Marc Waxman has been an educator for 17 years, including 12 in New York City, and the last two in Denver.
Listen to Marc discuss the ideas in this blog post in a podcast interview. [Click arrow to listen]. Or download the podcast here.
I had the opportunity to meet with Diane Ravitch for about an hour a few weeks ago. (The meeting was a consequence of an electronic dialogue that started on this website). In a quick email exchange after our meeting, Dr. Ravitch stated “I could see that you are a real progressive….”
Yup, she called me the “P” word! How could she? Me? My 17-year resume as an urban educator seems to be as un-progressive as they come: Working as a Teach For America corps member, a KIPP teacher, a co-founder and co-director of a high performing charter school in Harlem. For goodness sakes – I am the founding Head of School of a charter school that will be replacing an existing public school in Montbello with the goal nothing short of having one of the highest-rated schools on DPS’s School Performance Framework. Can I actually be a progressive educator?
You better believe it!
When did “progressive” become a dirty word? In the current world of urban education reform, it’s ok to say you are “paternalistic” and it’s ok to say you ascribe to a “no excuses” philosophy. Those terms have clear, and positive, meaning in our current education and education reform dialogue. But I can’t tell you the last time I have heard the word “progressive” used in that dialogue, forget about positively used.
No – I take that back. I can recall the last time I heard the word “progressive.” It was when I was with a group of “progressive” educators a couple months ago who had been called together by a local foundation to figure out how to talk about their schools in the media, to the philanthropic community, etc., without actually using the word “progressive.”
This blog post (and the couple that will follow on the same topic) is my attempt to take the word back, to make “progressive” a word educators, and those who care about education and enter the education dialogue, can use and use positively.
When we lose our ability to collectively know what a word means, we lose our ability to communicate. There has been tons of media attention focused on “no excuses” schools and “paternalistic” schools, so if you have being paying attention to the current education reform narrative you knew exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned those terms above.
Unfortunately, we do not have an accessible concept for other educational approaches that can be equally, if not more, effective with the same student populations. In one of my favorite books, “1984” by George Orwell, the control of language is a key element in the control of thought, and ultimately, in the control of action.
We must ensure that the narrowing of our education dialogue does not get to the point where we can no longer think or act in certain ways because we have lost critical language. (It should be noted that George Orwell is also the author of one of my favorite quotes – “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”)
The definition of an educational concept is worthy of much more than a short blog post. But we all need to start somewhere, so the list below is my best attempt to begin to reclaim the word “progressive.” In fact, I am going to use the term “pragmatic progressive” to help differentiate it.
As a pragmatic progressive, I believe:
- Academic achievement and social and emotional growth are equally important. Neither on its own is sufficient.
- Schools are critical not only to develop individuals who can drive the engine of our economy, but to develop people that will lead socially responsible, productive lives and people that will ensure we have a robust, effective democracy.
- Great teaching starts with the student. Teachers must get to know their students, not only as learners, but as people.
- Instruction must be differentiated. Children don’t learn the same thing, the same way, at the same time.
- Assessing students consistently and continually is essential. The best assessments are the ones that are not standardized, but authentic. Great teachers meet their students where they are and move them forward regardless if they are struggling, average, or advanced. Assessment begins not with tests, but with observation.
- A corollary to the bullet above: standards are useful as benchmarks, but should not be the principal drivers of instruction. The advanced student who is ahead of standards should be supported in even more advanced work, and the struggling student who is making progress should feel success no matter how far below standards he is.
- Classrooms should be structured, rigorous and have a palpable sense of urgency. Every moment should matter and every system should be purposeful – whether it is designed to develop an academic skill or instill a core value.
- School should be fun, but serious. It should be relaxed, but intense. (These ideas are not mutually exclusive.)
- All people that work with children should have extremely high expectations – in regards to behavior and academic achievement.
- Children should develop strong character traits like grit and resiliency, but also strong values like compassion and empathy. (Again, these things are not mutually exclusive).
- Students should be taught to think critically. I don’t mean just the how-to-think-through-a-complicated-math-problem type of critical thinking. I mean the how-to-critique-the-social-order type of thinking – to look at the world and decide what is right and wrong with it.
- Children should develop independence. They do this by being giving opportunities to think and act for themselves – to make mistakes and learn from them.
- Learning is messy and nonlinear. The deeper the learning, the messier and less linear it is.
That’s what the “p” word means to me. Tell me where I got it right, where you think I am lost, what I am missing…. My next two posts will follow up on this list; one will focus on why progressive education is so important and the other will focus on specific examples from a real-life progressive classroom. So your comments and comments will be greatly appreciated as I expect they will inform my writing.
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Marc-
What is your definition of “authentic assessment”?
This resonates with me Marc. Reminds me of some 100 year old thinking around progressivism/pragmatism. Since foundations have been virtually eliminated from teacher preparation, it’s refreshing to hear from someone with a sense of where education has been and how that relates to where it’s going.
I don’t really know anything about the TFA preparation cycle. Are history and philosophy a part of that or does your grounding come from some other source? I took philosophy of education at UCD but was never required to take a history of education class. That’s unfortunate but I’ve made do.
