What's Happening to Progressive Schools?

Though the news hasn’t reported it, there has been noticeable small earthquake activity through the world. A closer look reveals that there is no seismic plate-shifting cause to the phenomena. It’s Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Montessori, Steiner, John Dewey, Alfred North Whitehead, Carl Orff, Gunild Keetman, John Holt, Jonathan Kozol, bell hooks and more progressive educators rolling over in their graves. 

Each of the above, in their own unique style, created and contributed to an enlarged definition of education far beyond the 3R’s, wholly indifferent to simply making children be obedient and answer all the questions they never asked and then be judged and labelled accordingly, fiercely opposed to corporeal punishment and behavior management and firmly speaking out on behalf of the dignity and delight of children in each stage of their development. Each in their own way forged the discipline of freedom, nurtured the innate curiosity and sense of wonder of the child, believed in their capacity to be kind and caring, sought the structures and pedagogical techniques that sparked the imagination, exercised the intellect, nurtured the body as an instrument of knowledge and the heart as the carrier of each child’s particular genius. 

 

The schools that grew from their inspired vision were places of belonging, of inquiry, of teachers and students working side-by-side investigating the big and small mysteries of this life. They are experimental places seeking to give weight and muscle to the airy ideals of freedom. Visitors to such schools were instantly entranced by the buzz of activity, the excitement in the air, the sense that these were places were the children were happy. And lo and behold, so were the teachers. 

 

In my own case, the first 25 to 30 years of my 45 years spent at such a school were happy ones for us teachers. Not that we sidestepped the inevitable pitfalls of any group of human beings gathered together. Of course, we had squabbles with each other, issues with the kids, little betrayals and disappointments— the whole catastrophe. But the key feeling was that they were our collective little problems. We created them, we owned them, we dealt with them and at the end of the day, we felt their proper proportion. We might disagree as to the way to wear one’s hat or sip one’s tea, but in the end, felt it all as the walk down the inevitable “bumpy rode to love” (Gershwin). 

When it came to community, we were all in. We all belonged to the same club and the vision that sustained us, though yes, we could lose sight of it in the day-to-day, was the grand challenge of “being the change we wanted to see in the world.” And a glorious vision it was—and still is.

 

But something is rotten in the state of today’s progressive schools and too many are walking around pretending they don’t smell it. I find that inside the class, the children are still mostly happy— but their teachers are not. Schools that spout social justice and transparency and reparations and speaking truth to power have a little hidden clause in the teacher contract— “That’s well and good to teach the kids, but we, the administration, won’t tolerate any such behavior from our teachers.”

 

Schools that used to be collectively run are now administratively top-heavy and they’re all drinking the same Kool-Aid. They set the agenda, they run the meeting, they call you out if you touch a kid on the shoulder or say the innocent thing that some 9-year old decides is offensive. Gone is the autonomy that makes people feel respected, included and happy, replaced by scolding from above from people unqualified to judge. Gone is the faith that each teacher is striving for mastery in his/her own field and in come the scripts for the “perfect lesson” to be dutifully followed. Gone are the staff meetings that used to feel like jazz jam sessions and now suddenly, everybody’s marching to someone else’s drummer and believe me, the groove is not danceable. Gone is the simple conviction that when conflict arises, we can simply sit down and actually talk about it. In come the HR people (often aligned with the admin), the professional mediators charging rates that could go to scholarship, the 12-step pinball machine of who in the hierarchy the problem gets passed down to. Where good conversations used to reference poets to find the language large enough to sincerely get to the root of the issue, now the school admin turns to lawyers and bankers. Do you feel the earth turning from those intelligent, visionary people listed above? This is not what they had in mind. And to make it all yet more outrageous, the privilege of getting to experience these private “progressive schools” comes with a price tag that has multiplied some 20/30-fold merely in the last four decades!

 

Whether public or private, so many schools have the resources, the knowledge and the possibility of restoring their vision so that children, teachers and parents are (mostly) happy, have a sense of voice appropriate to their role and are working side-by-side to make this world each day a little bit better than it was the day before. In a school that talks and talk and walks the walk, no important decision should be made without taking time to consider it with the people most directly affected. No teacher should be afraid to voice an opinion, a question, a disagreement with a decision. No administrator should be excused from making a questionable decision under the smokescreen of “confidentiality.” And if a school shuts down teacher voice in these—and other ways— they should not be allowed to go on with the farce that they believe in Social Justice. Better to just let the teachers know “It’s my way or the highway” and have it clear from the start. 

 

And then maybe all those who choose the highway can meet out in the woods and start the whole thing again from scratch. Who’s in?