SECTION ONE

Past
Introduction: Aims of
Progressive Education

JOHN L . PECORE
University of West Florida

Progressive education is based in pragmatism, a philosophical movement that

began in the United States in the 1870s whose leaders included Charles Sand-
ers Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller.
These pragmatists were inspired by earlier works such as Francis Bacon’s scientific
method, David Hume’s ideas of naturalism, Thomas Reid’s direct realism, and
Immanuel Kant’s idealism. Others who influenced progressive education include
John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Friedrich
Fröbel, to name a few. While related ideas of progressive education are seen inter-
nationally in the schools of Maria Montessori in Italy, Olive Decroly in Belgium,
Leo Tolstoy in Russia, and Janusz Korczak in Poland, among others, this intro-
duction provides a perspective in the context of American progressive education.
The term “progressive education,” first used sporadically in the 1880s (Cremin,
1959), has appeared as a generic term in educational literature for over a century,
usually with a commonly understood or misunderstood meaning. In 1933, Reisner
wrote the following in response to the question: What is progressive education?
To undertake in this current year of grace an answer to the question put above may to
many seem gratuitous and to many others belated. For years the term has been in constant
use and presumably its meaning is clearly and comprehensively understood. And yet there
remains a great deal of uncertainty regarding just what progressive education is. Laymen,
hearing the term so freely used by professional educators, are abashed at their ignorance of
what is apparently so well known, and only privately, with an apologetic air, do they confess
to their deficiency of understanding, and request that in a very few and simple words the
54 | J OHN L . P E CORE

mystery be made plain to them. Even among educators—educators organized in panels for
the discussion of progressive education—there appears to be a deplorable lack of unanimity
regarding the connotations of the word progressive. (p. 192)

A I M S O F P R O G R E S S I V E E D U C AT I O N

Progressive education began with the pioneering work of Francis W. Parker in the
1870s, and gained popularity through the writings of John Dewey and adoption
by the Progressive Education Association as a movement to improve the lives of
individuals. The movement entails a focus on 1) quality of family and community
life, 2) instruction tailored to educate everyone, and 3) a culture where everyone
shares in the benefits of science and the pursuit of arts. Progressive education has
always represented different things to different people. For example, social settle-
ment workers viewed progressive education as a means to transform the school
into a community center for social education, while agrarian reformers envisioned
a means to educate children on the joys and possibilities of farm life (Cremin,
1959). In Schools of Tomorrow, John Dewey and his daughter Evelyn (1915/1962)
vividly documented the variety of progressive schools such as the Marietta John-
son School of Organic Education in Alabama and the neighborhood-oriented
programs in Indianapolis. They argued for adjusting education to society through
a new kind of education appropriate to a democratic society that equips everyone
to live intelligently, making for a better and richer society. Thus, for education to
have different meanings for different people makes sense.
For one group, the progressive education movement meant a society devoted
to human worth and excellence through highly individualistic pedagogy where
schools encouraged children to freely develop their uniquely creative potential. A
second group, including Elsie Ripley Clapp, advocated for school activities directed
at social and economic regeneration of local communities. George S. Counts and
his followers were a third group, who sought to build a new social order through
political reform. Eugene Randolph Smith and a fourth group of progressive edu-
cators concentrated on reorganizing and enlivening the traditional school studies.
Finally, the fifth group, including John Dewey, regarded the progressive education
movement as an expression of experimentalism emphasizing scientific method,
naturalism, and social planning (Cremin, 1959).

T E N E T S O F P R O G R E S S I V E E D U C AT I O N

While aims provide a vision or goals for education, tenets are the principle ideas
for achieving the vision regardless of the means with which to pursue the aims.
 PAST | 55

While the progressive education movement has never been precisely defined,
prominent connotations are linked to child-centeredness, guided by concepts of
interest, freedom, and self-activity, a psychology of learning by doing, and a social
philosophy that stresses individual worth and cooperation over competition (Bode,
1938). Despite being ambiguous, Bode wrote,

A visitor to our schools ordinarily has no difficulty in recognizing a so-called progressive

school. He can usually tell the difference the moment he opens the door. The progressive
school cultivates an atmosphere of activity and freedom which is all its own. In academic
language, the progressive school is a place where children go, not primarily to learn, but to
carry on a way of life. (p. 9)

