1940: Progressive Education

The year 1940 brought to a close one of the most significant experiments in American education. Eight years ago, under the leadership of the Progressive Education Association, thirty secondary schools, in cooperation with two hundred and fifty universities and colleges in the United States, began an experiment to improve their educational programs. The biggest obstacle in the way of freedom to experiment was the college entrance examinations and specific course requirements. To overcome this difficulty, the cooperating colleges and universities agreed to waive all the usual requirements for graduates of these thirty secondary schools.

The first students from these schools entered college in 1936. They were watched closely. Now the colleges are faced with these facts which they have helped to gather.

The graduates of these progressive schools had slightly better grades in standard school subjects than were achieved by a matched group that came through the conventional courses and examination requirements. The more extremely progressive the high school, the better work its graduates did in college. A group who had had no higher mathematics in high school surpassed their classmates in every college subject, including mathematics.

Progressive school graduates entered into more extracurricular activities, took a more active interest in politics and art, talked more, wrote more, listened to more speeches and music, read more books, went to more dances and had more dates.

The results of this experiment cast grave doubt on the traditional standards imposed for college preparation and is a distinct victory for progressive education. The exact results for improving high school education the future alone can tell. Already colleges and universities are continuing the move recently begun of making entrance requirements more liberal and course requirements more flexible.

While such experiments have substantiated the claims of the progressive educators, international and national events have created new problems for this liberal movement. Under the banner of defense, school budgets have been attacked and under the stress of the times, some schoolmen have announced a return to the three R's and the earlier conventional programs. The Progressive Education Association, to direct education to the tasks to which schools might contribute regarding national defense, advanced a nine-point program as follows:

(1) A study of America and the people of this nation.

(2) A study of human and material resources and how they are used.

(3) Work experiences for children and youth.

(4) An understanding of the achievements of our Government.

(5) Studying and living democratically.

(6) Emphasis on good human relationships.

(7) Health.

(8) World citizenship.

(9) Adult education.

This program has received the general support of all national associations and schoolmen everywhere. It is the first concrete proposal offered for American education in time of national emergency. All American education will probably be working along these lines in the years ahead.

1939: Progressive Education

Surveys and Research.

Many surveys, studies and research experiments concluded during 1939 gave added support and strength to the progressive education movement. The Regents Inquiry of New York State, which was appointed to investigate the cost and character of public education, came out in support of many of the practices long advocated by progressive educators. It found secondary school tradition bound by college entrance requirements and not helping youth to understand their world. It found schools isolated from their communities and youth uninformed about their immediate surroundings. Of great importance was the statement that cost per pupil did not necessarily determine the character of the education — that schools in less wealthy districts may give a better education for modern youth. The result of this survey, which received nationwide attention, is to strengthen the general education program and to change the curriculum offerings to young people.

The reports of the American Youth Commission added to the picture of the plight of youth in the contemporary scene. The three-year study of the needs of modern youth conducted by the Commission on the Secondary School Curriculum of the Progressive Education Association added much scientific information about youth. Its final report, including the publishing of a series of volumes in the general subject fields of the secondary school curriculum, recommended definite curricular changes to meet youth needs.

Two more states, Ohio and California, established a series of experimental secondary schools to pioneer for them in the education of adolescents. Such a move, which receives its inspiration from the national experiment of the Progressive Education Association now drawing to a close, exemplifies a trend which will spread widely in the next few years.

Evidence that progressive education is far better for youth than the old form appeared from two sources. Dr. J. W. Wrightstone published his extensive study of children in progressive and traditional schools and came out strongly for the new education. The Progressive Education Association in a detailed scientific study of the graduates of its experimental schools found that in college, the students from its more experimental schools outshone matched students from its less experimental schools.

In Colleges and Grades.

