CONTEMPORARY

PHILOSOPHIES OF
EDUCATION

PROGRESSIVISM

HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
Progressivism originated as a
general reform movement in
American society and political
life in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

JOHN DEWEY
Born in Vermount in 1959
Attended the University of
Vermount and Marylands
John Hopkins University.
A former high school teacher
in Pennsylvania and
Michigan
Later, he joined the faculty
at New Yorks Columbia
University

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
JOHN DEWEY
Beginning in 1897, he
published a summary of his
theory on progressive
education in School Journal.
His theoretical standpoints are
divided into 5 sections:

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
JOHN DEWEY
1. What Education Is:
Education according to Dewey
is the participation of the
individual in the social
consciousness of the race.
The educational process has
two sides, the psychological
and the sociological, with the
psychological forming the
basis.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
JOHN DEWEY
2. What the School Is:
Education fails because it
neglects this fundamental
principle of the school as a form of
community life. It conceives the
school as a place where certain
information is to be given, where
certain lessons are to be learned,
or where certain habits are to be
formed

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
JOHN DEWEY
3. The Subject- Matter of Education
According to Dewey, the curriculum in
the schools should reflect that of society.
The center of the school curriculum
should reflect the development of
humans in society. The study of the core
subjects (language, science, history)
should be coupled with the study of
cooking, sewing and manual training.
Furthermore, he feels that progress is
not in the succession of studies but in
the development of new attitudes
towards,
and
new
interests
in,
experience

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
JOHN DEWEY
4. The Nature of Method
Method is focused on the
childs powers and interests. If
the child is thrown into a
passive role as a student,
absorbing information, the
result is a waste of the childs
education.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
JOHN DEWEY
4. The Nature of Method
Method is focused on the
childs powers and interests. If
the child is thrown into a
passive role as a student,
absorbing information, the
result is a waste of the childs
education.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
JOHN DEWEY
5. The School and Social Progress
Education is the most fundamental
method of social reconstruction for
progress and reform.
Dewey believes that education is a
regulation of the process of coming to
share in the social consciousness; and
that the adjustment of individual
activity on the basis of this social
consciousness is the only sure method
of social reconstruction

HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
MARIETTA JOHNSON (18641938)
Founder of the Organic School in
Fairhope, Alabama
Epitomized child-centered
progreesive education.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
MARIETTA JOHNSON
She believed that prolonging childhood is
especially needed in a technological
society
She wanted childhood to be lengthened
rather than shortened
Children should follow their own internal
timetables rather than adults scheduling.
Possessing their own stages of readiness,
children should not be pushed by teachers
or parents to do things for which they are
not ready

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
MARIETTA JOHNSON
She believed that children
learn most successfully and
satisfyingly by actively
exploring their environments
and constructing their own
conception of reality based on
their experiences.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
MARIETTA JOHNSON
Johnsons activity-based
curriculum:
Physical exercise
Nature study
Music
Crafts
Field geography
Story telling
Dramatizations
Games

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
MARIETTA JOHNSON
Creative Activities:
Dancing
Drawing
Singing
Weaving
*reading and writing were
delayed until the child was nine or
ten years old.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
MARIETTA JOHNSON
Teacher-education program:

Preservice to Practice
Preservice (caring and effective)
1. Sincere affection for and
sympathetic interest in children
2. A knowledge based in child and
adolescent development and
psychology and in the skill and
subject they taught.
3. An interest in social welfare

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
MARIETTA JOHNSON
Practice
Teachers should create safe,
developmentally friendly, and
engaging classroom
environments in which
children, following their
interests, learn at their own
pace.

HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
WILLIAM HEARD
KILPATRICK (1871-1965)
A professor of education at
Columbia Universitys Teachers
College
He made progressivism an
integral part of teacher
preparation, from preservice to
practice.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK

Project Method
1. genuine education involves
problem solving
2. learning is enriched as students
collaboratively research and share
information to formulate and test
their hypotheses
3. teachers can guide students
learning without dominating it.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK
4 TYPES OF PROJECTS
1. Implementing a creative idea
or plan
2. Enjoying an aesthetic
experience
3. Solving an intellectual
problem
4. Learning a new skill or area
of knowledge

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK
He believed that teachers
who used the project
method could transform
their classrooms into
collaborative, democratic,
learning communities.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK
As they work
collaboratively, students,
motivated by their own
interests, would be engaged
in wholehearted, purposeful
activity in which they
designed and completed a
project.

PROGRESSIVISM
CONCEPTS:
Progressivism opposed:
Authoritarian teachers
Exclusively book-based instruction
Passive memorization of factual
information
Isolation of schools from society
Using physical or psychological
coercion to manage classrooms

PROGRESSIVISM
CONCEPTS:
Progressivism affirms:
Child should be free to develop naturally
Interest, motivated by direct experience,
is the best stimulus for learning
The teacher should facilitate learning
Close cooperation needs to be
encouraged between the school and the
home
The progressive school should be a
laboratory for experimentation

PROGRESSIVISM:
Nursing Education
Progressivism in nursing
education involves a
transformation of the quality
of experience through the
interactions of individuals
with their natural, social,
educational, and health care
environment.

PROGRESSIVISM:
Nursing Education
The aim of nursing education
is to provide enriched
experiences in order to
promote student creativity and
the academic and professional
freedom of the students.
It further aims to encourage
human spirit in students to
grow maximum potential.

PROGRESSIVISM:
Nursing Education
The nursing curriculum
should facilitate the release
and improvement of the
students ability to employ
their maximum level of
intelligence while facing
different life and professional
experiences

PROGRESSIVISM:
Nursing Education
Schools of nursing should be a
king of laboratory in which a
whole range of experiences
regarding nurse-patient
encounters are faced and dealt
intelligently.
These experiences will differ
according to the age group of the
patients/clients, the nature and
severity of the health problem or
illness as well as the community
background and culture of the

PROGRESSIVISM:
Nursing Education
If the school of nursing
cannot reflect and reproduce
the typical true-to-life nursing
intervention situations,
students must be exposed to
real-life situations outside
the school

PROGRESSIVISM:
Nursing Education
The nurse educator is
expected to use flexible and
modifiable teaching methods.
Teaching must provide the
richest possible opportunity
to share fully and intelligently
in the boundless resources of
experiences.