Progressive Education

Failures of philosophy

by Tawadeen Bankole

John Dewey: Closet Conservative?

by David Waddington

Troublesome Sentiments: The Origins of Dewey's Antipathy to Children's Imaginative Activities

by David Waddington

Uncovering Hegelian Connections: A New Look at Dewey

by David Waddington

“If You Promise to Believe Me”: Agency and Authority in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.

by Maeve Pearson

Under Review: Seeing if Children's Literature Association Quarterly might be interested in this one.

Pullman has argued that, in children’s literature, “the fantasy and the realism must connect.” In this article I... more Pullman has argued that, in children’s literature, “the fantasy and the realism must connect.” In this article I propose that the principle “fantasy” he critiques in His Dark Materials is the dominant utopian impetus of children’s literature, which is driven by an investment in the child’s capacity somehow to fix or perfect society (through the logic of what Lee Edelman has called “reproductive futurism”). I propose that this utopian impetus is premised on a misreading of a “Rousseauian” tradition, rooted in debates on “progressive” education from the latter half of the twentieth-century, that seems to value the child’s absolute freedom from adult restraint. Pullman, on the contrary, largely as a result of his interest in German Romanticism, critiques this notion of children’s freedom. Instead, he offers an account of what might constitute true autonomy and agency for children, which he sees as inevitably in dialogue with adult authority – and indeed with State authoritariasm. In so doing, I argue, he foregrounds the question, not of whether, but of how adult should figure authority in our relationships with children, and raises the question of how we should take responsibility for the world we bring our children into, rather than investing them unsupported with the task of building the world anew.

Jena-Plan und die „Tatschule“ Adolphe Ferrières, in: Ralf Koerrenz (Hrsg.): Jena-Plan im Netzwerk internationaler Schulreform, Jena 2007, pp.97-113.

by Karsten Kenklies

The Happy and Suffering Student? Rousseau’s Emile and the path not taken in progressive educational thought

by Avi Mintz

Forthcoming in Educational Theory

One of the mantras of progressive education is that genuine learning ought to be exciting and pleasurable, rather than... more One of the mantras of progressive education is that genuine learning ought to be exciting and pleasurable, rather than joyless and painful. To a significant extent, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is associated with this mantra. In a theme of Emile that is often neglected in the educational literature, however, Rousseau states “to suffer is the first thing [Emile] ought to learn and the thing he will most need to know.” Through a discussion of Rousseau’s argument of the importance of an education in suffering, I argue that the reception of Rousseau by progressives suggests a detrimental misstep in the history of educational thought, a misstep that we should recognize and correct today. We ought to revive the progressive tradition of distinguishing the valuable educational pains from the harmful ones, even if we disagree with the particular types of pain that Rousseau identifies as educationally valuable.