Liberalization of higher education continued during 1939. The attacks against progressive education as understood by President Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago received decreasing attention. The general education movement in the liberal arts colleges gained much headway while the education of teachers received increasing attention through the establishment of a Commission on Teacher Education by the American Council on Education. An examination of the program of this Commission and the schools involved is sufficient evidence of its progressive character.

Elementary education continued its progressive approach to the solution of its problems. The publication of Their First Years in School by the Board of Education of the County of Los Angeles, a county encompassing 40 per cent of the children of California, gives an excellent example of progressive curriculum trends everywhere evident in elementary education. The greatest setback to elementary education has been the elimination and curtailment of kindergartens and nursery schools by school districts that have been hard pressed financially.

New Trend and the War.

A major trend, which promises to be of national significance, appeared in progressive circles in 1939. That trend, emphasizing resources and education, is directed toward using our human and material resources more wisely and more effectively. In educational institutions it embodies the effort to give youth an understanding of our national resources, a knowledge of how these might be used and a vision of the life achievable through planning.

The international situation cast a partial gloom over the progressive education movement. Basic principles of progressive education are in opposition to physical conflict; and yet there seems to be little choice if the democratic form of government is to be preserved.

1938: Progressive Education

With each year, the progressive education movement gains in importance in American education. During the past year, the desire among the progressives to state more adequately the philosophy on which the movement is based has increased. Challenged by those who accuse it of lacking social direction, and by the studies of the growth and development of children and youth, educators throughout the country are reexamining this philosophy. This is a decidedly healthy sign in a movement so vigorous.

The two concerns of educators, the individual and the world in which he lives, are woven as threads in this philosophy. Increasingly, it is being recognized that the kind of an education advocated by the progressives with its emphasis on planning, participation and freedom to think includes essential elements in democratic living. Likewise the studies of the nature and needs of children and youth have been adding scientific evidence to the progressive program. These two threads: the individual, and a society democratic in nature, make up component and complementary parts of the philosophy of the progressive education movement.

The progressive movement has been decidedly influenced by efforts to evaluate achievements by scientific instruments. For many years the progressive movement has not emphasized 'testing' because its aims have been considered intangible among testers. However, led by the Committee on Evaluation of the Progressive Education Association, testers have now created instruments which do evaluate growth in such so-called 'immeasurables' as: the social attitudes of individuals, the consistency of social thinking, the ability to generalize, the ability to think scientifically, and an appreciation of literature and the arts. This effort within the progressive movement has had a definite influence on the development of better teaching methods in progressive schools as well as providing proof of accomplishments to help convince those skeptics that still meet the question raised by those who have doubted the more flexible and informal progressive program.

An old concern of the progressives for the growth and development of the individual has been strengthened by recent studies. The committee on the Secondary School Curriculum of the Association has based its work in curriculum revision on a detailed study of the needs of youth in present society. This study has served as a basis for a series of documents on the organization of the curriculum to meet those needs. Its reports are not only influencing the secondary schools of America, but are basic to the growing general education movement among the liberal arts colleges. It has also served as a method of procedure to reconstruct the curriculum for the elementary school.

The experiments that are now going on in the secondary schools of Ohio, Michigan, and the Southern States stem from an original undertaking by the Progressive Education Association on school and college relationship. All show a decided swing toward the progressive program. A similar reconstruction among the colleges is already under way under the sponsorship of the American Council on Education. An experiment that touches all these fields under the auspices of the American Council of Education is concerned with the education of teachers for this new program.

The progressive movement is digging deeper in its concern for the development of personality and an understanding of human relations. An experimental series of books for parents, teachers, and youth have already been prepared by the Progressive Education Association and with the cooperation of the moving pictures and radio industries, additional teaching aids are now available to supplement these publications.

The progressive education movement is alive to the problems of relating social and community needs more closely to the educational program in the schools and other educational institutions in the community. This is a concern which is of great importance to progressive educators.

With each year the progressive education movement gains in importance and influence among educational circles both in America and in those countries of the world where democracy is on the firing line.