Progressivism In the Classroom
A good education has always been drilled into my head ever since I was a little girl. Boy did I hate that, all I wanted to do was goof off and have fun with my friends. But as the years went on I started to realize how important it was to have a good education. Not that that made me like school anymore than I did; but I was realizing the different ways I was learning and how different people taught. I remember saying one day, when I was a freshman in high school, that if I was teaching this class I would have never taught it that way. Unfortunately, my teacher overheard me and I was forced to go to the front of the room and explain to the class the way it should be taught since I knew so much about teaching. Needless to say I did an awful job of it. That is when I started thinking about becoming a teacher. I know that does not make sense because I did such an awful job and was humiliated doing it. I did not like the way that man taught and I was determined to take his job. However, the reason I am here today is not that I want to take a teacher’s job; it is because I have the desire to make a difference in the lives of many students. I hope I will be a good teacher so that I will never have to hear a student say something bad about my teaching.
I think that the nature of knowledge is relative. Not all children can learn in the same environment. I believe that if a child is put in an environment in which they cannot learn they should be placed in another environment so that they can. Some students learn at a slow pace and others learn at a fast pace. Then there are the students that learn better by lectures and others that learn better by activities. If you mix these children in the same class, than there are usually some lost kids in the class? I know that in my experiences with school, I would have never made it in a normal classroom since I learned so much slower than the other kids did.
At the end of the nineteenth century, progressive movements emerged and affected many aspects of the United States such as education, culture and politics. Since the rapidly increase of enrollment in high school in this period, educators and reformers desired a apt method to teach these students and debated what should be involved in curriculum. The ideals of progressive education led by John Dewey, who is an American philosopher and progressivism reformer. He insisted the curriculum should be more flexible and base on students’ interest. Dewey encouraged children to go outside of classroom to learn the real life experience (Ravitch, 2000). Furthermore, in the twentieth century, the schools in this country were affected by a great number of immigrants, especially in the large cities. Ravitch (2000) wrote that in urban area, such as New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston, the second generation of immigrant was more than 50 percent in the public schools in 1910s. Were these newcomer students influenced by the progressive education?
Theodore Roosevelt, the founder of the Progressive party, once stated, “A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy”
Progressivism is a time of change, a time for reform, that has helped shape America to be the nation it is today. Progressivism is defined as “the political orientation of those who favor progress toward better conditions in government and society (WordNet Search).” Between this era, and World War One, a lot of time and effort when into what the influences the country went under between the power of Woodrow Wilson and the society along with Europe, Russia, France, and everyone else involved in this war. The progressive era was a thirty year span from 1890s until the 1920s. People saw that there was many horrible things occurring in society and the government and they wanted these things to be fixed. Some examples of these things are living conditions, work conditions, and the wrong that the government was doing. Reformers wanted to solve issues with efficiency, nonpartisanship, morality, democratization, education, and expertise. People do not know exactly where these progressives came from, but it was more or less a group effort that grew and grew with the ideas of bettering the country as a whole, even if some of these choices and solutions were not that great. Yes, the motives for the reform were good but sometimes included horrible actions which excluded people or discriminated others.
social order. The Progressive movement, 1901 to 1917, was ultimately the triumph of conservatism rather than a
After President William McKinley’s death in September of 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt took upon the position as President.
“Progressivism was the reform movement that ran from the late 19th century through the first decades of the 20th century, during which leading intellectuals and social reformers in the United States sought to address the economic, political, and cultural questions that had arisen in the context of the rapid changes brought with the Industrial Revolution and the growth of modern capitalism in America.” (West,2007) In politics and political thought, the movement is associated with political leaders such as Woodrow Wilson. Progressivism had four particular goals. The four goals of Progressivism are to protect social welfare, encourage productiveness, uphold moral values and generate economic reform. The Progressive movement intended to accomplish
The hinge of the nineteenth and twentieth century’s coincided, in the United States, with numerous social changes of great significance. The eminently agrarian society that had always been turned urban and industrial. The farmers stopped being those producers of the first wave, who cleared the land to speculate with it, or those of the second wave, who made it fertile. They were growers who acquired machines and produced on a growing scale. Companies also grew to unknown sizes. Railway companies, oil producers, steel producers, car manufacturers, pharmaceutical and chemical companies formed large corporations orchestrated by banks, which took time in their own process of nationalization and concentration. These companies and a myriad of new businesses attracted the cities to the children of the farmers, and to a new population. The natural growth did not satisfy the shortage of labor. There came, in new waves, workers from half the world; of zones different from those of the first migrations. They came with new ideas, strange to the political tradition of the United States. And they raised new problems. Also emerged a new social class, that of professionals, who held positions of responsibility in companies, or institutions. Its importance grew faster than the economy itself.
