Trying to take progressive education seriously
Are there disagreements between progressives and traditionalists where constructive debate is possible?
Educational progressives who won’t say they are educational progressives
It's not difficult to find the definitions needed to understand the difference between progressive and traditionalist education. Belief in adult authority; explicit instruction, and a curriculum that emphasises knowledge is seen as “traditionalist”. Rejection of some or all of these ideas is seen as “progressive”. However, it can be a challenge to get progressives, even people whose ideology aligns perfectly with the term “progressive”, to explicitly nail their colours to that particular mast. Progressives frequently object to being called progressives. While it should be appealing to adopt a name that implies one is on the side of progress, progressives are reluctant to use it because to do so is to admit there is a long-standing debate in education. Admitting this might encourage others to take sides. Far better to imply that progressives are not opposed by anyone who matters, or only by dinosaurs who reject the latest innovations or “the last word in science”.1
Very often, it seems that progressives are only prepared to identify their position in one of the following two ways:
The use of vague slogans, such as “trauma-informed”, “relational”, or “inclusive” to describe their practices and ideas. While use of these terms typically identifies someone as progressive, it can be difficult to pin down what is meant.
The use of even less well-defined terms to describe what they oppose. I frequently see progressives condemning “zero-tolerance” or “behaviourist” approaches, but I rarely see these defined or used in a way that would enable us to discern a consistent meaning.
As annoying as I find the first approach (i.e. vague labels for those practices and ideas you like), this is not a fault limited to progressives. I find that traditionalists can also latch on to terms like “knowledge-rich” or “warm-strict” which put a positive gloss on traditionalism, but are a bit too broad to be useful. I don’t think traditionalists are quite as prone as progressives to the second approach (i.e. coming up with cockeyed labels for the things they oppose). While I might be happy to describe progressive teaching practices as “getting the kids to knit their own yoghurt”, I don’t expect others to adopt this, or to see it as anything other than a joke. It is a sign of the pervasive power of progressives in education academia that research making claims about “zero tolerance schools” in England can be published as if this were a description of a real phenomenon, rather than an insult.
Why should we use the terms “progressive” and “traditionalist”?
Despite the extent to which some progressives avoid the word “progressive”, the terms “progressive” and “traditionalist” remain useful. I discussed this in a blog post:
In that post, I argued that the progressive and traditionalist labels remain useful. Whether education commentators use these terms or not, they still express disagreement over ideas and practices in predictably progressive or traditionalist ways. No one has successfully found a “middle way” between being progressive and traditionalist, or a more illuminating way of describing the debate.
However, the shyness of progressives about being progressive makes reasoned debate difficult. We can criticise progressivism all we like, but progressives will deny that the criticism applies to them. Even when we describe the ideas rather than label them, progressives may not be explicit about the ideas they promote. They will argue against adult authority, and then say they are not against adult authority. They will call for less teaching of knowledge, and then claim they are not against knowledge. They will advocate discovery teaching, and teaching through play, and then insist that they are not against explicit instruction. It becomes difficult to take progressivism seriously, when those who consistently side with it will not accept that this is what they are doing. To have a productive debate, we need to be able to describe progressive ideas in terms that are as close as possible to how progressives describe their ideas. This can be quite a challenge.
Why state your ideas when you can just attack the motives of people who disagree with them?
Many progressives, even those who avoid making clear ideological statements, can point to approaches to teaching they approve of, and approaches they disapprove of. Unfortunately, few progressives seem able to make a clear statement of principle about what distinguishes what they like from what they don't like. It often seems to be a matter of “vibes”, as I argued in this post:
Although the conventional definitions of progressive and traditionalist give us a very clear idea of what it is progressives will like and what it is they won't like, progressives are usually unwilling to articulate their preferences in those terms. Sometimes they can point to what they dislike as being too “controlling”. However, they will not commit themselves to saying that children should be out of control. Nor can they draw a consistent line between what is too controlling and what isn’t.2 They may resort to imagining personal qualities and virtues in teachers. They argue that teachers should be kind, loving, and sympathetic to children. They are against teachers being cruel, harsh, and hostile to children. It’s very difficult to engage with this as an argument about teaching philosophies and practices. What a progressive sees as kind is often merely progressive. What a progressive sees as cruel is often merely traditionalist. Unless you happen to hold the pre-existing view that progressivism is kind and traditionalism is cruel, these are not useful distinctions.
Are there real differences here?
Sometimes exploring what progressives like or dislike can lead to clarity about genuine ideological differences. One aspect of the debate worth looking at is human nature. Progressives seem to have a very rosy view of our innate dispositions. Traditionalists, much less so. It may seem absurd when progressives characterise this as progressives liking children and traditionalists disliking them, but there is a real difference. Few things provoke a more furious reaction from progressives than a suggestion that human beings are “born bad”. This is the case regardless of whether that’s expressed as a theological doctrine; a description from evolutionary psychology, or an empirical observation.3 Progressives and traditionalists seem to have radically different beliefs about what children will get up to if left to their own devices.4 It should be possible to have a reasonable discussion about this topic; one that could be informed by empirical data. I have been identifying this as an area for productive debate for some years now, although, so far, I’ve not seen many progressives engage with it.
