A100: Week 2

Welcome!

Today: Purposes and Power

1. What are the differences between progressive and more traditional education?

Lecture: 4:10 – 4:45

Section: 4:50 – 6:05

Lecture: 6:10 – 6:55

2. How does your educational background shape your view of education?

3. How should we understand the purposes of contemporary education?

4. Education: Source of social mobility or mechanism of social control?

What are the key tenets of progressive education?

Interests of the student are primary Constructivist in its orientation Experiential knowledge is important Depth is more important than breadth

What are the underlying assumptions?

Rousseau: “Man is born free and is everywhere in chains” – child is good, society corrupts

Motivation is critically important Fundamentally developmental

What are the key tenets of more traditional education?

The material is primary – represents fundamental human learning

Knowledge is more important than “how to think” Experiential knowledge less important Breadth is as important as depth

What are the underlying assumptions?

Education is society’s way of inducting children into fraternity of the educated

Children should respect the knowledge and experience of their elders

Key examples of debates between the two approaches

Phonics vs. whole learning Back to basics vs. higher order skills Learning content vs. learning how to think Constructivist classrooms vs. direct

instruction

Dewey trying to argue for the middle way

Teacher as guide, connecting students’ interests to the material

Teacher responsible for thinking about developmental sequence

Experiential education in service of broader concepts (not as end in itself)

Connecting two knowledge trees

Where Do We See Legacies of Rousseau and Dewey today?

Key characteristics of progressive education Students working in groups on activities Physical space – circles rather than rows Student talk as much or more as teacher talk Experiential learning Constructivist

Where Do We See Legacies of Rousseau and Dewey today?

Full-on Examples Montessori schools The idea of kindergarten in its original form Project-based learning and Expeditionary Learning

Schools Some progressive private schools

Where Do We See Legacies of Rousseau and Dewey today?

Partial Examples Some use of constructivist pedagogy in regular public

schools Some use of activity-based learning, particularly in

lower grades

Which serves equity better?

Argument for traditional

All children should have access to the centrally important knowledge of society

Standards allow us to ensure this through measurement

Arguments for progressive

Middle class kids are generally taught to think; we should do the same for poor kids

What Forces Support the Use of Progressive, Student-Centered Pedagogy?

Teacher training institutions (including this one!) Survey of 900 ed school profs:

86% believe more important to figure out right answer than to know the right answer

78% less emphasis on multiple choice exams

Broader middle class norms around child-raising “Every child is different and special” social philosophies

Push for “21st century skills” and greater conceptual thinking

Some research

What Forces Support Teacher-Centered Traditional Pedagogy

Standardized testing

Commensuration of schooling, more generally

Desire for external quantification of process

Desire for breadth over depth from external constituencies

General social conservatism

Some research

The Result: Classrooms today

Teacher-centered progressivism (Cuban 2009) More emphasis on testing

Curricular narrowing More drill and kill Particularly in urban schools

But also – more use of groups, activities, and circles than in previous decades (Older studies consistently found teacher-dominated

classrooms up until recent decades).

The Result: Classrooms today

Two explanations of hybrid “teacher-centered progressivism” (Cuban 2009)

1. Functional Teacher-centered – desire for batch processing Student-centered – desire to keep students interested

2. Historical/cultural Spreading norms of pedagogical progressivism

underneath Overlaid on top, increased desire for test-based

accountability

Questions for Section

1. How were you educated? How do you want your child to be educated? Where do you fall on the progressive-traditional spectrum?

2. How should we understand the purposes of education today?

New Topic:

Education: Social reproduction or social mobility?

Education as a Source of Social Reproduction

5 Arguments:

Education assimilates outsiders

Meritocracy protects illusions of fair competition

Correspondence theory – People prepared for their station in life

Culture of power

Geography of advantage – Protects middle class

Questions for Small Groups

Task for small groups:

1. Are there other major ways that education protects social advantage?

2. Do you find these revisionists critiques of schooling persuasive? Why? Why not?

Education as a Source of Social Mobility

5 Arguments (in part critiquing the previous literature):

Education most potentially powerful public institution

Teachers are not capitalist agents

Assimilation is the means to upward mobility

Movements for equity promoted by civil rights groups, other actors who care

Educational reformers seeking to create greater equity within an admittedly unequal system

Questions for Small Groups

Task for small groups:

1. Are there other major ways that education promotes social mobility?

2. How convincing do you find these rebuttals? Which side has the more convincing argument and why?

Discussion Question for Larger Groups

Join your pair or trio to another pair or trio:

How much faith should we place in education as a mechanism for remedying inequality and promoting social mobility?