Progressive Education Philosophy Essay

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In the U.S. The conflict between progressive and traditional education has been going on for over 100 years, and E.D. Hirsch and John Dewey are polar opposites in this pedagogical and philosophical conflict. Dewey was indeed a support of the Left in politics who wanted the U.S. To become a social democracy and move away from more traditional conservative ideas. He thought that democratic socialism would be the wave of the future in urban, industrial society, and that the traditional education system was not preparing students to participate as active citizens in this new society. It was rigid, authoritarian and hierarchical, with teachers acting like dictators in the classroom and often dispensing plenty of corporal punishment. Rather than follow a rigid, old-fashioned curriculum, the teacher had to allow students to participate in designing lessons that were relevant to their lives and experiences. Only this way could the public schools become dynamic and flexible, keeping up with rapid change in society. Hirsch, on the other hand, rejects these progressive ideas completely and claims they have destroyed public education in the United States. He advocates a standardized curriculum at every grade level that would include history, politics, reading, writing, mathematics and science. It would not only teach students the basics but also prepare them for higher education, and emphasize academics from as young an age as possible, rather than individual freedom or self-esteem.

John Dewey's main theory of progressive education was that the entire system had to be reformed so that it would serve the needs of an urban, industrial society, and teachers had a duty to provide students with experiences that were practical and relevant to their lives. Traditional education was too structured, focused on old-fashioned content and authoritarian to meet these social and individual needs, while progressive education would be flexible, democratic and designed to benefit the student (Dworkin 1961). At the same time, progressive education was often directionless and lacking a central purpose beyond freeing the students to learn what they liked. Dewey was influenced by progressives and pragmatic philosophers like William James and George Herbert Mead in formulating these new educational principles.

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Mead was also from Chicago like Thorstein Veblen and considered himself both a sociologist and an activist. He was hostile to the Ku Klux Klan, American Protective Association and other racist and anti-immigrant groups, arguing that the capitalists had encouraged foreign workers to come to the U.S. As cheap labor to do the "dirty work," yet business, government and the education system ignored their needs and treated them with racist contempt (Fernandez, 2003, p. 142). Mead was also educated in pragmatism at Harvard, studying under William James and Josiah Royce, and then studied the latest European sociology at the University of Berlin. Like his lifelong friend John Dewey, he argued that the purpose of sociology and education was to bring about "conscious social change" (Fernandez, p. 159). Like Emile Durkheim, he was also concerned with creating a new sense of community and cooperation in modern society in the place of alienated individualism.

Dewey emphasized that each individual required different experiences from education, and the only real meaning they would derive from these was the contribution they made to society. Teachers could serve as guides and arrange lessons as needed, but they were not in the classroom simply to impart knowledge, follow a standardized curriculum and lecture while the students passively took notes. Teachers would also have to be aware of the previous experiences of their students in order to design useful and rewarding lessons. Social control was necessary in the schools and in the larger society, but it did not have to be authoritarian or autocratic. Just the opposite, students should be involved in planning lessons while the teacher would not issue commands and instructions but also participate in the group (Dewey 1938/1997). While he did not wish an all-out war with the traditional system, neither did he intend to compromise with it and mix elements of both into a meaningless mishmash. Ultimately, the purpose of education was not to control the students but to help them….....

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