Problems in American Education - Part 20: Progressive vs. Permissive
I used to argue all the time with an old principal of mine about what it meant to be a progressive person or (shudder the thought) a liberal in education. He was very conservative by nature and application and was not ashamed to admit that he thought of liberals as being permissive and indulgent, the kind of educators who had allowed the state of education to get to the point where standards were eroding or were already destroyed.
Actually, we got along just fine and enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect, but he loved to needle me on this issue. He knew that I was proud to be considered a progressive and that I embraced change and tended to look askance at the kind of daily pragmatism that I felt was the default stance of traditional administrators. I believed that good educators needed to stand for something more than just doing things the way they always had been done; and, although I thought he was a good principal, he did get to me when he took a stubborn stance or did what was expedient when it was time for examination of new ideas.
In an attempt to avoid drifting too far from the question at hand, I do contend that it is very possible to be progressive without being permissive. Progress when applied to education, it should be remembered, simply means a state of willingness to accept change and a new and better way of doing things than the way they were done before. It has nothing to do with being permissive.
Actually, I was and still am quite far from being permissive. While I do embrace change, I am a great supporter of structure as part of that change. Children do need structure in order to ground themselves in the learning process and in all of the other foundations that are necessary to grow up.
That structure, however, is not the sole property of “traditionalism,” to brand a term. It is a somewhat aphilosophical state or reality that we should promote in schools to help students to learn self-discipline and direction creation in their lives.
Once again, this story cites an example of the evil we do when we label people and then draw conclusions about them and their motives derived from expectations associated with the label. Education is often plagued by such faulty reasoning and the malady has had a tendency to slow process and even lead educators and parents down roads that are counterproductive and divisive.
Actually, we got along just fine and enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect, but he loved to needle me on this issue. He knew that I was proud to be considered a progressive and that I embraced change and tended to look askance at the kind of daily pragmatism that I felt was the default stance of traditional administrators. I believed that good educators needed to stand for something more than just doing things the way they always had been done; and, although I thought he was a good principal, he did get to me when he took a stubborn stance or did what was expedient when it was time for examination of new ideas.
In an attempt to avoid drifting too far from the question at hand, I do contend that it is very possible to be progressive without being permissive. Progress when applied to education, it should be remembered, simply means a state of willingness to accept change and a new and better way of doing things than the way they were done before. It has nothing to do with being permissive.
Actually, I was and still am quite far from being permissive. While I do embrace change, I am a great supporter of structure as part of that change. Children do need structure in order to ground themselves in the learning process and in all of the other foundations that are necessary to grow up.
That structure, however, is not the sole property of “traditionalism,” to brand a term. It is a somewhat aphilosophical state or reality that we should promote in schools to help students to learn self-discipline and direction creation in their lives.
Once again, this story cites an example of the evil we do when we label people and then draw conclusions about them and their motives derived from expectations associated with the label. Education is often plagued by such faulty reasoning and the malady has had a tendency to slow process and even lead educators and parents down roads that are counterproductive and divisive.
posted by Friar4 at 10:18 AM
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