There are many different philosophies that surround education. As with many scientific fields, there are people who lean towards one theory or in this case philosophy, over others. The quest for knowledge is something that people have been striving for sense the existence of the human species. Some have claimed that teaching is the second oldest profession in the history of the human species (Phillips & Seigel, 2013). John Dewey was noted stating that education is a necessity, basically because life of the human species goes on and so must its knowledge (Phillips & Seigel, 2013). Fundamentally, what this is saying is that information must be passed on from one generation to another. John Dewey was also one of the biggest proponents of the progressivism philosophy of education, which will be discussed in the following.
I know that as I grow and learn as a teacher my theory on education will change and grow with me. I know that the best thing that I can bring to the table when it comes to being a teacher is the willingness to learn along with my students on what works best for us in our classroom, what is important to us when it comes to learning, and to change what needs to be change in order to have a positive learning environment for my student. The most important thing as a teacher I will bring with me into my classroom is the unwavering desire to help to guide, shape, and above all foster a love of learning in my
Ever since I was a younger I loved the idea of school and was eager to get started. All throughout my life I have had a passion for learning and always knew that I was meant to teach. The first time I truly realized that I was born to teach was when I taught my smaller cousins before they started kindergarten. I was ten years old and my cousins would soon start school. I started working with them four months before they enrolled. By the time school started they knew how to count to ten, write their names, and say their ABC’s. When I think back I realize I was proud of myself. However, I can remember at the time only being proud of them. I think one of the most important concepts of teaching is letting the children know they are the ones that have accomplished a goal.
Upon being faced with the task of writing my philosophy of teaching, I made many attempts to narrow the basis for my philosophy down to one or two simple ideas. However, I quickly came to the realization that my personal teaching philosophy stems from many other ideas, philosophies, and personal experiences. I then concentrated my efforts on finding the strongest points of my personal beliefs about teaching and what I have learned this semester, and came up with the following.
My interest in teaching started at a young age. I used to watch my teachers in awe as they were able to find new ways to get their students involved and excited to learn. Their enthusiasm to teach was so inspiring. I would often find myself using that same fervor as I grasped each concept. I, then, was able to relay it to my fellow classmates as a peer tutor. To this day, becoming a teacher is a passion that flows through me. However, my enthusiasm and passion are not the only reasons I would be a good teacher. I aspire to see a student’s ability to grasp the knowledge they never before understood. I aspire to see a student succeed at something they never thought they ever could. I aspire to not only support students with academic skills, but also with life lessons about the value of community, pride in one’s own ethnicity, good citizenship, sportsmanship, and more. I aspire to play a fundamental role in ensuring that all students from all cultures and learning abilities have the opportunity to be guided in a positive learning
“Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not preparation for life but is life itself.” John Dewey describes and supports progressivism, an education philosophy that I professionally identify with. Progressivism is a student centered philosophy that focuses on experiences, opportunities, and values that enhance a student 's learning and life. The role of the teacher is to act primarily as a facilitator of learning, they encourage and guide students to explore and promote individual development. As a future educator I believe it is important to involve students and allow them to take responsibility for their own learning and achieving their goals. The role of the student is to discover, engage, and express themselves.
In the beginning of this Education class, I began to wonder how much I could actually learn. I did not understand what else there was to learn about the educational field because I felt as though education is something that comes naturally. Many of the women in my family work in the educational field, so it only seemed fitting that I would fall in their footsteps, however, ever since I was little I have always wanted to become a teacher and my mind has never changed. Surprisingly, during this class period, I have learned so much information that I never would have thought pertained to the educational field. I learned many things about students, such as that they need so much more than what people perceive. I learned as a profession, being an educator is
Ever since I was younger I have always known that I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. I wanted to be a teacher because I wanted to make a difference in a children’s lives and I loved working with little kids. Now that I am older and in college, majoring in education, it is a