Progressive Education VS. Traditional Education
If there is anything that adolescents thirst for it is a need for keeping up with trends. Teachers can quench that thirst by teaching progressively. As defined by Dolgin, progressive education urges schools to prepare students for life by teaching citizenship, home and family living, a vocation, physical health, gratifying use of leisure time, and effective personality growth.” (p.308) This form of education is really ideal for any teacher to adopt as it tackles reality and worldly concepts which are a major component of any student’s life. The atmosphere of the classroom in the progressive track is a place where “students are responsible for their own learning rather than that they are being held responsible for it.” (p.313) Teachers can achieve progressive education within their classroom walls where they steer clear of teaching strategies such as rote memorization and allow for students to be inquisitive and for their curiosity and interest to build in the topics that appeal to them most. Also, more importantly teachers need to focus on building connections between the concepts taught and life outside those walls, making connections is a progressive strategy of teaching as the teacher is not plainly teaching the subjects required but instead allowing students to reach higher level thinking skills such as synthesizing and inferring. A progressive curriculum is one that offers plenty of tracks and options for students to feel comfortable choosing the curricula that best suits them and interests them. Adopting a progressive education in school would surely in my opinion decrease the drop out rates in districts as students will essentially be more enthusiastic about attending school daily and learning because they want to. Progressive education also lends a firm hand to the formation of an adolescent’s identity; in chapter 10, Dolgin confirms that adolescents have both a society and a culture and defines adolescent culture as “the sum of the ways that adolescents behave; it refers to the body of norms, values, attitudes, and practices shared by members of the adolescent society.” (p.242) A progressive education will take part in molding this culture through the topics they are subjected to at school. Topics such as friendships and dating are extremely important to tap into and include in school curriculums because teaching them would provide students with objective and non biased facts to learn from versus learning from parents whose over protection can teach them biased and subjective manners of dealing with such topics. Moreover, progressive education will instill a sense of self-efficacy in students as they learn vocational skills and begin to believe in themselves and their abilities to complete tasks. In “Hip Deep” we read of several stories where if students were in a progressive school, the events of the story may have well been avoided. In the essay, “Will the Tortoise Win the Race” the student was brought down by his prior teachers and was not encouraged to try his best. Progressive education calls for the inclusion of effective personality growth namely self esteem, in the student’s case it is great that he has been moved to a school that will help him in building self esteem and self efficacy in order to graduate and become an active and contributing member to society.
My advice to you is to always keep up with the newest trends and techniques in teaching to ensure the students' engagement in classroom and more importantly to open up the floor for students to discuss their problem areas and issues that matter the most to them.
Suggested Readings and References:
Dolgin, K. G. (2011). The adolescent: development, relationships, and culture. (13 ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Young, A. L. (2006). Hip deep. Providence, RI: Next Generation Press.
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