Did Progressive Education Permeate in an Immigrant High School in 1970s? 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? I interviewed my advisor who is a Greek American attended high school in Tampa, Florida between 1971 and 1975. During this period, progressive education emerged again in the U.S. high school because of social and political reasons, including ongoing protests against the Vietnam War and nationwide desegregation for African American (Ravitch, 2000). I chose him as my interviewee because I was interested in exploring the effects of progressive theories for these immigrant students. He attended the single-sex magnet high school, which contains more than 50 percent Greek immigrants. He recalled that he did take the intelligence ... ... middle of paper ... ...did not exist in his school. However, although the emphasis of education returns to traditional way such as using less flexible curriculum, teaching basic subjects, various tasting and narrow choosing, we still notice the ideas of progressive education remain part of our educational scene such as teaching progressively. Compared to his experience, I find the education had a progress in the past forty years. Nowadays, high school students have more flexible curriculum, lots of social activities and more choices based on their interest. The ideas of progressive education are perfect in theory, but we cannot abandon traditional education. Without scientists such as Einstein, Tesla in 20th century, we would not have good life today. We should not only educate students based on traditional method, but also use some progressive ideals to train students more creative.
He further stated that with all sincerity in themselves and colleagues, public school is now regarded as outmoded and barbarous. This thought, according to him is both observable to students and the teachers alike, but the students inhabit in it for a short period, while the teachers are condemned to it. Pursuant to teachers being condemned, they live and work as intellectual guerrillas strong-minded to stimulate students, ignite their inquisitiveness, and to open their minds, yet reluctant to stay behind in their profession. Together with this, teachers...
In addition, the Progressives were absolutely correct to improve society by education because by having an education, it will prepare an individual to earn a living, but also to prepare the student to play a useful role in a democratic society. With e...
The Progressive Movement The progressive movement of the early 20th century has proved to be an intricately confounded conundrum for American historians. Who participated in this movement? What did it accomplish, or fail to accomplish? Was it a movement at all? These are all significant questions that historians have been grappling with for the last 60 years, thus creating a historical dialogue where in their different interpretations interact with each other.
Students were grouped by IQ, those who had an above average or higher were helped to go to college and those who had a low IQ’s were not given the support or the push needed to get them into college. Educators allowed low education standards and refused to see students as equals. The advisors set students sights low for the future by encouraging how service jobs were a practical choice for us Mexicans. Cleaning houses were the normal thing to do for Mexican-American females. Students were tired of the inadequate staff and the staff's lack of concern for their students. The students sent out a survey among the other students to see if they were satisfied with what they were getting from their education. The result was that the schools and instructors were not meeting the needs of the students’ more so of the Chicano students.
What Have Immigrants Wanted from American Schools? What Do They Want Now? Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Immigrants, Language, and American Schooling.
...haracteristic of American education. Due to these “culture wars” involving religion and education, the public school system created in the nineteenth-century was to keep the dominant Protestant Anglo-American values. With each new surge of immigrants into America, the public school system became the way to keep the Anglo-American values in our culture. The fight with equality continued into the twentieth-century, from civil rights to the multicultural debate, and today, with high stakes testing.
Hayes, William. "The Progressive Education Movement." The Progressive Education Movement: Is It Still a Factor in Today's Schools? N.p., Nov. 2006. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. .
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the American educational system has undergone much transition in response to our changing society. Though there have been many problems raised throughout the years in regard to what our school systems should be teaching our children, there have also been many developments.
Arthur Bestor had the ideal that progressive education was teaching students skills that did not need to be taught in school. He wrote educational wastelands, which talked about how schools need to return to basic academic
Many of the issues faced in the 20th century are also faced today. In June of 1897 Walter Page wrote, “The Forgotten Man” which addresses the difference of education between the North and the South and even more importantly the misleading separate but equal facade that black education was equal to white education. The fact was education was funded differently in 1900 by racial and gender lines. People were the undeveloped resource and a new education system had to be created in order to tap into this resource (Page,Rose, 140). The new education system that was praised is what we know today as the Public School System.
The father of pragmatism, founder of progressive education movement, John Dewey was a man of many thoughts and theories. Dewey was the most popular public philosopher of the 20th century. He changed his own mind several times over his lifetime about his philosophy theories. Dewey was significant not only in philosophy, but as an educational theorist and political analyst and activist. Dewey was a renowned philosopher of the progressive movement and was a leading figure in American education. During Dewey’s lifetime the United States not only changed from a rural to an urban society, but from an agricultural to an industrial economy.
Dewey's ideas were not broadly incorporated into the practices of his own country, i.e., American public schools and is criticized that the book Democracy and Education constitutes an attempt rather than a refined post-inquiry product, or an incomplete journey rather than a package. However, some of his values and terms like ‘progressive education’ were widespread, and had re-surfaced in many school reform and education theory circles as a prosperous field of inquiry education and inquiry-based
The use of progressivism in the classroom broadens students? points of views and expands their abilities to understand differences in opinions. Furthermore, it inculcates students with a vast array of knowledge about their surrounding environment and everyone in it. Without the use of the progressive method, it is almost impossible to thoroughly educate children on complex topics such as racism, religion, and people that come from different societies, nationalities, or ethnic groups. A lack of knowledge of this sort le...
While both interviewees stated they did not feel their institutions were ignoring different races and groups and lesson plans were designed around promotion multiculturalism, schools that primarily white often fail to be as cultural diverse as schools with a healthy racial composition. Lesson plans are often ambivalent towards understanding the struggles and hardships of certain racial groups, such as the Native Americans during the time of European exploration. In addition, students at mostly white institutions often associated success with how hard an individual works rather than any hardships or racist or sexist acts thrown upon that person. Ironically, the little multiculturalism that is introduced in prominently white schools has been ill received by parents and teachers. Both parties, especially parents, argue that the children growing up today are “color-blind” and that no explicit efforts to inject multiculturalism should occur in the classroom outside of settings considered appropriate, such as history courses (Lewis, 2003:
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.