According to Washburne (1952), progressive education is not easy to define, sim-

ply because it is always changing. When trying to describe in concrete terms a
progressive school, the school has progressed beyond the description. Progressive
education is continuously progressing; it is alive and growing with no fixed creed,
no unchanging body of knowledge, and no specific method to be applied. Just
as science and society are constantly changing, progressive education adapts to
the progress of science and humanity. As our knowledge of how students learn,
develop, and mature improves, so does progressive education in providing experi-
ences that help students to develop their abilities and interests, to understand their
unique role in the changing world, and to view their own well-being as inseparable
from that of others (Washburne, 1952).
At the suggestion of Marietta Johnson, between late 1918 and early 1919,
Stanwood Cobb convened a small group of leaders carrying on experimental
programs and their supporters to prepare for the formation of the Association
for the Advancement of Progressive Education (renamed in 1931 as Progressive
Education Association). As the founder of the School of Organic Education
in Fairhope, Alabama, Johnson, at the time, was implementing her unconven-
tional ideas about education, which included no examinations, no homework,
and no possibility of failure. Another leading pioneer in the group was Eugene
Randolph Smith, first headmaster (1912–1922) at the Park School in Baltimore,
Maryland, and later headmaster of the Beaver Country Day School in Brook-
line, Massachusetts. Smith (1939) recognized that what children needed was an
education

that helps an individual to develop an understanding of life, and the character and the
power of thinking and doing that will help him to live richly, to use his abilities wisely and
fully, and to be a useful and constructive member of his community.

The group, with mostly a synthesis of the ideas from Johnson and Smith, crafted
seven tenets of progressive education, edited in Table 1.
56 | J OHN L . P E CORE

Table 1. Statement of Seven Principles of Progressive Education.

Principle Description
1. Freedom Students should manage their conduct according to the social needs
to Develop of the community rather than by arbitrary rules and be provided
Naturally with opportunities for initiative and self-expression in an environ-
ment rich with interesting and freely available materials.
2. Interest, the Student interest should be satisfied and developed through
Motive of all 1) direct and indirect experiences with the world and its activities,
Work 2) application of knowledge and integration of subjects, and
3) consciousness of achievement.
3. The Teacher Teachers should be facilitators of small classes by encouraging
as Guide, not a student use of their senses; training students to observe and make
Taskmaster judgments; mostly guiding students to use various sources of
information, including lived experiences and books; providing
support for student reasoning about acquired information; and
expressing forceful conclusions reached logically.
4. Scientific Study Student assessment should not be limited to grades but should
of Student include both objective and subjective reports on the physical,
Development mental, moral, and social attention on the all-important work of
student development rather than simply teaching subject matter.
5. Greater Health of the student should be the first priority of schools by
Attention to all providing adequate space for movement, good light and air, clean
That Affects the and well-ventilated buildings, and easy access to and frequent use
Student’s Physical of adequate playgrounds and the outdoors.
Development
6. Cooperation Parents and teachers should intelligently cooperate to provide as
Between School & much of the natural interest and activities for practical experience,
Home to Meet the to include homemaking and healthful recreation for both boys
Needs of Student and girls. All, if not most, student studying should be done at
Life school, and extracurricular studies should be at school or home
to dissipate unnecessary energy. Parents should know what the
school is doing and why and ways to effectively cooperate; teach-
ers should help parents develop a broad outlook on education and
provide help by making school resources available.
7. The Progressive The school should be a laboratory of new ideas—which, if
School a Leader warranted, are encouraged—and lead movements in education,
in Educational combined with the best of the past, and added to the sum of
Movements educational knowledge, rather than schools being ruled by tradi-
tion alone.
Note. Originally phrased principles can be found in The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in
American Education 1876–1957 by L. Cremin, 1961, pp. 243–245.
 PAST | 57

Today, progressive education is viewed as “a pedagogical movement that empha-

sizes student-centered learning experiences and that incorporates aspects such as
learning by doing, valuing diversity, integrated curriculum, problem-solving, crit-
ical thinking, collaborative learning, social responsibility, democracy, and lifelong
learning” (Pecore & Bruce, 2013, p. 10). As in the early 1900s, progressive edu-
cation today means different things to different people. For example, while some
progressive education schools focus on learning by projects and others focus on
social justice, the important common feature is the situation of learning within
a social, community, or political context that some progressive educators may
more broadly use to actively promote critical pedagogy and democratic education
(Pecore & Bruce, 2013).

THIS SECTION

In this first section within the International Handbook of Progressive Education, we