I want to push back a bit on your second to last bullet. I believe that independence is important in many contexts but I believe productive interdependence is more important. We’re all in this together and we’ll get through it together.
To give some sense of what I mean by interdependent, I’ll put it in contrast to codependent which is what I often observe in many of my math classes. Students will sit with each other and commiserate about not knowing what to do and wait for me to come by and give them “the answer.” It seems that many fail to grasp that in many cases at school, the answer is not the point. They have to have a reliable process before they can get an answer. Consistently correct answers signal mastery of a process but in school, they are often not an end in themselves – save that for when you’re getting paid (but be ready for it, of course).
Students who have developed a healthy interdependence will work together to understand a task, bring diverse prior knowledge to bear, consider possible alternative approaches, examine mistakes and maybe even hit a dead end together (and they know how they got there which helps find a way back).
It is my strong belief that the dispositions and skills of productive interdependence belong at the top of the list of “21st Century Skills.”
Go, Marc, go! I couldn’t agree more with your list. I’d like to highlight that this emerging definition of pragmatic progressive education does not specify a particular demographic group. All students, especially those at high-risk economically or linguistically, can benefit from such an education! In fact at AXL, we see the highest growth coming from our scholars who qualify for free or reduced lunch, from our English Language Learners, and from our students significantly below grade level.
Bravo! Whether a Big Picture Company school or a Kipp school, they both meet this definition. Thanks!
It’s an important discussion to have but I think there are a few other reasons that progressive education has fallen out of vogue these days:
1. As much as I’d like to see otherwise there are few examples of “progressive” schools that have been able to demonstrate dramatic impact on student learning for low-income kids. Yes there’s some data and schools here and there but progressive schools have not done a great job of catching kids up when they are far behind in basic skills. Schools like Odyssey (where I was the founding principal) have had some good growth numbers and some lots of mostly anecdotal data but have not been able to show results like KIPP, DSST, West Denver Prep etc. Results matter these days as they should, schools calling themselves progressive are going to have to demonstrate success in terms of basic skills and college success (progressives need to stop giving excuses or claiming the tests don’t matter). By the way, I’m very thankful for Odyssey supporting my daughter to do so much writing and teaching her to revise/rewrite. Her learning at Odyssey provided the basis for her to like to write and do it well enough to get into a highly selective college with a great set of essays (apparently the essays carried her). A few teachers at DSA helped her further but writing was not as valued at DSA as at Odyssey.
2. Many of the today’s spokespeople for progressives seem to care little about student results or the details of doing school well. They are often more focused on bashing the current accountability systems and reform efforts. There’s little talk of specific practices or how we might know what a good school’s results would be. It’s ironic but many progressives today seem to be more focused on an ideology than on practical methods for supporting student learning at all levels.
3. Progressive practices are not always easily isolated from some traditional methods. KIPP, DSST and Eva Moskowitz’s Harlem Success Academy all are schools where there is a mix of progressive and traditional methods with attention to what works rather than what fits within some interpretation of what John Dewey may thought was progressive.
Last, I’m a progressive and believe deeply that schools need to do much more to support kids to write, invent, create, think and problem solve way beyond the superficial ways the most schools do these days. I just think that too many progressives take for granted the skills/habits that some kids enter school with or refuse to take on the essential work of getting kids without basic skills the skills needed to tackle thoughtful work.
Thanks for coming out of the closet Mark. I am curious why you use the word “but” when I think “and” says it better? “Schools must be serious, but fun”….I think they should be serious AND fun. Our culture suggests that if things are one thing they can not be it something else. I find this type of thinking to be simplistic. Use of the word AND could bring some peace to the war we have going on in Denver right now. I want neighborhood schools AND charter schools, I want to improve teacher effectiveness AND to support teachers through this major transition in their profession. I think Tom Boasberg is doing a good job AND i believe there are some things he needs to do better.
The reason I favor progressive education is because it values the whole child….her basic skills AND her creativity; her left brain AND her right brain; her social emotional skills AND her academic skills; what she is interested in AND what society thinks she should be interested in. I would guess that the reason some excellent progressive schools do not have the results that you might think they should is because what they teach is much harder to measure. What we need is to find new ways to value ALL of the skills that our children need to be successful adults. Regardless of what you consider to be 21st century skills, none of them are measured by CSAP!
Hey Marc,
Great reading your posts and hearing what you’re up to! i agree with your list.
As a proud progressive who teaches at a (private) progressive school, I have to say that the progressives have done an awful job in being inclusive and dealing with issues around economic and racial disparities. We have failed to find leaders in progress ed other than, yes, dead white men. Grad schools of ed lend shout-outs to ed philosophers of color, but progressives in practice essentially ignore the callings of Lisa Delpit, Pablo Freire, bell hooks to continually drool over John Dewey and Francis Parker. In doing so, we’ve left so many people out of the conversation.
Likewise, progressives have spent so much time talking about hands on, hands on, that they’ve forgotten to let kids hold a pencil and work work work. Cathy Fosnot used to remind us all the time that a paper and pencil are manipulatives too. So, progressivism gets associated with permissive and privilege.
PS: Race to the Top? Not progressive.