More recently, I have been wondering whether the debates about the virtues and vices of those with particular teaching practices or philosophies might point to another area of disagreement which could be made explicit. I have noticed the confidence with which progressives believe they can identify what people, both teachers and pupils, are feeling. The rhetoric of traditionalist teachers being cruel and not liking children could be interpreted as a belief that teachers’ inner feelings towards their pupils are decisive in learning. This leads to some stronger and more identifiable claims. I've seen some progressives argue that children can reliably tell whether teachers like them or not. This kind of belief in emotional transparency surprises me. Years of hearing what teachers say after lessons have shown me a remarkable lack of correlation between the regard pupils have for a teacher and the regard the teacher has for the pupils. Children can imagine some pretty ridiculous motivations on the part of teachers who are conspicuously motivated by compassion. I have frequently heard a child claim to be hated by a teacher who has simply enforced a rule the child didn’t want to see enforced. Equally, a child may claim to like or appreciate a teacher who, if you spoke to them in the staffroom, holds that child personally in contempt. I would argue from experience that children are very poor judges of adult character. Teenagers, in particular, often seem able to convince themselves that the people who love them most, such as their parents, actually hate them.
The belief that teachers’ feelings towards children are transparent may be a genuine ideological difference between progressives and traditionalists. I’m not entirely convinced of this. Progressives sometimes argue for alternatives to rules and sanctions that sound to me like manipulation and deliberate insincerity. They regularly seem to claim that teachers should be performing in a way that leads children to be loyal to them personally. For this reason, I did think they thought teachers could and should mislead their pupils about how they feel. Perhaps I have been wrong about this. Is it the case that progressives believe that teachers are emotionally transparent and that a good teacher has all the right feelings?
Progressive perspectives on the feelings of children
I may also have misjudged how progressives view the emotions of children. I had assumed that as progressives often call for teachers to understand the (perhaps obscure) “root causes” of behaviour, they think children’s motivations are typically a mystery. However, it could be argued that progressivism gives a lot of weight to children’s obvious emotions. So actions that make children feel bad, such as punishing them or confronting them with arduous work, are to be avoided. Actions that make a child feel good, such as rewarding them or having fun in lessons, are desirable. In this interpretation, teachers are there to surf the wave of emotions from the class. From this point of view, lessons that impart clear knowledge, but not entertainment, are bad. So, too, are rules that children may not enjoy following.
Is it because I am a traditionalist that, when I am looking at thirty surly adolescents, I don’t expect to be able to alter their mood easily? While I don’t think anyone is arguing that teachers are there to inflict distress on their pupils, there are limits to how we can understand or change the feelings of others. Judging what we should, or should not, do in the classroom by how children feel about it is virtually impossible. But perhaps progressives convince themselves that good teachers manipulate the mood of the audience like an entertainer. Or less positively, like a demagogue or a cult leader. Is this something on which progressives and traditionalists disagree? I am sceptical about the way some teachers view their rapport with a class. I have certainly seen teachers who boast about their great relationship with a class, only to observe that, in practice, they've merely appeased some ringleaders while making the quieter children very uncomfortable. Some teachers, in their efforts to win over the belligerent, torture those who want to learn. Others achieve nothing of note, other than a sense of personal validation, by winning the affection of their pupils. It’s not that I don’t think traditionalist teachers seek to build a working relationship with their classes. I just wouldn’t be inclined to describe that primarily in terms of the feelings of the class towards the teacher.
It seems plausible that progressives and traditionalists have different understandings of the importance of children's emotions. I certainly disagree with what some progressives say about concern for children’s feelings. I think that children can dislike something, such as healthy food or an early bedtime, which is in their best interests. Children can gain a lot from learning about a subject that they don’t like. Sometimes, they may even gain little from being taught about a subject that fascinates them. Additionally, children can learn a lot from someone they dislike, and next to nothing from their favourite teacher. Feelings are not reality.
Of course, the opinions I’ve just expressed may only be held by me. But I think there are probably some differences between progressives and traditionalists about the emotional climate of the classroom that are worth exploring. If we’re going to have debates about education where progressives don’t equivocate, backtrack, or engage in ad hominem arguments then it might be best to focus on the inner worlds of teachers and pupils. We may be more likely to agree about what we disagree about if we seek to discuss human nature, the importance of emotions, and how teachers and pupils should feel in the classroom.
According to Hannah Arendt, progressive educational ideas, once defeated, will return in a new form because “there are no limits to the possibilities of nonsense and capricious notions that can be decked out as the last word in science”.
A recent trend among online progressives is to label anything that Doug Lemov advocates in his book Teach Like a Champion (affiliate link) as too controlling. Even things like “Cold Calling” (asking a child a question without waiting for them to volunteer), which are commonplace and until recently widely advocated by progressives, are now demonised.
G.K. Chesterton claimed original sin was “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved”.
A few years ago, one traditionalist suffered the most extreme pile-on for suggesting that “New born babies are universally stupid”, something that seems to me like an empirical statement of fact. Progressives apparently see wisdom in ignorance.