include 10 chapters that explore the legacy of progressive education by drawing
on the history of progressive education as a way of looking at relevant present-day
educational issues and, in that context, engage in critical dialogue about the aims
of education. Two chapters address the role of critical discourse in higher educa-
tion and teacher preparation. Others examine progressive education reform initia-
tives and visions to provide historical context for the aims of progressive educa-
tion, including efforts both within and beyond the U.S. Further chapters focus on
specific trends, such as project-based learning, issues-centered education, aesthetic
education, or wonder.
We first present two chapters addressing the role of critical discourse in
higher education and unique perspectives on teacher preparation. In “Anti-
Progressivism in Education: Past and Present,” Wayne Urban presents the works
of three mid-20th-century critiques of progressive education in teacher educa-
tion faculties. He relates the criticism to the decline of academic standards in
American teacher education and the need for committed faculties to raise the
intellectual demands in colleges of education. In the next chapter, “John Dewey
and Village Institute Model in Teacher Training System in Turkey,” Selçuk
Uygun compares Dewey’s ideas on teacher education to the village institute
model within the Turkish teacher training system. Relying mostly on Dewey’s
1924 report to Turkish authorities documenting his observations, evaluations,
and recommendations of Turkish teacher training, Uygun compares Dewey’s
ideas to the principles governing the foundation and operation of Turkish village
institutes.
The next four chapters offer insight into progressive education reform ini-
tiatives and visions to provide some historical context for the aims of progressive
58 | J OHN L . P E CORE

education. In “John Dewey and the Challenge of Progressive Education,” Leon-

ard Waks considers John Dewey’s ideas to reconcile new tendencies in education
with democratic social concepts. As present-day teachers connect with the his-
torical tenets of progressive education, Waks analyzes specific aspects of Dew-
ey’s work in relation to a global network society. The next chapter is “Austrian
School Reform, 1919–1934,” which articulates the reform movement of Otto
Glöckel in post-World-War-I Austria. Here, George Hein highlights the influ-
ence of politics on educational policy. Anna Brix Thomsen in “Revamping the
French Educational Philosopher Célestin Freinet’s Pedagogy and its Relevance
for Current Discussions on Progressive Education” presents the philosophy and
pedagogy of Freinet, which includes an educational environment incorporat-
ing work-play into children’s daily school activities. Then, Rhonda Webb and
Chara Bohan, in “Beyond Jane Addams: The Progressive Pedagogies of Ella
Flagg Young, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Lucy Maynard Salmon, and Anna Julia
Cooper,” feature four pioneering women exemplifying different contexts of pro-
gressive aims in practice. They examine the work of Ella Flagg Young in admin-
istrative reform, Lucy Sprague Mitchell in elementary education, Lucy Maynard
Salmon in history teaching, and Anna Julia Cooper in education for the
disenfranchised.
The final four chapters describe trends (i.e., project-based learning, issues-
centered education, aesthetic education, and wonder) to inspire the practices for
achieving the aims of progressive education. In “From Kilpatrick’s Project Method
to Project-Based Learning,” John Pecore illustrates the progression from project
method to project-based learning as an example of how progressive education
changes from the scientific progress of knowledge. Next, Gregg Jorgensen advo-
cates for fostering democracy through education by making personal and political
beliefs part of our national debate in “Discovering Dewey as a Guiding Foun-
dation: Examining Moral Problems Using Issues-Centered Education.” After
presenting John Dewey’s theories of ethics and moral education, Jorgensen high-
lights the possibilities of stimulating students’ critical thinking through issues-
centered curricula. Then, in “Saving a Progressive Vision: Assessing the Move of
the Barnes Foundation,” Walter Feinberg and Jeanne Connell help us to under-
stand the controversy of moving Barnes’s multibillion-dollar art collection by
examining Barnes’s conceptualization of art with respect to John Dewey’s ideas for
aesthetic education and its role in progressive education aims. Finally, in “Where’s
Wonder?” Fred Burton comments on the lack of joy, passion, and imagination
education provides for today’s students. He reflects on ideas from preeminent
progressive educators such as David Hawkins, Eleanor Duckworth, and Ken and
Yetta Goodman, in the context of current school reform. Fred reminds us that
wonder plays an essential role in today’s educational environment of standards
and high-stakes tests.
 PAST | 59

REFERENCES

Bode, B. H. (1938). Progressive education at the crossroads. New York, NY: Newson & Co.
Cremin, L. A. (1959). What was progressive education: What happened to it? Vital Speeches of the
Day, 25(23), 721–726.
Cremin, L. A. (1961). The transformation of the school: Progressivism in America 1876–1957. New York,
NY: Random House.
Dewey, J., & Dewey, E. (1915/1962). Schools of tomorrow. New York, NY: E. P. Dutton.
Pecore, J. L., & Bruce, B. C. (2013). Editorial. Progressive Education: Antecedents of Educating for
Democracy [Special Issue]. International Journal of Progressive Education, 9(1), 10–12.
Reisner, E. H. (1930). What is progressive education? Teachers College Record, 3(35), 192–201.
(ID Number: 7315). Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org/library
Smith, R. E. (1924). Education moves ahead: A survey of progressive methods. Boston, MA: The Atlantic
Monthly Press.
Smith, R. E. (1939). United States: Paper three. Teachers College Record, 1(1), 345–355.
Washburne, C. (1952). What is progressive education? A book for parents and others. New York, NY: The
John Day Company.