conditioned to follow the dictates and edicts of the adults that surround the children in the school.