Sometimes a phenomena is evident even though the words to
articulate it are missing. For me, the first three decades of the
20th century represented the grudging and unspoken concession to
the fact that understanding complex organization means appreciating
an open, dynamic system. Further, the variable in the
transformation toward understanding open versus closed is the
description of people that work in organizations. The political
machine of blind loyalty and unending obligation is a closed
system. The mechanical assembly line of standardized "time and
motion" is also closed. Surely, the idealized expression of
structure and function that uses institution to eliminate all
sources of human variability is the most closed of all.The first
three decades of the 20th century represent striving toward open
systems. Certainly, the organized and disorganized efforts of
people to express collective will were politics of challenge.
Political interest groups were (and remain today) a dynamic of
controversy and confrontation. You must concede an open system to
use words like compromise, mediation and adaptation when talking
about governing or production. By the middle of the Great
Depression few people responsible for operating organizations were
thinking otherwise. The repeal of Prohibition did not mean a new
morality as much as a concession to the unmanageability of a rigid
and static meaning of law.Regardless of the political challenge of
organized interests, no person epitomizes the acknowledgment of
open system reality more than John Dewey. This philosopher and
educator made the variability and integrity of the individual the
cornerstone of this writing. The word "progressive" became
associated with forms of declaring the individual as the most
important feature in understanding how organizations work and what
reason or logic must come to mean in a civilized society. John
Dewey believed in knowing through critical inquiry and basing
evaluative judgment on pragmatic verification. A person using the
"problem solving approach" and the "experimental focus" of
scientific method to govern their own life is the building block of
how reasonable and ethical organizations operate. Schools should be
"child centered" with the curriculum and instruction tailored to
facilitate the development of the individual.John Dewey and
progressive education became very popular during the time the
American society was searching through and discarding turn of the
century. An ethical twist on concern for the individual associated
Dewey with humanism. Humanism, as the value of each person in the
human race, was somewhat different from the Human Relations
movement in business that determined individual motivation could be
an "intervening variable" in raising productivity. Dewey and the
Progressive Education Association would be closer to the Maslow
theory of development toward self actualization or McGregor's
Theory Y and the intrinsic motivation of individuals engaged in
work. John Dewey described the intellectual and ethical
underpinnings of what the educated worker might look
like.Progressivism was also identified with liberalism- old style
liberalism of believing in social justice and mandates for
advocacy. During the Great Depression this association played well.
After World War Two "right wing" conservatives spent a decade
translating progressive education and liberalism as a communist
plot -fuzzyheaded and a dangerous doctrine. The irony of taking the
idea of the individual and critical inquiry as one and the same
with the mass society model of inevitable determinism was lost on
the conservative detractors. Besides, in the cold war climate of
absolute goods and bads, who cared to mince around with nuances and
historical context?Certainly, John Dewey philosophy and progressive
education have major implications for the meaning of schooling
organization and educational management. With the individual at the
center of focus, the teaching organization and governing arrangment
becomes the embedding features. Some would argue the Compact for
Learning mandate carried a "Deweyian" tone between 1991 and
1993.
