Progressive Educational Perspective

 

 

                                Progressive Educational Perspective

Progressive education is defined as an educational movement which gives more value to experience than formal learning. It is based more on experiential learning that concentrate on the development of child’s talents. It focus on learning by doing and it promotes education with a bigger goal in mind. Concepts are integrated across subject areas students draw connections in their learning to real life and everyday experiences. It has integrated curriculum. Progressive education in the late nineteenth century was extremely different than the traditional curriculum being used in colleges and universities. Whereas the traditional curriculum focused on memorization and mental discipline, progressive education’s main goal was practical relevance. Dewey believed that teaching traditional knowledge and beliefs promoted closemindedness since the contemporary world and the knowledge to be gained from this contemporary world (which was greatly due to scientific advances) was being ignored (Webster, 2009). Dewey explained that an experience between an individual and their environment results in learning as the individual tries to make meaning upon the experiential learning.

The two main approaches of progressive education are ‘child-centred’ education- which aims to give children the freedom to develop naturally in a democratic environment, and ‘social- reconstructionism’ – which focuses on a curriculum highlighting social reform as the aim of education. Teacher’s role is a facilitator or guide who stimulates thinking by providing an enriching classroom interaction. Students play a vital role in helping to design the curriculum, formulate the questions, and create answers, think through possibilities and evaluate how successful they and their teachers have been.

Progressive education focuses less on how a teacher prepares students for jobs and more on what students are passionate about and what critical thinking skills they can develop.

In traditional education, schools are less concerned about students themselves and what they get out of their lessons. Rather, they focus on shaping students into moral and educated individuals who can contribute to the working world when they become adults.

In progressive education, teachers recognize and honor the creativity and passions of individual students. Educators do not simply teach students information and expect them to memorize it and get perfect scores on tests. Instead, they have their students engage in active hands-on learning through projects, experiments, and collaboration with peers. In this way students can pursue topics and subjects they are passionate about. Students use critical thinking skills outside the classroom as they evaluate and reevaluate their perspectives on real world topics and issues and also students are more likely to develop a love of education and become lifelong learners.